DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on 12/05/2026 is being examined under the AIA first inventor to file provisions.
The following is a non-final First Office Action on the Merits. Claims 1-18 are pending and have been considered below.
Priority
This application is a CON of 18/621,983 03/29/2024 PAT 12,493,896 which is a CON of 14/523,521 10/24/2014 PAT 11,961,105.
The priority is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement (IDS)
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 4/30/2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, such IDS is being considered by Examiner.
Double Patenting Rejection
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper time wise extension of the "right to exclude" granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428,46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046,29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Omum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel/,422 F.2d 438,164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and, In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528,163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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The claims of the instant application are rejected on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims of patent US 12,361,488. The conflicting claims are nearly identical, with the US 12,361,488 patent claims being narrower, which makes the two sets of claims not patentably distinct from each other, as shown by the claim-by-claim comparison in the table here below.
Instant Application
Language from US 12,493,896
Claim 1. A method utilizing a remote networked terminal, the method comprising:
receiving, by a central office processor, from the remote networked terminal including biometric interface devices each coupled to a processor via physical system resource interfaces, an electronic request to access a record of accrued and unpaid earnings for a predetermined time period;
receiving, with the central office processor from the remote networked terminal via the biometric interface devices, biometric parameters of an employee;
comparing the biometric parameters with information in a central office database to authenticate an identity of the employee;
generating, in response to authentication of the identity of the employee, a user interface for display on the remote networked terminal including a plurality of options including a selectable option for using the accrued and unpaid earnings;
accessing, with the central office processor in response to authentication of the identity of the employee, the central office database including the record of the accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period and determining an amount of the accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period available to the employee;
determining, by the central office processor, whether to suspend access to the record of accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period according to a predetermined date and/or time;
setting, by the central office processor, a suspended status that suspends access to the record of accrued and unpaid earning for the predetermined time period;
determining, by the central office processor after the authentication of the identity of the employee, whether to allow or deny the electronic request to access the record of accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period based on the determination whether to suspend access according to the predetermined date and/or time;
determining whether to allow or deny the electronic request to access the record of accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period based on an access amount limit on the accrued and unpaid earnings;
transmitting, upon the central office processor determining to allow the electronic request to access the record of accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period, the accrued and unpaid earnings to the remote networked terminal for display to the employee with the remote networked terminal;
determining an accretive value for each of a plurality of participating stores; and
transmitting, from the central office processor, to the remote networked terminal, a plurality of participating stores and the accretive value offered to employee by each of the participating stores for purchasing goods and services at the participating stores with the accrued and unpaid earnings.
Claim 1. A method utilizing a remote networked terminal, the method comprising:
receiving, by a central office processor, from the remote networked terminal including biometric interface devices each coupled to a processor via physical system resource interfaces, an electronic request to access a record of accrued and unpaid earnings for a predetermined time period;
receiving, with the central office processor from the remote networked terminal via the biometric interface devices, biometric parameters of an employee;
receiving, with the central office processor from the remote networked terminal, a photograph of the employee;
comparing the biometric parameters and the photograph with information in a central office database to authenticate an identity of the employee;
generating, in response to authentication of the identity of the employee, a user interface for display on the remote networked terminal including a plurality of options including a selectable option for using the accrued and unpaid earnings;
receiving a selection on the generated user interface;
accessing, with the central office processor in response to authentication of the identity of the employee, the central office database including the record of the accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period and determining an amount of the accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period available to the employee;
determining, by the central office processor, whether to suspend access to the record of accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period according to a predetermined date and/or time;
setting, by the central office processor, a suspended status that suspends access to the record of accrued and unpaid earning for the predetermined time period;
determining, by the central office processor after the authentication of the identity of the employee, whether to allow or deny the electronic request to access the record of accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period based on the determination whether to suspend access according to the predetermined date and/or time;
determining whether to allow or deny the electronic request to access the record of accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period based on an access amount limit on the accrued and unpaid earnings;
transmitting, upon the central office processor determining to allow the electronic request to access the record of accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period, the accrued and unpaid earnings to the remote networked terminal for display to the employee with the remote networked terminal;
accessing, by the central office processor, a database including exchange rates associated with a plurality of participating stores;
determining an accretive value for each of the plurality of participating stores based on one or more of the exchange rates;
transmitting, from the central office processor, to the remote networked terminal, a plurality of participating stores and the accretive value offered to employee by each of the participating stores for purchasing goods and services at the participating stores with the accrued and unpaid earnings;
screening the plurality of participating stores for display on the remote networked terminal based on predetermined criteria; and
displaying, on a display of the remote networked terminal, the plurality of participating stores corresponding to the screened plurality of participating stores.
Claim 2. wherein the biometric interface devices include at least two of a fingerprint scanner, a palm vein scanner, and a retinal scanner.
Claim 2. wherein the biometric interface devices include at least two of a fingerprint scanner, a palm vein scanner, and a retinal scanner.
Claim 3. wherein the biometric parameters of the employee include at least two of a fingerprint, a palm vein scan, and a retinal scan.
Claim 3. wherein the biometric parameters of the employee include at least two of a fingerprint, a palm vein scan, and a retinal scan.
Claim 4. wherein the information in the central office database includes a user record for the employee that includes stored biometric parameters.
Claim 4. wherein the information in the central office database includes a user record for the employee that includes stored biometric parameters and a stored photograph of the employee.
Claim 5. releasing, by the central office processor, the suspended status based on a temporal condition.
Claim 5. releasing, by the central office processor, the suspended status based on a temporal condition.
Claim 6. accessing, by the central office processor, a database including exchange rates associated with a plurality of participating stores; and determining the accretive value for each of the plurality of participating stores based on one or more of the exchange rates.
Claim 1. accessing, by the central office processor, a database including exchange rates associated with a plurality of participating stores; determining an accretive value for each of the plurality of participating stores based on one or more of the exchange rates;
Claim 7. wherein the exchange rates are pushed to the central office database from the plurality of participating stores to provide for values to be altered in real time.
Claim 6. wherein the exchange rates are pushed to the central office database from the plurality of participating stores to provide for values to be altered in real time.
Claim 8. wherein the accretive value is defined by a percentage of value of purchases made with the accrued and unpaid earnings.
Claim 7. wherein the accretive value is defined by a percentage of value of purchases made with the accrued and unpaid earnings.
Claim 9. displaying, if one of the plurality of participating stores is selected, the accretive value offered for the selected one of the plurality of participating stores.
Claim 8. displaying, if one of the plurality of participating stores is selected, the accretive value offered for the selected one of the plurality of participating stores.
Claim 10. displaying, on a display of the remote networked terminal, the plurality of participating stores and the accretive value offered to the employee by each of the participating stores with the remote networked terminal and wherein the accretive value is determined by each of the participating stores.
Claim 9. displaying the plurality of participating stores and the accretive value offered to the employee by each of the participating stores with the remote networked terminal and wherein the accretive value is determined by each of the participating stores.
Claim 11. looping back to the displaying, on the display, of the plurality of participating stores in response to an input based on a prompt on the display to select a different participating store; and proceeding with an electronic transfer, or otherwise terminating the method upon a failure to receive a selection of a participating store of the plurality of participating stores.
Claim 10. looping back to the displaying on the display of the plurality of participating stores in response to an input based on a prompt on the display to select a different participating store; and proceeding with an electronic transfer, or otherwise terminating the method upon a failure to receive a selection of a participating store of the plurality of participating stores.
Claim 12. wherein the accrued and unpaid earnings include earnings due the employee prior to an end of a payroll period but before the earnings have been disbursed to the employee.
Claim 11. wherein the accrued and unpaid earnings include earnings due the employee prior to an end of a payroll period but before the earnings have been disbursed to the employee.
Claim 13. wherein the accrued and unpaid earnings include earnings are due the employee on a predetermined date prior to an end of a payroll period but before the earnings have been disbursed to the employee.
Claim 12. wherein the accrued and unpaid earnings include earnings due the employee on a predetermined date prior to an end of a payroll period but before the earnings have been disbursed to the employee.
