DETAILED ACTION
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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Independent claims 1 and 11 contain the trademark/trade name “Bluetooth” in the sixth clause of the claims. Where a trademark or trade name is used in a claim as a limitation to identify or describe a particular material or product, the claim does not comply with the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph. See Ex parte Simpson, 218 USPQ 1020 (Bd. App. 1982). The claim scope is uncertain since the trademark or trade name cannot be used properly to identify any particular material or product. A trademark or trade name is used to identify a source of goods, and not the goods themselves. Thus, a trademark or trade name does not identify or describe the goods associated with the trademark or trade name. In the present case, the trademark/trade name is used to identify/describe a wireless device communication protocol or standard and, accordingly, the identification/description is indefinite.
Dependent claims 2-10 and 12-20 are rejected for their dependency on their respective independent base claims.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Martis (US 11,182,763 B1) in view of Ghani et al. (WO 2022/055939 A1) and Stone et al. (US 2014/0330881 A1).
Regarding claim 1, modified Martis teaches:
A method for connecting to a communication network associated with a micro market (See Martis Abstract), the method comprising:
scanning a code associated with an … app to be downloaded to a mobile communication device, the mobile communication device being coupled to a communication network, the communication network being coupled a plurality of micro markets, each of the micro markets having a catalog of products for sale (See Martis 1:50-2:45 - UPC code of product at micro market is scanned);
associating a web address with a code to find the … app (See Martis 9:9-14 - the application displays location name and address of nearby micro market… the application fetches [find the app for a particular micro market] available product categories, and names, images, descriptions, and prices of the products available in those categories in the nearby micro market, from the server [web address by example]), …;
linking the web address with the mobile device (See Martis 9:47-52 - the system has a plurality of clients, such as mobile devices, a web server [web address], which can be coupled [linked] to each of the clients, and a database server, among other networking elements);
…;
…;
sensing for a Bluetooth beacon associated with a spatial area of one of the micro markets (See Martis 1:50-2:45 and 6:28-32 - beacon is sensed);
connecting using the Internet to a server associated with the micro market to transfer the catalog and list of items associated with the micro market (See Martis 9:55-64 - The system has a world wide network of computers, which comprising the Internet… the system has a micro market server device coupled to the world wide network of computers… the micro market server device has a library comprising a listing of a plurality of products, a field configured with the association information, e.g., an identifier for the server device. The device has a plurality of fields associated with a plurality of micro market identification information), the Bluetooth beacon being associated with a micro market unique identification for the spatial area of one of the micro markets (See Martis 6:19-24 - the system has a micro market wireless transmitter device configured with identification information comprising an association identification information and a micro market identification information… the micro market wireless transmitter device is spatially disposed within the spatial region and 12:1-4 – the micro market application via Bluetooth is configured to constantly listen (or receive signals from) for a nearby BLE beacon that are advertising a UUID(s) (unique IDs));
selecting one or more of the items in the catalog in a shopping cart (See Martis 4:53-61 - items are added to shopping cart and purchased);
checking out of the micro market by paying for the items using an online payment process (See Martis 1:50-2:45 and 4:53-61 - items are added to shopping cart and purchased) configured with a wallet associated with the mobile device, the wallet comprising a plurality of payment cards, each of the payment cards being pre-authorized for a user of the mobile communication device (See Martis 8:47-63 – user creates an account and adds payment card data as a payment methods to be used by the application);
…; and
…
While Martis teaches a system for downloading an app to a mobile device for purchasing products at a micro market (Martis 1:50-2:45), Martis does not explicitly teach the use of an ephemeral app. This is taught by Ghani (See Ghani Abstract - The ephemeral compute instance is triggered to transmit the sensitive information to the payment service in response to receiving the request and is configured to shut down after the transmission of the sensitive information to the payment service).
Ghani further teaches the ephemeral app being configured without any user information, including at least one or more of a name, email address, a phone number, or other personal data (See Ghani ¶ [0044-0045] – an identifier of the payment instrument (e.g., payment card number, account credentials, or other payment device identifier), a payment card network associated with the payment instrument, an issuing bank of the payment instrument, a name or user account of the customer, contact information of the customer, IP address of customer device, etc., may be considered as cardholder data and thus are categorized as PCI information… The utilization of ephemeral compute capacity with the function provides the benefit that the functionality may be provided on-demand, and then discarded after use without storing any PCI information).
