Melyssa Barrett et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Oct 28, 2019

12616028 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Oct. 28, 2019)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
12/616,028 11/10/2009 Melyssa Barrett 79900-761719(045610US) 1720
66945 7590 10/28/2019
KILPATRICK TOWNSEND & STOCKTON LLP/VISA
Mailstop: IP Docketing - 22
1100 Peachtree Street
Suite 2800
Atlanta, GA 30309
EXAMINER
DAVANLOU, SOHEILA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2153
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/28/2019 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
KTSDocketing2@kilpatrick.foundationip.com
ipefiling@kilpatricktownsend.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MELYSSA BARRETT, JOE SCOTT,
NANCY HILGERS, and KEVIN SIEGEL
Appeal 2018-002810
Application 12/616,028
Technology Center 2100
Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, ERIC B. CHEN, and AMBER L. HAGY,
Administrative Patent Judges.
HAGY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–3, 5–8, 10, 14–19, and 21–24, which
are all of the pending claims. Final Act. 2; Appeal Br. 10. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37
C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Visa
International Services Association. Appeal Br. 3.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
According to Appellant, the claimed invention is directed to “methods
for providing aggregated user data.” Spec. ¶ 7. By way of background,
Appellant’s Specification describes various tools that exist for entities, such
as credit issuers, to make a “user inquiry,” in which the credit issuer
(“information requester”) requests “a risk assessment summary or a credit
score” of the user (e.g., an entity seeking credit). Id. ¶ 3. Appellant’s
Specification notes that such a risk assessment summary for a user is
“typically the same regardless of which information requester requested the
summary.” Id. ¶ 5. Appellant’s Specification further states that “[s]uch
standardization of risk assessment summaries and credit scores, while
providing consistent and concise metrics of risk, do[es] not allow for a
means to provide customized reports or analysis of the transaction level data
according to internal needs of each information request[er].” Id.
Purportedly to improve upon “conventional risk assessment systems
and methods” and to allow for “providing aggregated user data,” Appellant’s
Specification describes and claims methods that
comprise[] receiving a plurality of different user inquiry
messages relating to a user from a plurality of information
requesters and assigning subkeys to each user inquiry
message[] at a transaction inquiry server. The plurality of user
inquiry messages are combined into a combined user inquiry
message using the transaction server. A super key may be
assigned to the combined user inquiry message and the super
key and the combined user inquiry message are sent from the
transaction server to one or more data sources. In some
embodiments, duplicate user data requests in the plurality of
user inquiry messages are deleted.
Id. ¶ 7.
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Claims 1, 8, and 17 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method for providing aggregated user data comprising:
receiving a plurality of user inquiry messages from a
plurality of information requesters at a transaction server;
assigning, by the transaction server after the plurality of
user inquiry messages have been received, subkeys to the user
inquiry messages, the subkeys being used to identify the
respective information requester of the user inquiry messages,
wherein the subkeys were not associated with the user inquiry
messages prior to being assigned by the transaction server;
determining, by the transaction server, that the plurality
of user inquiry messages each includes a request for
information relating to a same user;
deleting, by the transaction server, duplicate requests for
same information from the plurality of user inquiry messages;
combining, by the transaction server, the plurality of user
inquiry messages into a combined user inquiry message after
deleting the duplicate requests and before sending the combined
user inquiry message to one or more data sources;
assigning, by the transaction server after the plurality of
user inquiry messages have been received, a super key to the
combined user inquiry message to link the combined user
inquiry message to the user, wherein the super key was not
associated with the combined user inquiry message prior to
being assigned by the transaction server;
assigning, by the transaction server, the super key to each
of the subkeys to link the user inquiry messages to the
combined user inquiry message;
sending the super key assigned by the transaction server,
user identification information of the user, and the combined
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user inquiry message from the transaction server to the one or
more data sources;
receiving, by the transaction server, one or more response
files including the super key from the one or more data sources;
generating, by the transaction server, a plurality of user
inquiring response files based on the subkeys linked to the
super key received in the one or more response files; and
sending, by the transaction server, the plurality of user
inquiring responses to the plurality of information requesters
corresponding to the sub keys.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Graves et al. (“Graves”) US 6,785,675 B1 Aug. 31, 2004
Elberg et al. (“Elberg”)
Kawai et al. (“Kawai”)
Debie et al. (“Debie”)
US 2008/0046349 A1
US 2009/0164566 A1
US 2009/0319411 A1
Feb. 21, 2008
June 25, 2009
Dec. 24, 2009

REJECTIONS
Claims 1–3, 5–8, 10, 14–19,2 23, and 24 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Graves, Kawai, and Debie.
Claims 21 and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Graves, Kawai,3 Debie, and Elberg.