Claim 14. generating, at the remote networked terminal, an electronic request to transfer a portion of the accrued and unpaid earnings to a selected one or ones of the participating stores; receiving, with the central office processor, the electronic request to transfer the portion of the accrued and unpaid earnings to the selected one or ones of the participating stores; transmitting, from one or more of the participating stores, a query to a bank, wherein the query requests verification of an account of the employee; and transferring, from the bank, the portion of accrued and unpaid earnings to a sponsoring bank where the selected one or ones of the participating stores maintains the account wherein the transferred portion of the accrued and unpaid earnings are held whereupon the employee may utilize the transferred portion of the accrued and unpaid earnings to make purchases at the selected one or ones of the participating stores.
Claim 13. generating, at the remote networked terminal, an electronic request to transfer a portion of the accrued and unpaid earnings to selected one or ones of the participating stores;
receiving, with the central office processor, the electronic request to transfer the portion of the accrued and unpaid earnings to the selected one or ones of the participating stores;
transmitting, from one or more of the participating stores, a query to a bank, wherein the query requests verification of an account of the employee; and
transferring, from the bank, the portion of accrued and unpaid earnings to a sponsoring bank where the selected one or ones of the participating stores maintains the account wherein the transferred portion of the accrued and unpaid earnings are held whereupon the employee may utilize the transferred portion of the accrued and unpaid earnings to make purchases at the selected one or ones of the participating stores.
Claim 15. updating, with the central office processor, the record of accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period in the central office database to reflect the transferred portion of the accrued and unpaid earnings.
Claim 14. updating, with the central office processor, the record of accrued and unpaid earnings for the predetermined time period in the database to reflect the transferred portion of the accrued and unpaid earnings.
Claim 16. identifying a category of the transferred portion of accrued and unpaid earnings based on a source of the accrued and unpaid earnings, wherein the identifying of the transferred portion of accrued and unpaid earnings separately categorizes the source of the transferred portion of accrued and unpaid earnings from other funds in the account of the employee; and limiting use of funds in the account of the employee based on the category of the transferred portion of accrued and unpaid earnings and based on a category of other funds in the account of the employee.
Claim 15. identifying a category of the transferred portion of accrued and unpaid earnings based on a source of the accrued and unpaid earnings, wherein the identifying of the transferred portion of accrued and unpaid earnings separately categorizes the source of the transferred portion of accrued and unpaid earnings from other funds in the account of the employee; and limiting use of funds in the account of the employee based on the category of the transferred portion of accrued and unpaid earnings and based on a category of other funds in the account of the employee.
Claim 17. receiving, with the central office processor from the remote networked terminal, a photograph of the employee; and comparing the biometric parameters and the photograph with information in the central office database to authenticate the identity of the employee.
Claim 1. receiving, with the central office processor from the remote networked terminal, a photograph of the employee; comparing the biometric parameters and the photograph with information in a central office database to authenticate an identity of the employee;
Claim 18. screening the plurality of participating stores for display on the remote networked terminal based on predetermined criteria; and displaying, on a display of the remote networked terminal, the plurality of participating stores corresponding to the screened plurality of participating stores
Claim 1. screening the plurality of participating stores for display on the remote networked terminal based on predetermined criteria; and displaying, on a display of the remote networked terminal, the plurality of participating stores corresponding to the screened plurality of participating stores.
This is a non-provisional obviousness-type double patenting rejection because the conflicting claims have been in fact patented.
Examiner Remarks
The comprehensive search, included domestic and foreign patents search, “more like this” search, similarity search and ip.com NPL search (all attached to this office action). It yielded no relevant prior art. The filed IDS has been considered as well.
Based on the eligibility results of the analysis for parent US 12,493,896, it is concluded that the set of claims of the instant application is eligible as well.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon which, however, is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 20070098223 A1 Kamata; Hideo et al. Biometrics system and biometrics method A biometrics authentication system that performs individual authentication in use of biometrics information facilitates authentication operation and reduces authentication errors. A storage unit stores therein the shape of the body part of the user, of which is captured at the time of registration of biometrics data, and a display unit displays the body part shape from the time of registration when authenticating the user for directly identifying the state of image capture of the body part at the time of registration and for guiding into a state of image capture of the body part similar to the state at the time of registration. The body part can be guided effectively such that the circumstances of body part image capture at the time of authentication and at the time of registration are in agreement, for improved verification efficiency.
