EXAMINER HIGHLIGHT§101 RECORD · 2 APPLICATIONS · 8 DOCUMENTS

Examiner Gregory Pollock

Insurance data workflows, financial transactions and digital authentication. Every eligibility argument in this set that landed was anchored to a specific data structure or an ordered transaction flow. The broad technical-improvement rhetoric alone did not carry.

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JR3 drafting a §101 response for Examiner Gregory Pollock
§101 matters with full papers2plus three report-only matters
Allowance rate in set2/2both allowed within five months of the response
Dominant exitData-structure specificityhow the data is represented, not what it is about
Record confidenceStrong17/373,848 names the allowed limitations expressly
Read this first

Where the eligibility rejection was withdrawn here, the Notice frames its reasons in prior-art terms rather than reproducing a written eligibility analysis. In 17/373,848 the §101 rejection was withdrawn after review by the SPE and a Quality Assurance Specialist, which means the eligibility decision was not the examiner's alone.

Argument pattern matrix

Which eligibility moves appear where.

✓ Clearly present◐ Present, outcome link unclear— Not observed
Argument type13/414,99517/373,848
§101 practical application (Step 2A Prong Two)✓✓
Specific data-structure amendment—✓
Ordered end-to-end transaction sequence✓—
Benefit argument (security, time saved) — expressly rejected◐—
Interview agreement recorded before filing—✓
§101 withdrawn after SPE / Quality Assurance review—✓
Allowance reasons framed in prior-art terms✓✓

Top allowance-associated §101 arguments

Specificity in the data, not in the rhetoric.

01STRONG ASSOCIATION

A first and second data structure, and the mapping between them

App. 17/373,848Rejection: §101 organizing human activityAllowed 2022-03-10

Applicant amended claims 1, 10 and 16 away from generic insurance policy application processing and toward a data-structure transformation architecture, arguing this was an automated computer process solving a technical data-collection and storage problem rather than organizing human activity.

Amended claim language

“creating a first data structure” including attribute-value pairs, dependencies and hierarchical links; “for at least one attribute-value pair with a numerical value, generating a linked list that stores a first number of attribute-value pairs with a dependency on said attribute-value pair … wherein said first number is equal to said numerical value”; and “populating the second data structure by mapping data from the first data structure … based on the format of the second data structure, wherein said mapping includes converting one or more values.”

Why it ranks first. The Notice of Allowability expressly identifies the reason for allowance as the very specific first and second data structures and mapping, not found in the prior art, and states the §101 rejection was withdrawn after eligibility review. The applicant response also reports an interview agreement that the proposed amendments would overcome §101 if made.

Caveat. The Notice frames its reasons in prior-art terms while separately stating that §101 was withdrawn after SPE and Quality Assurance review. It does not provide a written eligibility analysis adopting the applicant's arguments.

02MODERATE–STRONG

Practical application, but anchored to those same structures

App. 17/373,848Rejection: same §101 rejectionArgued under the 2019 Revised Guidance

Applicant argued eligibility at Step 2A on the ground that the claim as a whole integrated any abstract idea into a practical application: a technical solution for collecting, storing and reusing insurance-related data. The argument was tied to the amended limitations rather than to field-of-use automation.

Why it ranks second, not first. The allowance document's express reason is the specific data structures and mapping, not the DDR, Enfish, Diehr, Bascom or Amdocs framing. The record supports the sequence — amendments proposed to overcome §101, interview agreement, withdrawal, allowance — without supporting the rhetoric on its own.

Caveat. Standing alone, the broad assertion that insurance application processing is necessarily rooted in computer technology would have been vulnerable. Do not state that the examiner adopted it.

03STRONG ON ALLOWANCE, WEAK ON §101

Pre-staged ATM transactions with OTP, timeout and clearing

App. 13/414,995Rejection: §101 financial transactions without significantly moreAllowed 2022-02-16

The Final Office Action rejected the applicant's practical-application argument outright, calling the security and time-saving advantages intrinsic to using known technology. What followed was an amendment that made the transaction flow concrete end to end.