2 The Final Action also mentions claim 20 as rejected on this basis (Final
Act. 3), but claim 20 has been canceled (Appeal Br. 20 (Claims App’x)).
We deem the Examiner’s inclusion of claim 20 in this rejection to be an
inadvertent typographical error, which the Examiner appears to have
corrected in the Answer. See Ans. 3.
3 The Final Action does not specifically refer to Kawai in the rejection of
claims 21 and 22, but those claims are dependent on claim 6, which is
rejected over Graves, Kawai, and Debie. It appears the Examiner intended
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OPINION
We have considered Appellant’s arguments and contentions (Appeal
Br. 10–15; Reply Br. 1–6) in light of the Examiner’s findings and
explanations (Final Act. 3–30; Ans. 3–13). For the reasons set forth below,
we AFFIRM.
A. Claims 1–3, 6, 7, 10, 14–18, and 21–23
The Examiner relies on the combined disclosures of Graves, Kawai,
and Debie as teaching or suggesting the limitations of claim 1.4 Final Act.
3–10. The Examiner finds Graves teaches most of the limitations of claim 1
(id.), except for the limitations of “assigning . . . subkeys to the user inquiry
messages” and “[a]ssigning . . . a super key to the combined user message
inquiry,” for which the Examiner relies on the teachings of Kawai and Debie
in combination with Graves (id. at 4–5; Ans. 6–7) (emphasis omitted). The
Examiner also finds Graves does not teach “deleting . . . duplicate requests

to add Elberg to the rejection of the base claim to address the additional
limitation of the dependent claim, without removing Kawai. Our
assumption is borne out by Appellant’s argument, which considers the
Examiner’s rejection of claim 22 to be based on Graves in view of Kawai,
Debie, and Elberg. Appeal Br. 14. The Examiner’s Answer does expressly
refer to Graves, Kawai, Debie and Elberg in the rejection of claim 22.
Ans. 12. We, therefore, consider the Examiner’s omission of mention of
Kawai in the Final Action in the rejection of dependent claims 21 and 22 to
be an inadvertent error, which has not prejudiced Appellant.
4 Appellant argues the rejection of independent claims 8 and 17 collectively
with independent claim 1, and also argues that dependent claims 2, 3, 6, 7,
10, 14–16, 18, and 21–23 stand with their respective independent claims.
Appeal Br. 10. Therefore, based on Appellant’s arguments, we decide the
appeal of claims 1–3, 6–8, 10, 14–18, and 21–23 based on claim 1 alone.
See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
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for the same information,” for which the Examiner relies on Debie. Id. at 6–
7 (emphasis omitted).
Graves discloses aggregation of resource requests from multiple
individual requestors. Graves, at code (54). In particular, Graves discloses
“multiple independent requestors . . . generate multiple independent
requests,” which are received by a server that “sorts them into classes of
requests.” Id. at 1:62–2:1. The classes of requests “are capable of being
aggregated and processed as a single request by a resource management
system.” Id. at 2:1–3. “Parameters are identified from the individual
requests and used in the aggregated request.” Id. at 2:3–5. The system
receives the aggregated request, accesses the data resource (such as a
database management system), and provides the appropriate information
back to the individual requestors. Id. at 2:13–15. Graves discloses that
aggregating the individual requests “reduc[es] the load on the resource
management system” and “improv[es] overall system throughput.” Id. at
5:2–6.
Graves discloses that the requests may correspond to a “particular
class of requests,” such as a class “based on account name.” Id. at 3:24–26.
When independent requests are received, they may be aggregated based on
the parameters associated with the class such that a “single aggregated
request satisfies all the collected requests in the class in a single transaction
with the resource management system.” Id. at 6:52–55.
Thus, Graves teaches or suggests a transaction server performing the
fundamental request aggregation functionality recited in claim 1, including
receiving a plurality of user inquiry messages from a plurality of information
requesters (Graves 5:28–32 (“collecting independent requests . . . from
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multiple individual requesters”); determining that the plurality of user
inquiry messages each includes a request for information relating to a same
user (id. at 3:23–26 (aggregating requests according to class, wherein a class
may be a “query based on account name”); combining the plurality of user
inquiry messages into a combined user inquiry message (id. at 5:33–34
(“forming a single aggregated request”); receiving one or more response
files from the one or more data sources (id. at 5:39–40 (“receiving
aggregated request results”); generating a plurality of user inquiring
response files (id. at 5:40–41 (“matching the aggregated request results to
the independent and individual requests”); and sending the plurality of user
inquiring responses to the plurality of information requesters (id. at 5:42–45
(“sending corresponding independent request results to the individual
requesters”). See also Final Act. 3–10.
Appellant argues “[a]lthough Graves arguably describe[s] receiving
requests from different requesters for account balances of different accounts,
nothing in Graves indicate[s] that the accounts subject to the different
requests are accounts belonging to the same user.” Appeal Br. 11. We
disagree. Graves discloses, for example, that requests may correspond to
classes, such as a class “based on account name.” Graves, 3:24–26 (cited at
Final Act. 7). This disclosure is not limited to different accounts, but
logically includes accounts belonging to the same user. But even if Graves
did not teach or suggest this limitation, we note that the type of data being
sought (“user data”) is nonfunctional and thus not material to patentability.
In Ex parte Nehls, 88 USPQ2d 1883, 1888 (BPAI 2008) (precedential), the
Board held that the nature of the information being manipulated by the
computer should not be given patentable weight absent evidence that the
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information is functionally related to the process “by changing the efficiency
or accuracy or any other characteristic” of the steps. See also Ex parte
Curry, 84 USPQ2d 1272, 1274 (BPAI 2005) (non-precedential) (holding
“wellness-related” data stored in a database and communicated over a
network was non-functional descriptive material as claimed because the data
“does not functionally change” the system). Graves, as noted, teaches
aggregating multiple independent requests for information from the same
resource; this is the same functionality as claimed, regardless of whether the
information pertains to “user data” or some other data.
Although Graves discloses aggregating requests from multiple
individual requestors, obtaining information in response to an aggregated
request, and providing responsive information back to each individual
requestor, Graves does not disclose how it keeps track of the aggregated
request and its link to the individual requests. Thus, as the Examiner finds,
Graves does not disclose assigning intermediate labels, such as “subkeys” to
identify the individual requestors or a “super key” to identify the aggregated
request. See Final Act. 4. For that claimed functionality, the Examiner
relies on Kawai and Debie in combination with Graves. Id.; Ans. 5–7. In
particular, the Examiner finds Kawai discloses an information processing
system, in which “an information request sent from the requester terminal
via the network” is assigned “request identification information” and
establishes a “correspondence between the request identification information
and the requester information.” Kawai ¶ 36; Final Act. 4. Thus, as the
Examiner finds, and we agree, Kawai discloses identifying an information
request with information identifying the requester. We are not persuaded of
error in the Examiner’s finding that this disclosure, when combined with
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Graves, teaches or suggests “assigning . . . subkeys to the user inquiry
messages, the subkeys being used to identify the respective information
requester of the user inquiry messages,” as recited in claim 1. Final Act. 4;
see also Ans. 4.
In response, Appellant argues that Kawai does not describe “that the
information being requested by different requesters relate[s] to the same
user.” Reply Br. Br. 2 (emphasis added). We do not find this argument
persuasive for the reasons discussed above—namely, we find this
functionality is taught or suggested by Graves, but even if it is not, the type
of information being sought in the context of these claims is nonfunctional
and thus is not material to patentability.
With regard to the claimed “super key,” which is assigned to the
combined user inquiry message, the Examiner finds Kawai discloses a data
ID, which the Examiner notes is described in Kawai as “information
identifying data, and the content of the corresponding data itself.” Final Act.
5 (citing Kawai ¶ 297). The Examiner then finds the following:
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at
the time the invention[,] to include Kawai’s method for
assigning subkeys for identifying information requesters and
super keys to the user inquiry message after the plurality of user
inquiry messages have been received, to identify user inquiry
message into Grave’s method for processing multiple inquiries
as taught in Kawai’s method. The motivation to modify is to
process multiple transactions and deliver the information
request to a corresponding data processing requesters.
Final Act. 5.
With regard to the claimed “super key,” the Examiner also relies on
Debie, finding
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Debie teaches assigning, by the transaction server after the
plurality of user inquiry messages have been received, a super
key [PII] to the combined user inquiry message to link the
combined user inquiry message to the user, wherein the super
key was not associated with the combined user inquiry message
prior to being assigned by the transaction server.

Ans. 6–7 (bracketed material added by Examiner, where “PII” references
“personally identifiable information” (Debie ¶ 34) (emphasis omitted)).
Debie discloses a consumer providing “personally identifiable information
(‘PII’), which is then transmitted to an “integration device” with a request to
gather financial information related to that consumer from multiple sources,
such as “banks, lenders, brokerage firms, credit card companies, and other
entities.” Debie, ¶¶ 34, 36. The Examiner finds
the combination of Kawai and Debie teaches assigning, by the
transaction server after the plurality of user inquiry messages
have been received, a super key (combined data IDs or PII) to
the combined user inquiry message to link the combined user
inquiry message to the user, wherein the super key was not
associated with the combined user inquiry message prior to
being assigned by the transaction server.
Ans. 7.
Appellant argues the Examiner’s finding is in error because “the data
ID in Kawai merely identifies data content that is being requested,” and
“does not link the combined user inquiry message to the user.” Appeal Br.
11. We are not persuaded by this argument. First, the Examiner combines
the teachings of Graves, Kawai, and Debie to result in a teaching of
assigning subkeys to link requestors with the information being sought and
assigning a super key to an aggregated inquiry. Ans. 6–7. Thus, Appellant’s
argument against Kawai individually from Graves and Debie does not
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persuasively rebut the combination made by the Examiner. One cannot
show non-obviousness by attacking references individually, where the
rejections are based on combinations of references. In re Merck & Co., Inc.,
800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986); In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425–26
(CCPA 1981).
Second, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s findings
based on the combined teachings. As we note above, Graves discloses
receiving multiple independent inquiries, creating an aggregated request to
gather responsive data for all of the inquiries, matching aggregated request
results to the independent and individual requests, and sending the results to
the requestors (see, e.g., Graves, 5:26–45), but is not specific in terms of
how the server keeps track of the individual requests and their link to the
aggregated request. Kawai discloses linking information requests with
requestor identification (Kawai ¶ 36) and using labels to identify data
(Kawai ¶ 297, data ID). And Debie teaches using PII to identify a request
for information regarding multiple accounts for the same user. Debie ¶¶ 34–
36. We are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s finding that the
ordinarily skilled artisan would have been motivated to use an identifier (the
data ID as taught by Kawai combined with PII as disclosed by Debie) as a
“super key” to identify an aggregated request (as taught by Graves) to keep
track of the request and link it to particular data being sought. See Final Act.
5; see also Ans. 5–7.
In the Reply, Appellant reiterates that Kawai’s data ID does not teach
the claimed super key. Reply Br. 3. We are, again, not persuaded by this
argument, as it does not address the Examiner’s findings regarding the
combined teachings of the references, including Graves. For similar
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reasons, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that Debie’s PII does
not correspond to the claimed super key because Debie does not describe the
server assigning the PII to a combined user inquiry message. Id. Thus, we
are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s finding that an ordinarily
skilled artisan would have applied the teachings of Kawai and Debie to use
identifiers (such as Kawai’s data ID and Debie’s PII) to identify the
information requested in Grave’s aggregated query, which, in combination,
teaches or suggests the claimed “super key” that is assigned to the
“combined user inquiry message to link the combined user inquiry message
to the user,” as recited in claim 1.
Appellant also argues the Examiner’s rejection is in error because the
prior art does not disclose “assigning . . . the super key to each of the
subkeys to link the user inquiry messages to the combined user inquiry
message.” Appeal Br. 12 (emphasis omitted). We disagree. The Examiner
finds, with reference to Figure 2 of Graves:
Grave teaches . . . incoming requests 210, 212, 214 and 216 are
mapped to a group of methods 220 of the resource access layer.
Each method A 224 and method B 226 correspond to a
particular class of requests. A class may be a query based on
account name. In general, a class is a set of requests that can be
converted into an aggregate request that resource 120 can
handle.
Ans. 8 (citing Graves 3:23–29 and Fig. 2); see also id. (citing Graves 4:13–
16 (“[M]ultiple requests for balances on different accounts are aggregated
and sent to the database. A response is received and sent back to original
requesters.”)). Thus, the Examiner finds
the combination of Graves, Kawai and Debie teaches assigning,
by the transaction server, the super key [e.g. combined Data
ID/PII] and multiple requests are aggregated [e.g. based on
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class/subkeys] and send back to original requesters [e.g.
information identifying requesters/subkeys]. Therefore Grave
as modified by Kawai and Debie teaches the method of claim 1.
Ans. 8 (bracketed information supplied by Examiner).
We are not persuaded of error by Appellant’s argument in Reply that
Graves does not teach the claimed super key, so it cannot teach assigning the
super key to anything. Reply Br. 4. The Examiner’s findings regarding the
claimed super key are based on combining Graves (which teaches an
aggregated query formulated from individual queries) with Kawai and Debie
(which teach identifiers for requestors and data), and Appellant does not
address these combined teachings. Underlying the Examiner’s findings is
that the system of Graves must keep track of the individual queries that are
aggregated so it can match the aggregated request results to the independent
and individual requests. See Graves 5:40–41; see Ans. 8. As we note above,
the Examiner finds the teaching of using identifiers is supplied by the
combination of Kawai’s data ID and Debie’s PII, and the ordinarily skilled
artisan would have been motivated to use such identifiers in Graves. Ans. 8.
Therefore, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s finding that the
combination of these references teaches or suggests “assigning . . . the super
key to each of the subkeys to link the user inquiry messages to the combined
user inquiry message.”
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of error in the
Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
over Graves, Kawai, and Debie, and we, therefore, sustain that rejection,
along with the rejection of claims 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14–18, and 21–23 argued
collectively with claim 1.
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B. Claim 5, 19, 22, and 24
Claim 5 depends indirectly from claim 1 (via claim 3), and further
recites “assigning the super key to the accounts of the user.” Appellant
argues the Examiner has failed to show how the cited art teaches this
