EXAMINER HIGHLIGHT§101 RECORD · 4 APPLICATIONS · 17 DOCUMENTS

Examiner Kenneth Bartley

Payments, NFC and POS security, transaction cards and financial-planning interfaces. In this set, no eligibility argument carried on its own. Every §101 exit was anchored to an amendment that put a concrete data-handling or device sequence into the claim.

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JR3 drafting a §101 response for Examiner Kenneth Bartley
§101 matters reviewed3of 4 applications carried an eligibility rejection
Allowance rate in set4/4each reached a Notice of Allowance after amendment
Dominant exitDevice-role sequencingwho does what, to which data, in what order
Record confidenceModerateRCE, Examiner's Amendment and a PTAB decision intervene
Read this first

Bartley pushed back on eligibility argument more than once before allowing. In 17/183,129 the Advisory Action expressly rejected the applicant's §101 reasoning; allowance came later, after an RCE. Treat the findings below as association between amended claim language and outcome, not as an examiner concession.

Argument pattern matrix

Which eligibility moves appear where.

✓ Clearly present◐ Present, outcome link unclear— Not observed
Argument type12/803,68417/183,12917/331,860
§101 practical application (Step 2A Prong Two)✓✓◐
Inventive concept under Step 2B (BASCOM / Berkheimer)◐◐—
Amendment reciting a physical article or device role✓✓✓
Ordered data-handling sequence with verification step◐✓✓
Claim-perspective argument under §112(b)—✓◐
Improved-interface analogy (Match Group, Enfish line)◐——
Intervening RCE, examiner's amendment or PTAB action◐◐◐

Top allowance-associated §101 arguments

All three are claim-amendment anchored.

01MODERATE–STRONG

Removing the PAN from the device before requesting the account code

App. 17/183,129Rejection: §101 organizing human activity; §112(b)Allowed claims 1–20, after RCE

Applicant recast eligibility as a payment-device security problem: a POS application and NFC reader arrangement in which the primary account number is handled separately from the user's account code. Rather than argue in the abstract, the claims were amended to recite the sequence itself.

Allowed claim language

“removing, by the POS application, the PAN from the mobile device … before requesting the account code”; “causing display of an input field requesting the account code … in response to determining that the PAN has been successfully removed”; “generating a communication … including second encrypted data representing the account code and the identifier of the transaction without the PAN.”

Why it ranks first. The Notice of Allowance expressly identifies the claimed invention as a method and system of generating a default code and removing a PAN from a mobile device. That maps directly onto the applicant's eligibility framing.

Caveat. The Advisory Action initially rejected the eligibility arguments, including skepticism that adding an NFC component was enough. Allowance followed an RCE and examiner's amendment activity. The record does not establish that Bartley accepted the BASCOM, Berkheimer or PEG Example 35 reasoning as stated.

02MODERATE–STRONG

A physical card plus a differentiated three-device access architecture

App. 12/803,684Rejection: §101 organizing human activity; §112Allowed 2022-06-07

Applicant argued the claims were not generic investment planning but a specifically configured system: a public branch computer, a user computer and a host computer, coordinated through a physical Retirement Lifestyle Card and two user interfaces at different levels of detail.

Allowed claim language

“a publicly accessible branch computer device … a printer configured to generate a Retirement Lifestyle Card comprising a printed card having computer readable code”; the user computer captures an image of that code; the host “allow[s] the user … to access the first data when the image of the computer readable code is received”; and “when the icon is moved to the work area the second user interface reconfigures to receive second data.”

Why it ranks. The Notice of Allowance identifies the same card, multi-device and differentiated-UI architecture the applicant argued. The eligibility framing was that the claim imposed concrete operational constraints across three devices and two interfaces, not investment advice.

Caveat. The Notice includes an examiner's amendment, so some allowed wording may be examiner-added. The record supports the architecture as central, but not that every case-law analogy, including Match Group, was material.

03§101 LINK INDIRECT

Activation that changes the card's sampling rate and power state

App. 17/331,860Rejection: §101 (partially withdrawn); §112(a)/(b); §103Allowed 2024-08-30

The §101 rejection was partially withdrawn as to claim 1 before the interview. What carried the case was a concrete card-operation sequence: a user-device-originated instruction moves the transaction card into a higher-power, higher-sampling-rate collection mode, and the collected motion pattern is compared against stored data.

Amended claim language

“a user device … transmit[s], to the transaction card, activation instructions to activate collection of motion pattern data, wherein, subsequent to the activation … the transaction card collects motion pattern data at a second sampling rate in a second power state … the second sampling rate being a higher sampling rate than a first sampling rate … prior to the activation.”

Why it is here. The Notice of Allowance tracks that feature almost verbatim. It is the cleanest argument-to-allowance match in the set, and it shows the level of operational specificity this examiner responds to, even where the vehicle was §103 rather than §101.

Caveat. The eligibility link is indirect. The Notice says the Board determined the claims did not provide abstract steps; it does not say Bartley independently adopted the applicant's §101 arguments. A PTAB decision sits between the response and the allowance.

The record

Every matter in the set.