Allowed claim language

“transmitting, by a backend host processor … a one-time password to a processor … of a mobile computing device of a user transparent to the user”; “activating … a wireless communication technology to communicate the pre-staged transaction data and the one-time password to a self-service financial transaction terminal processor … such that the user is not required to enter data on a user interface”; receipt “within a pre-determined securely transmit data time-out period”; and marking the transaction completed, clearing the pre-staged data, and making it unavailable for display.

Why it is here. The Final Office Action said the claims had overcome the prior art and may be allowable if amended to overcome §101. Claims 1–15, 17–22 and 25 were then allowed after examiner's amendments.

Caveat. The Notice's stated reason is prior-art non-obviousness after amendment. The §101 rejection disappears by allowance, but the eligibility rationale for withdrawal is never laid out.

The record

Full papers, then the report-only matters.

17/373,848Life insurance policy application processingNOTICE OF ALLOWANCE 2022-03-10
Rejection basis
§101 abstract idea: facilitating insurance policy application processing without significantly more. Non-Final Office Action dated 2021-11-03.
Applicant strategy
Amend the independent claims to recite specific first and second data structures with dependency and hierarchy encoding, linked-list generation keyed to numerical values, and conversion-based mapping. Argue Step 2A practical application on that footing.
Subject matter & field
Networked insurance application data processing: customer input, licensed-agent interaction, secure form transmission, ancillary document generation, health-questionnaire initiation.
Point of novelty
Not the insurance workflow, but the architecture for representing and transforming its data: dependency and hierarchy encoded attribute-value pairs, linked lists keyed to numerical values, and conversion-based mapping into a second format-specific structure.
Caveat

The §101 withdrawal followed review by the SPE and a Quality Assurance Specialist, so the eligibility outcome was not the examiner's decision alone.

13/414,995Mobile-assisted self-service financial transactionsNOTICE OF ALLOWANCE 2022-02-16
Rejection basis
§101 abstract idea of financial transactions without significantly more. Final Office Action dated 2021-08-19, which stated the claims had overcome the prior art.
Applicant strategy
Argued practical application through pre-staging on a mobile device, reduced time at the terminal and lower skimming risk. That argument was rejected. Allowance posture came from an amendment making the transaction flow concrete end to end.
Subject matter & field
Secure mobile and terminal transaction processing, particularly pre-staged ATM transactions.
Point of novelty
The end-to-end architecture: pre-stage on the device, receive and store an OTP transparently, transfer within a secure timeout, validate at the backend, dispense at the terminal, return a receipt, then mark, clear and hide the completed transaction.
Caveat

The Applicant Response file in this set is Power of Attorney material, not a substantive response. It provides the invention title and nothing else, so the amendment is read from the Notice of Allowability.

Report-only matters§101 rejection and later allowance recorded, but the applicant response is unavailable
ApplicationReported subject matterWhy less certain
16/883,795Transaction fraud detection without significantly more; later allowedApplicant response unavailable; no argument or amendment strategy extractable
12/343,837Issuing bank inserting a program identifier and authentication message from a transaction data message into a billing record; prosecution reopened after appealResponse and Notice unavailable in the shared set
10/970,624Abstract idea of analyzing records; later allowedExcerpts too truncated to identify the strategy or point of novelty

Practice signals

What JR3 carries into your draft.

01

Claim the data structure, not the business domain. Insurance application processing was abstract; attribute-value pairs with dependencies, hierarchical links and conversion-based mapping were not.

02

The case-law framing is scaffolding, not the argument. Both matters here turned on amended limitations; neither Notice adopts the DDR or Enfish narrative.

03

Benefit arguments have been rejected here as intrinsic to known technology. Security, speed and convenience did not move 13/414,995; the claimed sequence did.

04

Get the amendment agreed at interview. In 17/373,848 the response records an interview agreement that the proposed amendments would overcome §101 if made.

05

Expect eligibility review above the examiner. A withdrawal here went through the SPE and Quality Assurance, so write for that reader too.

Source documents

Eight files, read in full.

17/373,848Non-Final Office Action 2021-11-03Applicant ResponseNotice of Allowance 2022-03-10Highlight Excerpts
13/414,995Final Office Action 2021-08-19Applicant Response (Power of Attorney)Notice of Allowance 2022-02-16Highlight Excerpts

Also in the set: Argument Analysis Report covering applications 10/970,624; 17/373,848; 16/883,795; 13/414,995 and 12/343,837.

Draft your Pollock 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.