limitation, because “neither the data ID of Kawai or the PII of Debie
corresponds to the claimed super key.” Reply Br. 4; see also Appeal Br. 10.
We are not persuaded of error. As we note above, the Examiner’s rejection
is based not just on Kawai or Debie individually, but on the combination of
Kawai and Debie with Graves. Final Act. 11. Appellant’s argument does
not address the combined teachings. As we also note above, we are not
persuaded of error in the Examiner’s finding that the combined disclosures
of the prior art teach or suggest the claimed super key. The Examiner
additionally finds that the combined teachings include Debie’s disclosure of
integrated financial account information for the same consumer. Id. (citing
Debie ¶¶ 34–35). As noted above, Debie’s PII is used as part of a request
for gathering information across multiple accounts of the consumer (i.e., the
claimed “user”). See Debie ¶ 36. As further noted above, Graves discloses
aggregating requests based on class, in which a class may be a query based
on account name. Graves 3:25–26. Thus, we are not persuaded of error in
the Examiner’s finding that the combined disclosures of the prior art also
teach or suggest assigning the super key to the accounts of the user, as
recited in claim 5.
Claim 19 depends from claim 17 and recites “wherein the account
data includes raw transaction level data comprising an issuer identifier for an
issuer of an account, a merchant identifier, a date of an account transaction,
a location of an account transaction, and a transaction type identifier.” The
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Examiner finds Graves as modified by Debie teaches this limitation. Final
Act. 26 (citing Debie Fig. 5). Appellant argues the Examiner’s finding is in
error because “the date[] shown in FIG. 5 of Debie is not the date of an
account transaction, but is instead merely the monthly status of an account.”
Appeal Br. 14. Appellant further argues “FIG. 5 of Debie also does not
appear to show a location of an account transaction or a transaction type
identifier.” Id. We are not persuaded of error because Appellant’s
arguments are premised on an overly narrow reading of Debie and are not
commensurate with the scope of the claims. First, with regard to the date,
the account summary as shown in Figure 5 of Debie shows the monthly
account status for several monthly accounts, such as credit cards, a car loan,
and a home mortgage. Account information indicating that an account paid
monthly account is current for each of the stated months indicates that a
payment was made in each of those months. A date of a transaction may be
indicated by a month and year, and claim 19 does not require anything more
detailed. As far as a transaction type identifier, Figure 5 of Debie shows
account detail for, inter alia, “Toyota Finance” and “ABC Mortgage.” Car
loans and home loans are types of transactions, and claim 19 does not
require anything more detailed. As far as location of an account transaction,
Figure 6 is similar to Figure 5, but also includes account detail for “Macy’s
credit card.” Providing account information for a Macy’s credit card
indicates a location for the transaction (Macy’s is a well-known department
store). Claim 19 does not require anything more detailed, such as the city,
state, or zip code of a particular Macy’s.
Claim 22 depends indirectly from claim 1 (via claim 6) and recites
“wherein the generated aggregated transaction level data includes a ratio of a
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first number of the accounts of the user used during a first time period to a
second number of accounts of the user used during a second time period.”
The Examiner finds this limitation is taught or suggested by the combination
of Graves with Debie and with an additional reference, Elberg. Final Act.
28. In particular, the Examiner finds Elberg discloses generating a report
file for a user in which the “user’s combined financial position from all of
the user’s accounts is displayed in a total net worth section 902.” Id. at 29
(citing Elberg ¶ 120). The Examiner finds:
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at
the time the invention[,] to include Elberg’s method for
aggregated transaction level data [that] includes a ratio of a first
number of the accounts of the user used during a first time
period to a second number of accounts of the user used during a
second time period into Grave[s] as modified’s method for
processing multiple inquiries as taught in Elberg’s method. The
motivation to modify is to provid[e] addition[al] and more
specific information for requesters about the users’ account
activity.
Id. at 30.
Appellant argues the Examiner’s findings are in error because Elberg
does not show or describe information relating to the specific ratio of
accounts recited in claim 22. Appeal Br. 14; Reply Br. 6. We are not
persuaded of error in the rejection. First, the Examiner finds such a ratio
would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled artisan in light of Elberg’s
teachings of aggregating financial information from all of a user’s accounts.
See Final Act. 29–30; Ans. 11–12; Elberg ¶¶ 120, 142. Appellant’s
argument to the contrary does not address the Examiner’s findings, but
amounts to conclusory attorney argument that the prior art does not teach the
recited limitation, which is entitled to little probative value. In re Geisler,
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116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In re De Blauwe, 736 F.2d 699, 705
(Fed. Cir. 1984). Second, Appellant does not persuasively explain how the
particular format of the claimed aggregated financial data (e.g., formatted as
the recited ratio) is material to patentability. In particular, Appellant does
not explain, and we do not see, how the content of the aggregated data (that
is, representing a ratio of some information over other information) should
be given patentable weight in the absence of evidence that the particular
format of the information is functionally related to the process such as “by
changing the efficiency or accuracy or any other characteristic” of the steps.
See Ex parte Nehls, 88 USPQ2d at 1888. Thus, even if Elberg did not
render the claimed format of aggregation obvious, we would not be
persuaded that claim 22 is patentable over the cited art.
Claim 24 depends indirectly from claim 1 (via claim 3) and recites
“providing, to the plurality of information requesters, a list of model
transaction aggregates that is used by the information requesters as a
template to form the at least one request for aggregated transaction level
data.” The Examiner finds Debie discloses a personal financial software
integration module, which formats detected account information “so that the
account information is usable by the particular personal finance software
that requested the account information.” Final Act. 27 (citing Debie ¶ 39).
The Examiner further finds:
As those of skill in the art will recognize, personal finance
software from different vendors may require different formats
for account information. Thus, the PFS integration module 150
formats and/or translates the account information into a data
stream format that is usable by the personal finance software
192 that is installed on the particular customer’s computing
Appeal 2018-002810
Application 12/616,028