US 20150220923 A1 Vasant Akole; Ninad et al. Real-Time Spend Management with Savings Goals A computer-implemented method, including receiving, by one or more computer systems, a withdrawal request for withdrawal of funds from one or more financial accounts; determining, by the one or more computer systems, whether a discretionary balance of the one or more financial accounts is greater than or equal to an amount of the withdrawal request, with the discretionary balance being based on an amount of funds that are available in the one or more financial accounts and a portion of the available funds allocated to a savings goal; causing an approval of the withdrawal request when the discretionary balance is greater than or equal to the amount of the withdrawal request; and sending a real time notification to a client device of a user associated with the one or more financial accounts when the discretionary balance is less than the amount of the withdrawal request with a real time opportunity for the user to reduce funds allocated to savings goals if required and thereby increasing the discretionary balance to facilitate the approval of withdrawal request.
US 20110102141 A1 WU; Ming-Yuan TAMPER-PROOF SECURE CARD WITH STORED BIOMETRIC DATA AND METHOD FOR USING THE SECURE CARD A tamper-proof secure card comprising biometric data of an individual for identifying or confirming authority of the individual. Prior to issuing the secure card a cardholder's biometric data is stored in a transparent biometric data section of the secure card. Also, a unique card number is created using a cardholder's biometric data and stored in the card. When the secure card is used the cardholder inputs biometric data. This input biometric data is then compared to the biometric data stored in the card. If the input biometric data matches the stored biometric data the identity of the cardholder is confirmed. If the cardholder's identity has been confirmed the unique card number can be accessed. Without confirmation the unique card number cannot be access. The secure card also comprises a transparent input area to separate the cardholder from an identity verification machine.
US 20100179887 A1 CACHERIA, III; ANTHONY M. et al. SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING GOODS AND SERVICES BASED ON ACCRUED BUT UNPAID EARNINGS A system for enabling employees to utilize accrued and unpaid earnings to obtain externally provided goods and services includes at least one employee access node located in an employer facility and having physical resources for interfacing with subscribing employees to transfer value on the behalf thereof, a transaction processor for facilitating transfer of value on behalf of the subscribing employees; and physical resource interfaces associated with the physical resources to enable subscribing employees to input identification information, a data store a data store for storing configurations associated with providers and/or goods and services, a local server for communicating with the at least one employee access node to operate in conjunction therewith to facilitate the transfer of value on behalf of the given subscribing employee and a central processing center including one or more provider communications interfaces enabling the central processing center to communicate with a third party provider of goods or services and to facilitate a transfer of value to the third party provider on behalf of the given subscribing employee.
US 9268904 B1 Harding; David Systems and methods for biometric data management using relational database management systems (RDBMS) A structured query language (SQL) relational database management system (SQL RDBMS) may integrate a biometric subsystem to process and manage biometric data separately from the demographic data stored in normalized SQL tables of the SQL RDBMS. The SQL RDBMS may be operatively connected to the biometric subsystem by means of SQL extensions. The SQL RDBMS may execute queries with demographic and/or biometric constraints, wherein the demographic data is retrieved directly from normalized SQL tables on the RDBMS, while the biometric data is retrieved in the form of scores or probabilities from the biometric subsystem. The SQL RDBMS may return a query result set containing demographic data associated with corresponding biometric data, allowing the authentication of biometric clients.
US 7725393 B2 Drummond; Jay Paul et al. Application service provider and automated transaction machine system and method A plurality of ATMs of different financial institutions include ATM software that enables them to individually selectively access different ATM applications through network communication with a remote server of an application service provider (ASP). The ATM software also allows the ATMs to carry out transaction responsive to instructions included in ATM application accessed from the ASP server. The ASP server uses a thin client model or remote windowing to execute individual ATM application sessions for each ATM connected to the server. The ATMs run limited capability thin client software to serve as portals to the ATM sessions executing on the ASP servers. The right to access ASP server-side ATM applications is provided to the financial institutions in exchange for payment to the ASP. Server software can cause charges to be assessed on a time basis, a per ATM basis, or a per transaction basis.
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/Radu Andrei/
Primary Examiner, AU 3697
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