DETAILED ACTION
Introduction
This Office action is responsive to the communications filed March 23, 2026. Claims 1,3, 9,11, 17, and 19 were amended. Claims 1-20 are pending.
Response to Arguments
1. Applicant asserts that the claims are not directed to an abstract idea. Also, Applicant states that “capability-dependent execution branching constitutes a specific improvement in how heterogeneous client devices interoperate with provider-specific runtime components.”
However, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claims recite at least receiving a selection of a payment provider at a user interface of a merchant website, providing transaction corresponding to the request to perform the transaction, and receiving a confirmation that the transaction was performed. Hence, the claims are directed to an abstract idea of receiving transaction confirmation, which is categorized under certain methods of organizing human activity grouping. Additionally, the specific algorithm to improve the technology is not described in the claims/specification.
Further, Applicant requested evidence to support a finding that the claimed features are “well-understood, routine, and conventional;” however, this phrase was not applied to the rejection.
2. Applicant has amended the claims, thereby overcoming the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection of the claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Particularly, claim 1 recites “a confirmation that the transaction was performed using the payment credential from the secure element of the second user device to the second server over the second secure communication channel.” The specification describes providing a confirmation that the transaction was performed, but does not indicate that it done using the payment credential from the secure element of the second user device to the second server over the second secure communication channel.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
In the instant case, claims 1-8 are directed to a method. Claims 9-16 are directed to an apparatus. Claims 17-20 are directed a non-transitory machine readable medium. Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
For example, claim 1 recites an abstract idea of receiving a transaction confirmation. The claim under its broadest reasonable interpretation recites limitations grouped within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas. The certain methods of organizing human activity abstract idea grouping is defined as concepts related to fundamental economic principles or practices, commercial or legal interactions including agreements in the form of contracts, legal obligations, advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors, and business relations. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection II. The claim limitations reciting the abstract idea are grouped within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas as they relate to receiving a transaction confirmation. More specifically, the following the bolded claim elements recite additional elements while the other claim elements recite the abstract idea. according to MPEP 2106.04(a).
A method comprising:
receiving a selection of a payment provider at a user interface of a merchant website on a web browser on a first user device, the selection corresponding to a request to perform a transaction with a first server associated with the merchant website using the payment provider;
determining, by a script associated with the payment provider and executing in the web browser, that the first user device does not support the payment provider;
responsive to determining the first user device does not support the payment provider
providing, by the first user device and to a second server associated with the payment provider, transaction information corresponding to the request to perform the transaction;
receiving, by the first user device and from the second server, a token for performing the transaction, transaction, the token comprising a session identifier and cryptographic data for establishing a first secure communication channel;
responsive to detection, by the first user device and via a wireless protocol, of a second user device that is i) registered to a user account associated with the first user device and ii) includes a secure element storing a payment credential, providing, from the first user device and to the second user device, the token for performing the transaction between at least the second user device, on behalf of the first user device that does not support the payment provider; and the second server to enable the second user device to establish a second secure communication channel with the second server, independently from the first user device, using the cryptographic data of the token, to transmit the payment credential stored in the secure element;
receiving, by the first user device and from the second server, a confirmation that the transaction was performed, using the payment credential from the secure element of the second user device to the second server over the second secure communication channel.
Independent claims 9 and 17 recite similar language.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106.04(d)), the additional element(s) of the claim(s) such as the user interface, user device, server, token, secure communication channel, secure element, wireless protocol, script, and web browser are merely used as tools to perform an abstract idea and/or generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment. Specifically, these additional elements perform the steps or functions of receiving a transaction confirmation. Viewed as a whole, the use of user interface, user device, server, token, secure communication channel, secure element, wireless protocol, script, and web browser as tools to implement the abstract idea and/or generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it requires no more than a computer or computer networks performing functions that correspond to acts required to carry out the abstract idea. The additional elements do not involve improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field (MPEP 2106.05(a)), and the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda Memo). Therefore, the claims do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of a computer. Nor do they effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when analyzed under step 2B of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106.05), the additional element(s) of the user interface, user device, server, token, secure communication channel, secure element, wireless protocol, script, and web browser to perform the steps amounts to no more than using generic hardware or software to automate and/or implement the abstract idea of receiving a transaction confirmation. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely recite the concept of receiving a transaction confirmation. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ the computer as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea. The use of a computer or processor to merely automate and/or implement the abstract idea cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05 (f) & (h)). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
The dependent claims further describe the abstract idea such as responsive to receiving the confirmation, receiving, at the first user device, a service corresponding to the transaction;
responsive to detecting that the second user device is connected to a network, determining whether the second user device is registered with a user account associated with the first user device; and presenting at a display of the first user device, an instruction to use the second user device.
The dependent claims do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or that provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the dependent claims are also not patent eligible.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/Jalatee Worjloh/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3697
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