18
device and/or to the personal finance software that is accessed
by the consumer’s web browser 196.
Id. Appellant argues the Examiner’s findings are in error because “Debie
does not describe providing any models to the personal finance software
such that the software can form its request for aggregate account
information.” Appeal Br. 15. In the Answer, the Examiner clarifies that
Debie’s PFS integration module formats and/or translates the account
information into a data stream format, e.g., “specific requesters templates,”
that is usable by the personal finance software. Ans. 12. Thus, the
Examiner finds Debie teaches or suggests providing the claimed model /
template because Debie’s integration module knows the proper format to
gather and to provide information usable by the personal finance software.
See id. We agree the Examiner’s findings are supported by Debie, which
discloses “determining one or more account data formats that are readable
by the personal finance software, [and] formatting information associated
with the detected one or more financial accounts into at least one of the
account data formats.” Debie ¶ 8.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of error in the
Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejections of dependent claims 5, 19, 22, and
24, and we, therefore, sustain those rejections.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejections of claims 1–3, 5–8, 10,
14–19 and 21–24 are AFFIRMED.

Appeal 2018-002810
Application 12/616,028

19
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Basis  Affirmed Reversed
1–3, 5–8,
10, 14–19,
23, and 24
103(a) Graves, Kawai,
Debie

1–3, 5–8,
10, 14–19,
23, and 24

21 and 22

103(a) Graves, Debie,
Kawai, Elberg 
21 and 22
OUTCOME SUMMARY 1–3, 5–8,
10, and
14–19 and
21–24

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED