Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC §101
1. 35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
2. Claims 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Subject Matter Eligibility Standard
3. The examiner contends that, under the judicial exceptions enumerated in the MPEP § 2106, to determine the patent-eligibility of an application, a two- part analysis has to be conducted.
Part 1: it must be determined whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. See MPEP 2106.03.
Part 2A: Prong 1: (1) Determine if the claims are directed to an abstract idea or one of the judicial exceptions. Examples of abstract ideas referenced in Alice Corp. include:
1. Certain method of organizing human activity such as Fundamental Economic Practices, Commercial and Legal Interactions, or Managing Personal Behavior or Relationships or Interactions Between People.
2. A mental process.
3. Mathematical relationships/formulas.
Part 2A: Prong 2: determine if the claim as a whole integrates the judicial exception into a practical application.
Part 2B: determine if the claim provides an inventive concept.
Analysis
4. Under Step 1 of the analysis, it is found that the claim indeed recites a series of steps and therefore, is a process - one of the statutory categories.
Under Step 2A (Prong 1), using claim 6 as the representative claim, it is determined that apart from generic hardware and extra-solution activity discussed in Step 2A, Prong 2 below, the claim as a whole recites a method of organizing human activity. For instance, the claim language “enabling purchase and installation of least one type of cryptocurrency…; verification and authentication of a bioprint as received by at least one payment card,” is a commercial activity. Commercial activities fall into the category of certain methods of organizing human activity. Thus, the claim recites a judicial exception, i.e., an abstract idea.
Under Step 2A (Prong 2), the examiner contends that the claim recites a combination of additional elements including “incorporation, by a retail location, of at least one application programming interface (API) linked or relevant to the at least one type of cryptocurrency into the retail location's payment platform; operation of the retail cryptocurrency transaction financial network once the at least one API has been integrated with said retail location's payment platform; and financial network.” These additional elements, considered in the context of claim 6 as a whole, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because the API, retail location payment platform and financial network, with their already available basic functions, are simply being applied to the abstract idea and being used as tools in executing the claimed process. Further, the limitation “wherein said verification and authentication is undertaken by a verification and authentication module of said at least one payment card” are merely recited to further narrow the scope of the abstract idea. In all, these recited steps merely describe an intangible property of the data that does not affect the examiner’s characterization of the additional limitations as insignificant extra-solution activities and the automation of mental tasks. Thus, it is determined that claim 6 is not directed to a specific asserted improvement in computer technology or otherwise integrated into a practical application and thus is directed to a judicial exception.
Under Step 2B, it is determined that, taken alone, the additional elements in the claim amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer processor— that is, mere instructions to apply a generic computer processor to the abstract idea. The only hardware or additional elements beyond the abstract idea of claim 6 are the generically recited “API, retail location payment platform and financial network.” The specification does not point to sufficient evidence that any of these components are anything other than well-understood, routine, and conventional hardware components or systems being used in their ordinary manner. Thus, applying an exception using a generic computer processor cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide an inventive concept. And looking at the limitations as an ordered combination of elements add nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Accordingly, the examiner concludes that there are no meaningful limitations in the claim that transform the judicial exception into a patent eligible application such that the claim amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
The examiner contends that the ‘novelty’ of any element or steps in a process, or even of the process itself, is of no relevance in determining whether the subject matter of a claim falls within the § 101 categories of possibly patentable subject matter.” Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 188— 89 (1981).” A novel and nonobvious claim directed to a purely abstract idea is, nonetheless, patent ineligible. See Mayo, 566 U.S. at 90.” Specifically, an improvement to an abstract idea cannot be a basis for determining that the claim recites significantly more than an abstract idea. Furthermore, relying on a “processor” to “perform routine tasks more quickly or more accurately is insufficient to render a claim patent eligible.” OJP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 7788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015). Accordingly, the examiner concludes that the claim does not recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception within the meaning of the 2019 Guidance. Note: The analysis above applies to all statutory categories of invention. As such, the independent claims otherwise styled as a computer-readable medium encoded to perform specific tasks, machine or manufacture, for example, would be subject to the same analysis. Furthermore, the limitations in the dependent claims are thus subject to the same analysis as in claim 6 and are rejected using the same rationale as in claim 6 above. More specifically, dependent claims 2-5, 9 and 13 do not recite additional elements but merely further narrow the scope of the abstract idea. However, dependent claims 7-8 and 11-12 recite additional elements, but these additional elements comprise the analyses of data, which is nothing but the automation of mental tasks. See Benson, Bancorp and Cyberphone. Also see Electric Power, 830 F.3d at 1354 (“[W]e have treated analyzing information by steps people go through in their minds, or by mathematical algorithms, without more, as essentially mental processes”).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Millius et al (Millius hereinafter, US PUB: 2020/0364686).
Re claim 1. Millius discloses a system configured towards implementation of a retail cryptocurrency transaction financial network, comprising: at least one processor configured to perform a predefined set of basic operations in response to receiving a corresponding basic computer executable instruction selected from a predefined native instruction set of codes;
at least one database; at least one payment card, wherein said at least one payment card comprises of any one or more of: a Key Signature Pin, a biometric fingerprint sensor, a verification and authentication module, a transceiver, memory; a transceiver; and
at least one point of sale (POS) device (see paras 0014-0020), wherein said POS device verifies a user's signature on said at least one payment card, wherein all components of said system are
any one of: in communication with each other, in communication with at least one other
element of said system (see the abstract, see fig.1A element 106, fig.1B and paras 0014-0020).
Re claim 2. Millius further discloses the system of claim 1, further comprising of at least one portable device, in communication with any one or more of: said at least one processor, at least one database, at least one POS, at least one payment card, wherein said at least one portable device comprises of any one or a combination of: a biometric module, biometric information, a
transceiver module, a computer processor unit, coded information, memory (see paras 0014-0020, 0083).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 3-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Millius in view of Perlman et al (Perlman hereinafter, US PUB: 2022/0237623)
Re claim 3. Millius does not explicitly disclose further discloses the system of claim 1, further comprising of bioprint data stored on said memory of said at least one payment card. However, Perlman makes this disclosure (see the abstract). Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teachings of Perlman in the system of Millius in order to protect the transaction data integrity and authenticate the user.
Re claim 4. Millius does not explicitly disclose the system of claim 3, wherein said bioprint data is encoded into a cryptographically signed binary file. However, official notice is taken that it is old and well-known in the financial processing art to embed digital signature in a cryptographically signed binary file. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate this old and well-known teaching in the system of Millius in other to protect data integrity.
Re claim 5. Millius discloses wireless transmission of payment information, but does not explicitly disclose at least one stored element, wherein said cryptographically signed binary file is transmitted to said at least one stored element and wherein said at least one stored element may be read via Near-Field Communication (NFC). However, official notice is taken that it is old and well-known in the financial processing art to employ Near-Field Communication (NFC) to transmit and read stored transaction data. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Near-Field Communication (NFC) in the system of Millius in other to protect data integrity and authenticate the user.
Re claim 6. Millius discloses a computer-implemented method for implementing operation of a retail cryptocurrency transaction financial network, comprising executing, on at least one processor configured to perform a predefined set of basic operations in response to
receiving a corresponding basic computer executable instruction selected from a predefined native instruction set of codes, steps of: enabling purchase and installation of least one type of cryptocurrency as designated by the retail cryptocurrency transaction financial network; incorporation, by a retail location, of at least one application programming interface (API) linked or relevant to the at least one type of cryptocurrency into the retail location's payment platform (see the abstract, also see paras 0014-0020); and operation of the retail cryptocurrency transaction financial network once the at least one API has been integrated with said retail location's payment platform (see the abstract, see fig.1A element 106, fig.1B and paras 0014-0020, 0083). Millius does not explicitly disclose verification and authentication of a bioprint as received by at least one payment card, wherein said verification and authentication is undertaken by a verification and authentication module of said at least one payment card. However, Perlman makes this disclosure (see the abstract). Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teachings of Perlman in the system of Millius in order to protect the transaction data integrity and authenticate the user.
Re claim 7. Millius does not explicitly disclose the computer-implemented method of claim 6 undertaken by said verification and authentication module of said at least one payment card, comprising steps of: receiving data on said at least one payment card; searching for data previously supplied by said user, wherein said data is stored on memory of said at least one payment card; comparing said received data with previously stored data located on said memory of said at least one payment card; and determining whether a match exists between said received data with previously supplied data already stored within said memory of said at least one payment card. However, Perlman makes this disclosure (see the abstract). Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teachings of Perlman in the system of Millius in order to protect the transaction data integrity and authenticate the user.
Re claim 8. Millius does not explicitly disclose the computer-implemented method of claim 7, further comprising the step of transmitting confirmation of said match to a secure element where it is housed. However, Perlman makes this disclosure (see para 0044). Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teachings of Perlman in the system of Millius in order to protect the transaction data integrity and authenticate the user.
Re claim 9. Millius does not explicitly disclose the computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein said secure element is configured and enabled to be read via Near-field Communication (NFC) for verification purposes without a wireless network being present or being used. However, official notice is taken that it is old and well-known in the financial processing art to employ Near-Field Communication (NFC) to transmit and read stored transaction data. Thus, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Near-Field Communication (NFC) in the system of Millius in other to protect data integrity and authenticate the user.
Re claim 10. Claim 10 recites similar limitations to claim 6 above and thus rejected using the same art and rationale as in claim 6, above.
Re claim 11. Claim 11 recites similar limitations to claim 7 above and thus rejected using the same art and rationale as in claim 7, above.
Re claim 12. Claim 12 recites similar limitations to claim 8 above and thus rejected using the same art and rationale as in claim 8, above.
Re claim 13. Claim 13 recites similar limitations to claim 9 above and thus rejected using the same art and rationale as in claim 9, above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OJO O OYEBISI whose telephone number is (571)272-8298. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday, 9am-7pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Christine Behncke can be reached at 571-272-8103. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see https://ppair-my.uspto.gov/pair/PrivatePair. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/OJO O OYEBISI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3695
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