Ghani further teaches maintaining privacy of any user information associated with the user of the mobile communication device (See Ghani ¶ [0050] – For online businesses that collect, store, or transfer sensitive data, especially information that falls under the scope of compliance for PCI DSS, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), or Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) requirements, IFrames are a powerful security tool. For instance, by rendering the form source document issued to the client application server within an IFrame, it prevents access of the data with the IFrame while allowing the form source document to safely capture user PAN details. IFrame can thus offer an extra layer of protection when it comes to secure a customer’ s sensitive data [maintaining privacy of any user information by example]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the mobile app based product purchasing system of Martis the use of ephemeral app storage on a mobile device as taught by Ghani to offer an extra layer of protection in securing the customer’s sensitive data, such as payment card number, customer name, etc. (Ghani ¶ [0072]), thereby increasing the efficiency of Martis’s mobile app based product purchasing system.
While Martis teaches a system for downloading an app to a mobile device for purchasing products at a micro market (Martis 1:50-2:45), Martis does not explicitly teach transferring the … app in a first format using the Internet to a storage location on the mobile communication device. This is taught by Stone (See Stone ¶ [0031] and [0035] – temporary app is downloaded to mobile communication device when appropriate).
Stone further teaches initiating the … app onto the mobile device to open the … app in a second format (See Stone ¶ [0011], [0031] and [0035] – temporary app is opened);
Stone teaches further yet polling activity associated with the … app, and removing the … app from the storage location if no activity is detected from checking out after 24 hours (See Stone ¶ [0047] – polling activity is optionally used to remove app after a predetermined period of non-use).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the mobile app based product purchasing system of Martis the use of temporary app storage on a mobile device and removal after non-use as taught by Stone to provide and remove payment apps in a convenient manner to enable a variety of transactions (Stone ¶ [0011] and [0002-0006]), thereby increasing the efficiency of Martis’s mobile app based product purchasing system.
Regarding claim 2 and 12, modified Martis teaches:
The method of claim 1/ 11 (see claim 1 above and 11 below, wherein Ghani teaches the use of an ephemeral app)
…
While Martis teaches a system for downloading an app to a mobile device for purchasing products at a micro market (Martis 1:50-2:45), Martis does not explicitly teach that the app has a size of 10 MB or less. This is taught by Stone (See Stone ¶ [0001] and [0024] – convenient apps are automatically downloaded; some will be smaller than 10MB). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the mobile app based product purchasing system of Martis the use of smaller app sizes as taught by Stone to provide and remove payment apps in a convenient manner to enable a variety of transactions (Stone ¶ [0011] and [0002-0006]), thereby increasing the efficiency of Martis’s mobile app based product purchasing system.
Regarding claim 3 and 13, modified Martis teaches:
The method of claim 1/ 11 wherein the sensing comprises using a wireless BluetoothTM connection to read the micro market beacon unique identification to determine a presence of a micro market having a transmitter device emitting the micro market beacon unique identification. (See Martis 1:50-2:45 and 6:28-49 – Bluetooth can be used).
Regarding claim 4 and 14, modified Martis teaches:
The method of claim 3/ 13 (see claim 3 and 13 above, wherein Ghani teaches the use of an ephemeral app)
…
While Martis teaches a system for downloading an app to a mobile device for purchasing products at a micro market (Martis 1:50-2:45), Martis does not explicitly teach that the application displaces the catalog of the products for sale at the micro market. This is taught by Stone (See Stone ¶ [0001] and [0035] – the mobile app requesting the temporary app for Shop A from the cloud service [displaces the catalog of the products for sale at the micro market by example] ). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the mobile app based product purchasing system of Martis the use of special offers as taught by Stone to provide and remove payment apps in a convenient manner to enable a variety of transactions (Stone ¶ [0011] and [0002-0006]), thereby increasing the efficiency of Martis’s mobile app based product purchasing system.
Regarding claim 5 and 15, modified Martis teaches:
The method of claim 1/ 11 (see claim 1 above and 11 below, wherein Ghani teaches the use of an ephemeral app)
…
While Martis teaches a system for downloading an app to a mobile device for purchasing products at a micro market (Martis 1:50-2:45), Martis does not explicitly teach that the initiating comprising downloading the … application automatically without any interaction of a user of the mobile communication device. This is taught by Stone (See Stone ¶ [0011], [0031] and [0035] – ephemeral app is downloaded automatically). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the mobile app based product purchasing system of Martis the use of automatic app downloading as taught by Stone to provide and remove payment apps in a convenient manner to enable a variety of transactions (Stone ¶ [0011] and [0002-0006]), thereby increasing the efficiency of Martis’s mobile app based product purchasing system.
Regarding claim 6 and 16, modified Martis teaches:
The method of claim 5/ 15 (see claim 5 and 15 above)
…
While Martis teaches a system for downloading an app to a mobile device for purchasing products at a micro market (Martis 1:50-2:45), Martis does not explicitly teach that the downloading is characterized by a time of 10 seconds and less. This is taught by Stone (See Stone ¶ [0001] and [0024] – ephemeral app is downloaded automatically). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the mobile app based product purchasing system of Martis the use of short download times as taught by Stone to provide and remove payment apps in a convenient manner to enable a variety of transactions (Stone ¶ [0011] and [0002-0006]), thereby increasing the efficiency of Martis’s mobile app based product purchasing system.