17/183,129Embedded card reader security for mobile POSNOTICE OF ALLOWANCE 2023-01-21
Rejection basis
§101 as non-statutory, certain methods of organizing human activity without significantly more. §112(b) indefiniteness.
Applicant strategy
Amended claims 1, 8 and 16. Argued the claims are written from the POS and mobile-device perspective, so decryption need not occur there. Argued practical application through NFC and POS payment security, default-code generation, encryption, PAN removal before account-code entry, and transmission without the PAN.
Subject matter & field
NFC payment processing, POS applications, mobile payment security, PAN and account-code handling.
Point of novelty
A two-stage credential-handling workflow: send the PAN with a default code, remove the PAN from the device before requesting the real account code, verify removal before displaying the input field, then send encrypted account-code data without the PAN.
Caveat

The Advisory Action refused entry of the after-final amendments and rejected the eligibility argument. Finality was withdrawn on RCE and claims 1–20 were then allowed. High confidence in the final allowed feature; medium on causation.

12/803,684Investor retirement lifestyle planning toolNOTICE OF ALLOWANCE 2022-06-07
Rejection basis
§101 as non-statutory subject matter, organizing human activity on a generic computer. §112 written description.
Applicant strategy
Amended claims 1 and 24. Argued a statutory system with a specific three-device architecture, a Retirement Lifestyle Card carrying computer-readable code, image capture, differentiated access, and UI reconfiguration when spending-category icons are moved.
Subject matter & field
Computer-implemented financial planning, multi-device access control, graphical user-interface workflows.
Point of novelty
A branch device scans an ID and prints a card; a private user device captures the card's code; the host uses that capture to gate access and enable a more detailed second interface that reconfigures on icon placement.
Caveat

The Notice includes an examiner's amendment. Some allowed wording may reflect examiner-added refinements rather than the applicant's response alone.

17/331,860Active signature detection for transaction cardsNOTICE OF ALLOWANCE 2024-08-30
Rejection basis
§101, partially withdrawn as to claim 1 at or before the interview. §112(b) indefiniteness, §112(a) written description, and §103 over Tunnell (US 2017/0061404).
Applicant strategy
Amended claims 6 and 14 to add the first and second sampling-rate limitations and clarified that a user device performs the activation, receiving and providing steps. Argued the specification disclosed wake and sleep modes activated by user-device signal, button press or gesture.
Subject matter & field
Payment-card authentication, transaction-card power management, motion-pattern verification.
Point of novelty
Not gesture detection on a card, but a user-device-originated instruction that moves the card into a higher-power, higher-sampling-rate mode before the pattern is compared against stored data.
Caveat

Strong on the §103 linkage. The §101 linkage is indirect: the Notice attributes the eligibility outcome to a PTAB determination, not to an examiner adoption of the applicant's arguments.

16/440,164Amendment by analogy to an allowed continuationRECORD INCOMPLETE

Applicant amended independent claims 1, 10 and 19 following amendments made in continuation 16/774,845, which had already been allowed. The application was subsequently allowed on 2022-07-21.

The applicant response in the set is too thin to identify the actual claim language or point of novelty, and the corrected Notice of Allowability points to reasons given in a prior Notice dated 2022-07-26 that is not in the extracted record. Outcome known; argument-to-allowance link underdeveloped.

Practice signals

What JR3 carries into your draft.

Configuration signals derived from the record above, applied when JR3 drafts a §101 response for this examiner.

01

Lead with the amendment, not the case law. Every §101 exit in this set is anchored to specific amended claim language; none turned on doctrinal argument alone.

02

Name the device that performs each step. Both allowed payment matters recite which component receives, removes, verifies and transmits, and in what order.

03

A verification gate reads as a technical constraint. “In response to determining that the PAN has been successfully removed” does work that a bare recitation of NFC hardware does not.

04

Adding hardware by name has been called out as insufficient here. The Advisory Action in 17/183,129 was skeptical that reciting an NFC component moved the needle.

05

Expect the fight to run past the Advisory Action. Budget for an RCE rather than assuming after-final entry.

Source documents

Seventeen files, read in full. Highlight Excerpts accompany each application.

12/803,684Non-Final Office Action 2021-10-05Applicant ResponseNotice of Allowance 2022-06-07Highlight Excerpts
16/440,164Non-Final Office Action 2022-03-02Applicant ResponseNotice of Allowance 2022-07-21Highlight Excerpts
17/183,129Advisory Action 2022-08-26Applicant ResponseNotice of Allowance 2023-01-21Highlight Excerpts
17/331,860Advisory Action 2022-09-29Applicant ResponseNotice of Allowance 2024-08-30Highlight Excerpts

Also in the set: Argument Analysis Report. Application 14/448,922 appears in the report with a clipped reasons-for-allowance excerpt but no applicant response, so no reliable extraction was made.

Draft your Bartley response against this record.

JR3 takes these findings as configuration and writes the eligibility section in the register this examiner has accepted.

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Examiner analyses are derived from public prosecution records and are provided for prosecution strategy. They are not legal advice and do not predict outcomes.