EXAMINER HIGHLIGHT§101 RECORD · 2 APPLICATIONS · 9 DOCUMENTS

Examiner Mary M. Gregg

Payment-card authorization and ATM infrastructure. The lesson from this record is narrow and useful: naming a machine did not work. Claiming how the machine's behavior had to be reconfigured did.

Try TodaySchedule a DemoJump to the record ↓
JR3 drafting a §101 response for Examiner Mary M. Gregg
§101 matters with full papers1plus three report-only matters where §101 was withdrawn
Allowance rate in set2/2both applications with full papers were allowed
Dominant exitMachine reconfigurationthe ATM must do something it would not normally do
Record confidenceMixedthe successful 2017 amendment is not in the shared set
Read this first

This is the most instructive failure-then-success arc in the published set. Examiner Gregg expressly maintained the §101 rejection against the 2015 response, then allowed a refined version of the same theory in 2017. The March 2017 amendment itself is not in the shared documents, so the final claim language is inferred from the Notice of Allowability rather than read directly.

Argument pattern matrix

Which eligibility moves appear where.

✓ Clearly present◐ Present, outcome link unclear— Not observed
Argument type12/725,19413/128,317
§101 practical application / significantly more◐—
Claim requires reconfiguring machine behavior✓—
Individualized card status recognized at the reader✓—
Physical article recited as an operational key✓—
Ordered transaction flow with actor-specific roles◐✓
Returned value identified as the same value sent earlier—✓
Examiner maintained the rejection before allowing✓—
The successful amendment is present in the shared set—✓

Top allowance-associated §101 arguments

Claim what the machine has to recognize.

01MODERATE–STRONG

Individualized active and inactive recognition of two cards on one account

App. 12/725,194Rejection: §101 abstract ideaAllowed 2017-03-07

Applicant argued the claims were not an abstract emergency-funds concept because they required selective activation and deactivation of physical card embodiments tied to a single account, with the cards acting as operational keys for ATM and card-reader behavior.

Allowed claim concept
  • One account carrying two card embodiments and numbers
  • One card active, the other inactive
  • ATM and card-reader logic recognizing active and inactive status individually, rather than at account level

Why it ranks first. The 2017 Notice of Allowability states that a credit-card embodiment and ATM or card reader, unless reconfigured, would not perform the claimed operation of associating a single card embodiment with specific main and emergency lines of credit and determining which is active. The examiner called this beyond routine and conventional activity.

Caveat. The 2015 response alone did not secure allowance; Gregg maintained the rejection, finding the ATM and readers generic and the claim directed to backend rules. Allowance followed March 2017 amendments that are not in the shared set.

02MODERATE

Narrowing financial logic to machine-operation constraints

App. 12/725,194Rejection: §101 abstract ideaPattern inferred from the prosecution arc

Analytically distinct from the first entry. Applicant moved the claims away from “providing emergency cash or transaction funds” and toward selective ATM cash dispensing or selective card-reader validation, using remote activation and deactivation of two physical cards on one account.

Why it ranks. The Notice of Allowability credits limitations directed to controlling an ATM's ability to read transaction-card embodiment information and act on rules as going beyond routine and conventional activity. The successful move was not saying “machine,” but claiming constraints that changed what the machine had to recognize and do.

Caveat. This is a claim-framing pattern inferred from the prosecution arc. The exact intervening amendment is missing from the set, and it is labeled inference for that reason.

03ADJACENT · §112 / §103

Naming the actor, the source and the destination of every value

App. 13/128,317Rejection: §112 indefiniteness; prior artAllowed 2014-02-20

Not a §101 matter, but the cleanest record link in the whole Gregg set, and it demonstrates the drafting habit this examiner rewards: state who performs the step, where the value came from, and how it relates to a value sent earlier.

Amended claim language

“receiving, electronically at the cellular network the secret code from the vendor, the secret code being a same secret code as the secret code sent to the mobile terminal.”

Why it is here. The Notice of Allowance credits the vendor providing the second user's secret code to the money-transfer network for authorization, and the vendor paying the second user before receiving funds from the network. The allowance reasons track the amendment closely.

Caveat. The Notice emphasizes vendor payment before network funding, while the response emphasized both same-code return and vendor authorization. Related, but not identical.

The record

Full papers, then the report-only matters.

12/725,194ATM and card-reader control for emergency fundsNOTICE OF ALLOWANCE 2017-03-07
Rejection basis
§101 abstract idea. The Final Office Action of 2015-06-12 found the ATM and readers generic and the claim directed to backend rules.
Applicant strategy
Tie the claims to selective activation of machines through two physical cards acting as keys, then, in later amendments, to individualized recognition of card status at the reader.
Subject matter & field
Payment-card authorization infrastructure, ATM and card-reader transaction processing, account and card-status control.
Point of novelty
Individualized recognition of two card embodiments on a single account, one active and one inactive, rather than treating all cards on the account uniformly.
Caveat

Nearly two years and an unrecorded amendment separate the 2015 response from the 2017 allowance.

13/128,317Cellular-network money transferNOTICE OF ALLOWANCE 2014-02-20
Rejection basis
§112 indefiniteness and omitted essential steps, plus a prior-art rejection over Murdoch and Vodafone. A related eligibility issue was also withdrawn.
Applicant strategy
Amend claim 17 to state that the code the network receives from the vendor is the same code previously sent to the mobile terminal, and argue Murdoch did not disclose that return path.
Subject matter & field
Mobile financial services and cellular money-transfer authorization using a vendor intermediary.
Point of novelty
The transaction sequence itself: the vendor returns the recipient's code to the network for authorization, pays the recipient before receiving funds, and is funded only after confirmation.
Caveat

Included for the drafting pattern, not as §101 authority. The allowance turned on prior-art distinctions.

Report-only matters§101 withdrawn or overcome, but the underlying response and Notice are unavailable
ApplicationReported strategyOutcomeWhy less certain
11/890,605Portable-device deposit of a financial instrument into a bank account§101 withdrawn after amendment; reported allowedApplicant response and Notice unavailable
11/971,544Revenue determined from the cost to provide the service or product§101 withdrawn after amendment; reported allowedSpecific amendment and allowance reasoning unavailable
12/573,464Improvement to information retrieval and visualization of displayed dataReported allowed after argumentExcerpts truncated; Office Action, response and Notice unavailable

Practice signals

What JR3 carries into your draft.

01

Do not merely name an ATM, card reader, mobile device or network. This examiner rejected exactly that framing before allowing a version that constrained machine behavior.

02

Claim the reconfiguration. The allowed theory was that the reader would not perform the recited operation unless changed from its normal function.

03

Tie financial concepts to an ordered transaction flow with actor-specific responsibilities, not to a business result.

04

For omitted-essential-step objections, recite the actor, the source and destination of the message, and whether a returned value is the same value previously sent.

Source documents

Nine files, read in full.

12/725,194Final Office Action 2015-06-12Applicant ResponseNotice of Allowance 2017-03-07Highlight Excerpts
13/128,317Non-Final Office Action 2013-08-28Applicant ResponseNotice of Allowance 2014-02-20Highlight Excerpts

Also in the set: Argument Analysis Report covering the three report-only matters above.

Draft your Gregg response against this record.

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

Try TodaySchedule a DemoAll examiner highlights

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