Regarding claim 7 and 17, modified Martis teaches:
The method of claim 1/ 11 wherein the … application is configured for one of a plurality of micro markets, each of the micro markets having a transmitter capable of emitting a unique identification associated with the micro market (See Martis 6:19-24 - the system has a micro market wireless transmitter device configured with identification information comprising an association identification information and a micro market identification information… the micro market wireless transmitter device is spatially disposed within the spatial region and 12:1-4 – the micro market application via Bluetooth is configured to constantly listen (or receive signals from) for a nearby BLE beacon that are advertising a UUID(s) (unique IDs)).
While Martis teaches a system for downloading an app to a mobile device for purchasing products at a micro market (Martis 1:50-2:45), Martis does not explicitly teach the use of an ephemeral app. This is taught by Ghani (See Ghani Abstract - The ephemeral compute instance is triggered to transmit the sensitive information to the payment service in response to receiving the request and is configured to shut down after the transmission of the sensitive information to the payment service).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the mobile app based product purchasing system of Martis the use of ephemeral app storage on a mobile device as taught by Ghani to offer an extra layer of protection in securing the customer’s sensitive data, such as payment card number, customer name, etc. (Ghani ¶ [0072]), thereby increasing the efficiency of Martis’s mobile app based product purchasing system.
Regarding claim 8 and 18, modified Martis teaches:
The method of claim 1/ 11 wherein the code associated with the … app is displayed on a physical structure within a vicinity of the micro market (See Martis 1:50-2:45 – an image capturing device is provided in the mobile wireless device , and is coupled to the micro market application, and is configured to receive a UPC code associated with at least one of the plurality of products).
While Martis teaches a system for downloading an app to a mobile device for purchasing products at a micro market (Martis 1:50-2:45), Martis does not explicitly teach the use of an ephemeral app. This is taught by Ghani (See Ghani Abstract - The ephemeral compute instance is triggered to transmit the sensitive information to the payment service in response to receiving the request and is configured to shut down after the transmission of the sensitive information to the payment service).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the mobile app based product purchasing system of Martis the use of ephemeral app storage on a mobile device as taught by Ghani to offer an extra layer of protection in securing the customer’s sensitive data, such as payment card number, customer name, etc. (Ghani ¶ [0072]), thereby increasing the efficiency of Martis’s mobile app based product purchasing system.
Regarding claim 9 and 19, modified Martis teaches:
The method of claim 1/ 11 wherein the … app is selected from an App Clip from Apple or a Google Play Instant App from Google Inc (See Martis 8:34-46 – a user installs the application from the Apple App or the Google Play Store, or other storefront).
While Martis teaches a system for downloading an app to a mobile device for purchasing products at a micro market (Martis 1:50-2:45), Martis does not explicitly teach the use of an ephemeral app. This is taught by Ghani (See Ghani Abstract - The ephemeral compute instance is triggered to transmit the sensitive information to the payment service in response to receiving the request and is configured to shut down after the transmission of the sensitive information to the payment service).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the mobile app based product purchasing system of Martis the use of ephemeral app storage on a mobile device as taught by Ghani to offer an extra layer of protection in securing the customer’s sensitive data, such as payment card number, customer name, etc. (Ghani ¶ [0072]), thereby increasing the efficiency of Martis’s mobile app based product purchasing system.
Regarding claim 10 and 20, modified Martis teaches:
The method of claim 1/ 11 wherein the on-line payment process is selected from Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, or other mobile pay application (See Martis 8:34-53 – a user installs the application from the Apple App or the Google Play Store, or other storefront… the user creates an account and adds payment methods in application once it has been installed onto a memory resource of the phone and configured).
Regarding claim 11, modified Martis teaches:
A method for connecting to a communication network associated with a micro market (See Martis Abstract), the method comprising:
scanning a code associated with an … app to be downloaded to a mobile communication device, the mobile communication device being coupled to a communication network, the communication network being coupled a plurality of micro markets, each of the micro markets having a catalog of products for sale (See Martis 1:50-2:45 - UPC code of product at micro market is scanned);
associating a web address with a code to find the … app (See Martis 9:9-14 - the application displays location name and address of nearby micro market… the application fetches [find the app for a particular micro market] available product categories, and names, images, descriptions, and prices of the products available in those categories in the nearby micro market, from the server [web address by example]), …;
linking the web address with the mobile device (See Martis 9:47-52 - the system has a plurality of clients, such as mobile devices, a web server [web address], which can be coupled [linked] to each of the clients, and a database server, among other networking elements);
…;
…;
sensing for a Bluetooth beacon associated with a spatial area of one of the micro markets (See Martis 1:50-2:45 and 6:28-32 - beacon is sensed);
connecting using the Internet to a server associated with the micro market to transfer the catalog and list of items associated with the micro market (See Martis 9:55-64 - The system has a world wide network of computers, which comprising the Internet… the system has a micro market server device coupled to the world wide network of computers… the micro market server device has a library comprising a listing of a plurality of products, a field configured with the association information, e.g., an identifier for the server device. The device has a plurality of fields associated with a plurality of micro market identification information);
selecting one or more of the items in the catalog in a shopping cart (See Martis 4:53-61 - items are added to shopping cart and purchased);
checking out of the micro market by paying for the items using an online payment process (See Martis 1:50-2:45 and 4:53-61 - items are added to shopping cart and purchased) configured with a wallet associated with the mobile device, the wallet comprising a plurality of payment cards, each of the payment cards being pre-authorized for a user of the mobile communication device (See Martis 8:47-63 – user creates an account and adds payment card data as a payment methods to be used by the application);
…;
…; and
...
While Martis teaches a system for downloading an app to a mobile device for purchasing products at a micro market (Martis 1:50-2:45), Martis does not explicitly teach the use of an ephemeral app. This is taught by Ghani (See Ghani Abstract - The ephemeral compute instance is triggered to transmit the sensitive information to the payment service in response to receiving the request and is configured to shut down after the transmission of the sensitive information to the payment service).
Ghani further teaches the ephemeral app being configured without any user information, including at least one or more of a name, email address, a phone number, or other personal data (See Ghani ¶ [0044-0045] – an identifier of the payment instrument (e.g., payment card number, account credentials, or other payment device identifier), a payment card network associated with the payment instrument, an issuing bank of the payment instrument, a name or user account of the customer, contact information of the customer, IP address of customer device, etc., may be considered as cardholder data and thus are categorized as PCI information… The utilization of ephemeral compute capacity with the function provides the benefit that the functionality may be provided on-demand, and then discarded after use without storing any PCI information).
Ghani further teaches maintaining privacy of any user information associated with the user of the mobile communication device (See Ghani ¶ [0050] – For online businesses that collect, store, or transfer sensitive data, especially information that falls under the scope of compliance for PCI DSS, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), or Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) requirements, IFrames are a powerful security tool. For instance, by rendering the form source document issued to the client application server within an IFrame, it prevents access of the data with the IFrame while allowing the form source document to safely capture user PAN details. IFrame can thus offer an extra layer of protection when it comes to secure a customer’ s sensitive data [maintaining privacy of any user information by example]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the mobile app based product purchasing system of Martis the use of ephemeral app storage on a mobile device as taught by Ghani to offer an extra layer of protection in securing the customer’s sensitive data, such as payment card number, customer name, etc. (Ghani ¶ [0072]), thereby increasing the efficiency of Martis’s mobile app based product purchasing system.
While Martis teaches a system for downloading an app to a mobile device for purchasing products at a micro market (Martis 1:50-2:45), Martis does not explicitly teach transferring the … app in a first format using the Internet to a storage location on the mobile communication device. This is taught by Stone (See Stone ¶ [0031] and [0035] – temporary app is downloaded to mobile communication device when appropriate).
Stone further teaches initiating the … app onto the mobile device to open the … app in a second format (See Stone ¶ [0011], [0031] and [0035] – temporary app is opened);
Stone teaches further yet polling activity associated with the … app, and removing the … app from the storage location if no activity is detected from checking out after 24 hours (See Stone ¶ [0047] – polling activity is optionally used to remove app after a predetermined period of non-use).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the mobile app based product purchasing system of Martis the use of temporary app storage on a mobile device and removal after non-use as taught by Stone to provide and remove payment apps in a convenient manner to enable a variety of transactions (Stone ¶ [0011] and [0002-0006]), thereby increasing the efficiency of Martis’s mobile app based product purchasing system.
Examiner’s Note
While independent claims 1 and 11 show computer implementation of the abstract ideas of managing personal behavior and commercial/ legal interactions by following instructions to execute sales activities of checking out of a micro market by paying for items using an online payment process, the claims as a whole are found to be patent eligible with the limitations: “associating a web address with a code to find the ephemeral app, the ephemeral app being configured without any user information, including at least one or more of a name, email address, a phone number, or other personal data” showing a technical improvement. This step improves the underlying technology reflected by said independent claims of the instant application, which shows integration into a practical application and is significantly more than the noted abstract ideas. Therefore, the claims of the instant application as they are currently disclosed are patent eligible.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW S WERONSKI whose telephone number is (571)272-5802. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8 am - 5 pm EST.
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/MATTHEW S WERONSKI/Examiner, Art Unit 3627
/MICHAEL JARED WALKER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3627
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