Ex Parte Hu et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 30, 201713403577 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 30, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 13/403,577 02/23/2012 Po Hu P00759-US-UTIL 1544 98665 7590 01/31/2017 Otterstedt, Ellenbogen & Kammer, LLP P.0 Box 381 Cox Cob, CT 06807 EXAMINER HAMILTON, SARA CHANDLER ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3693 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/31/2017 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte PO HU and JEAN-PIERRE GERARD Appeal 2015-002845 Application 13/403,577 Technology Center 3600 Before: MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and MICHAEL W. KIM, Administrative Patent Judges. FISCHETTI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE1 Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1—5, 10—17, and 22—28. We AFFIRM. 1 The Appellants identify MasterCard Inf 1 Inc. as the real party in interest. (Appeal Br. 3). Appeal 2015-002845 Application 13/403,577 THE CLAIMED INVENTION Appellants’ claims relate generally to “a credit card profitability model, wherein transaction data is used to optimize credit line decrease decisions.” (Spec. 10,11. 19—20). Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method comprising the steps of: obtaining, by at least one hardware processor, electronic data from a payment processing network for a plurality of credit accounts for a first predetermined period of time; estimating, by said at least one hardware processor, a probability of default for each of said credit accounts from said data obtained from said payment processing network; calculating, by said at least one hardware processor, an expected profitability for each of said credit accounts based on said data obtained from said payment processing network, wherein said expected profitability for a respective one of said credit accounts is risk-weighted according to said estimated probability of default for said respective one of said credit accounts, and wherein a risk-weighted expected profitability is a value calculated as a difference between a current balance of said respective one of said credit accounts and a predicted value of one of a loss and a profit of said respective one of said credit accounts multiplied by said probability of default said respective one of said credit accounts; dividing, by said at least one hardware processor, said credit accounts using at least one cut-off selected based on said risk-weighted expected profitabilities of said credit accounts; and modifying, by said at least one hardware processor, a credit line accessible via the payment processing network and associated with at least one of the credit accounts based on said at least one cut-off. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: 2 Appeal 2015-002845 Application 13/403,577 Tanaka Carrier Brown Pednault US 7,941,363 B2 May 10,2011 US 8,078,529 B1 Dec. 13,2011 US 2004/0128236 A1 July 1,2004 US 2009/0030864 A1 Jan. 29, 2009 REJECTIONS The following rejections are before us for review. The Examiner rejected claims 1—5, 10-17, and 22—28 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as reciting ineligible subject matter. The Examiner rejected claims 25 and 26 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, as not meeting the written description requirement. The Examiner rejected claims 12 and 24—26 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as indefinite. The Examiner rejected claims 1—5, 12—17, 24, 25, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Brown and Tanaka. The Examiner rejected claims 10 and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Brown, Tanaka, and Carrier. The Examiner rejected claims 11, 23, 26, and 28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Brown, Tanaka, Carrier, and Pednault. We find the following facts by a preponderance of the evidence. 1. The Specification describes that “[a]s described above in connection with Equations 4-7 and FIG. 7, one or more embodiments determine the estimated probability of default for each of the accounts based on a discretization of the account-level data.” (Spec. 24,11. 23—25). 2. Appellants’ Figure 1 shows a diagram of a system, as shown below: FINDINGS OF FACT 3 Appeal 2015-002845 Application 13/403,577 JDO Appellants’ Figure 1 showing a system schematic. 3. Appellants’ Figure 7 discloses a graph, as shown below: Figure 7 showing a graph. 4. The Specification discloses, in conjunction with estimating account profitability, Equation 4, shown below: 4 Appeal 2015-002845 Application 13/403,577 pgr s ftp fc(x)tf1(x)t...f;(x) <4tx)-1n Pff > lW - Is fi« (X) * W ® *' " fl ® - Oj- x‘P (4) Where: u, are the cut-off points between the categories, and li(x) is the probability of being in class i given covariates a. Appellants’ Equation 4. (Spec. 1811. 14—25). 5. The Specification discloses Appellants’ Equation 5, as follows: Prob(dms Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation