Chad Jeffrey. Timm et al.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardNov 1, 201914175075 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Nov. 1, 2019) 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. 14/175,075 02/07/2014 Chad Jeffrey TIMM ORA140232 (O-308) 5665 51444 7590 11/01/2019 Kraguljac Law Group/Oracle 4700 Rockside Road Summit One, Suite 510 Independence, OH 44131 EXAMINER ZARE, SCOTT A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3649 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/01/2019 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): DDay@KragLaw.com MPusti@KragLaw.com PTOMail@KragLaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHAD JEFFREY TIMM, AMY JANE SELBY, VAIBHAV DIKSHIT, and PANKAJ BISEN Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 Technology Center 3600 Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, PHILIP J. HOFFMANN, and BRADLEY B. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judges. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 10–202 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to a judicial exception without significantly more. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as “Oracle International Corporation.” Appeal Br. 2. 2 Claims 1–9 have been withdrawn from consideration. See id. at 37–39 (Claims Appendix). Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Appellant’s claimed invention relates to a system and method “that provide an indicator that makes an item identifiable within an operational system as either intentionally or incidentally ranged to a given location.” Spec. ¶ 13. Independent claim 15, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 15. A computer-implemented method performed by a computing device, where the computing device includes at least a processor for executing instructions from a memory, the method comprising: identifying, by at least the processor, a transaction associated with importing an item to a location using at least one interface of a retail merchandising system, where the item has an indicator that is not set based upon a range relationship not having been established between the item and the location, wherein the range relationship is indicative of whether the item has been ranged to the location; determining, by at least the processor, that the transaction has been labeled with a label of incidental or intentional; responsive to determining that the transaction has been labeled with a label of incidental, by at least the processor, setting a value for the indicator of the item to incidental; responsive to determining that the transaction has been labeled with a label of intentional, by at least the processor, setting the value for the indicator of the item to intentional; storing, by at least the processor, the value in electronic storage in association with the item; identifying, by at least the processor, a second transaction associated with importing the item to the location using at least one interface of the retail merchandising system; responsive to identifying the second transaction, by at least the processor, identifying the value in the electronic storage in association with the item; Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 3 determining, by at least the processor, that the range relationship has been established between the item and the location based upon the value identified in the electronic storage in association with the item; and determining, by at least the processor, that the second transaction is incidental or intentional based upon the range relationship, which eliminates having to analyze a label of the second transaction to determine whether the second transaction is incidental or intentional. Appeal Br. 41–43 (Claims Appendix). OPINION An invention is patent-eligible if it claims a “new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” 35 U.S.C. § 101. However, the Supreme Court has long interpreted 35 U.S.C. § 101 to include implicit exceptions: “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas” are not patentable. E.g., Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 216 (2014). In determining whether a claim falls within an excluded category, we are guided by the Supreme Court’s two-step framework, described in Mayo and Alice. Id. at 217–18 (citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 75–77 (2012)). In accordance with that framework, we first determine what concept the claim is “directed to.” See Alice, 573 U.S. at 219 (“On their face, the claims before us are drawn to the concept of intermediated settlement, i.e., the use of a third party to mitigate settlement risk.”); see also Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 611 (2010) (“Claims 1 and 4 in petitioners’ application explain the basic concept of hedging, or protecting against risk.”). Concepts determined to be abstract ideas, and thus patent ineligible, include certain methods of organizing human activity, such as fundamental Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 4 economic practices (Alice, 573 U.S. at 219–20; Bilski, 561 U.S. at 611); mathematical formulas (Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 594–95 (1978)); and mental processes (Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 69 (1972)). Concepts determined to be patent eligible include physical and chemical processes, such as “molding rubber products” (Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 191 (1981)); “tanning, dyeing, making water-proof cloth, vulcanizing India rubber, smelting ores” (id. at 182 n.7 (quoting Corning v. Burden, 56 U.S. 252, 267–68 (1854))); and manufacturing flour (Benson, 409 U.S. at 69 (citing Cochrane v. Deener, 94 U.S. 780, 785 (1876))). In Diehr, the claim at issue recited a mathematical formula, but the Supreme Court held that “[a] claim drawn to subject matter otherwise statutory does not become nonstatutory simply because it uses a mathematical formula.” Diehr, 450 U.S. at 187; see also id. at 191 (“We view respondents’ claims as nothing more than a process for molding rubber products and not as an attempt to patent a mathematical formula.”). Having said that, the Supreme Court also indicated that a claim “seeking patent protection for that formula in the abstract . . . is not accorded the protection of our patent laws, . . . and this principle cannot be circumvented by attempting to limit the use of the formula to a particular technological environment.” Id. (citing Benson and Flook); see, e.g., id. at 187 (“It is now commonplace that an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection.”). If the claim is “directed to” an abstract idea, we turn to the second step of the Alice and Mayo framework, where “we must examine the elements of the claim to determine whether it contains an ‘inventive concept’ sufficient to ‘transform’ the claimed abstract idea into a patent- Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 5 eligible application.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 221 (quotation marks omitted). “A claim that recites an abstract idea must include ‘additional features’ to ensure ‘that the [claim] is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the [abstract idea].’” Id. (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 77). “[M]erely requir[ing] generic computer implementation[] fail[s] to transform that abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.” Id. The PTO recently published revised guidance on the application of § 101. 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019) (“Guidance”). Under the Guidance, we first look to whether the claim recites: (1) any judicial exceptions, including certain groupings of abstract ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human activity such as a fundamental economic practice, or mental processes); and (2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application (see Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (“MPEP”) § 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h)). Only if a claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not integrate that exception into a practical application, do we then look to whether the claim: (3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that is not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in the field (see MPEP § 2106.05(d)); or (4) simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception. See Guidance. The Examiner found “the claims are merely directed to a set of rules to set [a] value,” and that “the series of steps covered by the claims could all be performed manually by a human (see Specification, ¶¶ 0050-0052), and without the use of a computer.” Final Act. 5–6. Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 6 Appellant argues: the claims provide steps that could not be implemented as a manual process. For example, claim 15 provides for identifying a transaction associated with importing an item at an interface of a retail merchandising system (e.g., a Point of Sale (POS) interface), setting a value for an indicator of the item, storing the value in electronic storage, identifying a second transaction associated with importing the item at an interface of the retail merchandising system (e.g., a second POS interface), and determining a status of the second transaction based upon the set value. Appeal Br. 18–19. We agree with the Examiner. Independent claim 15 recites a first step of “identifying . . . a transaction . . . where the item has an indicator that is not set based upon a range relationship not having been established between the item and the location,” which can be accomplished mentally by a person observing a transaction record and evaluating it. Next, the claim recites “determining” whether a transaction has been labeled as “incidental or intentional.” This step also can be done mentally by a person evaluating the data. Next in the claim, a value is set, which is an update of data, and stored. The storage of data is an output step of recording the result of the determination. Output steps are generally considered as insignificant extra- solution activity. See MPEP § 2106.05(g). Next, the claim calls for “identifying . . . a second transaction associated with importing the item,”3 and “identifying the value . . . in 3 We interpret “the item” to be a second item of the same type of fungible good as the first item, rather than a second transaction requiring the exact same item as the item in the first transaction. See Spec. ¶ 15 (“The system will maintain the value of the stored indicator so that the value for a Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 7 association with the item.” The identifying can be done by mentally observing and evaluating the item record and stored values. Finally, the claim recites “determining. . . that the range relationship has been established between the item and the location based upon the value identified . . . ; and determining . . . that the second transaction is incidental or intentional based upon the range relationship.” This determining can be done mentally by observing and evaluating the stored data values. Thus every step in the process, except for the required “by at least the [computer] processor,” “interface,” and “electronic storage,” can be performed mentally, through observation, evaluation, and making judgments. Guidance, 52. Claim 15, therefore, is directed to an abstract mental process under Prong One of Revised Step 2A of the Guidance. Id.; see also MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A)4. This conclusion is consistent with the description of the method in the Specification, which describes several manually-performed aspects of the method. For example, the “value of the indicator may also be set manually by a user interacting with the operational system.” Spec. ¶ 14. The stored value “indicator reduces the necessity of manual comparison and research that has to be conducted day to day in order to determine whether items at a retail location belong in the retail location's assortment,” but this comparison subsequent item is set with the same value as earlier received instances of that item at the location.”) (emphasis added). 4 Claim 15 is also describing keeping track of data values about retail merchandise inventory, which is part of normal sales activities, and thus a method of organizing human activity. MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(II)(B). Further, it is a method of tracking or organizing information as another example of a method of organizing human activity. MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(II)(D). Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 8 and research could be performed manually. Id. ¶ 16. “Figure 3 illustrates another embodiment of a method that sets a value for an indicator based on a user manually confirming or changing the indicator’s value.” Id. ¶ 26. Further, “a user can manually change a value of the indicator.” Id. ¶ 36. Setting aside for now the recited elements in independent system claim 10, “a processor connected to a memory,” “logic executable by the processor,” and electronic storage, claim 10 recites steps that are substantially similar to claim 15. The same steps can also be performed mentally, for the same reasons as the corresponding steps in claim 15. Thus claim 10 is also directed to an abstract idea, for the same reasons as claim 15. Turning to Prong Two of Revised Step 2A of the Guidance, we determine if the claim is integrated into a practical application of the abstract idea. Here, claim 15 recites steps that identify, determine, set, and store data values. The method does not improve the underlying “processor,” recited as performing the limitations of claim 15, and the only “additional element” outside the abstract idea, because any computer can be used to execute the claimed method. See Spec. ¶¶ 46–47. In addition, the method is directed to “provid[ing] an indicator that makes an item identifiable within an operational system as either intentionally or incidentally ranged to a given location” (Spec. ¶ 13), and as such the claimed method does not improve another technology. Guidance, 55; see also MPEP § 2106.05(a). Because a particular computer is not required, the claim also does not define or rely on a “particular machine.” Id.; see also MPEP § 2106.05(b). Further, the method does not transform matter. Id.; see also MPEP § § 2106.05(c). Instead, the claim identifies data, makes determinations from the data, sets data values, stores data values, and uses stored data values to make Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 9 determinations about subsequent transactions. As such, the method has no other meaningful limitations (MPEP § 2106.05(e)), and thus merely recites instructions to execute the abstract idea on a computer (MPEP § 2106.05(f)). Guidance, 55. Therefore, we determine that claim 15 does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. The analysis is the same for independent claim 10, because the processor, electronic storage, and executable logic recited in the claim, “additional elements” beyond the identified abstract mental process, fail to integrate claim 10 with a practical application, for the same reasons as for claim 15. The dependent claims are also abstract ideas that do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, for largely the same reasons as the independent claims. Claims 11 and 18 prompt a user and update a data value. Claims 12 and 20 either establish, or create, an abstract “range relationship” in data values. Claim 13 identifies and removed data, and performs “analysis.” Claim 14 receives a request and performs “analysis.” Claim 16 maintains a data value under one condition. Claim 17 prompts a user and maintains a data value when a user confirms a value. Claim 19 compares data to make a determination. All these claims recite process steps that can be performed mentally by a human, and do not recite “additional elements,” outside the abstract idea, that transform the system or method into a practical application. Thus, under Prong Two of Revised Step 2A of the Guidance, none of the claims integrate the abstract ideas into a practical application. Under Step 2B of the Guidance, claims are analyzed to “evaluate the additional elements individually and in combination under Step 2B to Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 10 determine whether they provide an inventive concept (i.e., whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the exception itself).” Guidance, 56. In order to accomplish this, we determine whether an additional element or combination of elements: • Adds a specific limitation or combination of limitations that are not well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field, which is indicative that an inventive concept may be present; or • simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception, which is indicative that an inventive concept may not be present. Id. Considering the computer processor, interface, electronic storage, and logic that we previously set aside as “additional elements” beyond the abstract idea, we find they are general-purpose computer elements performing basic data entry, data storage, data comparison, and data retrieval functions that any general purpose computer can perform. The Specification provides ample support for this conclusion. For example, the claimed “processor 802 may be a variety of various processors including dual microprocessor and other multi-processor architectures.” Spec. ¶ 50. The storage “may be, for example, a magnetic disk drive, a solid state disk drive, a floppy disk drive, a tape drive, a Zip drive, a flash memory card, a memory stick, and so on.” Id. ¶ 51. “The computer 800 may interact with input/output devices via the i/o interfaces 818 and the input/output ports 810. Input/output devices may be, for example, a keyboard, a microphone, a pointing and selection device, cameras, video cards, displays, the disk 806, the network devices 820, and so on.” Id. ¶52. “Networks with which the computer 800 may interact include, but are not limited to, a LAN, a WAN, and other networks.” Id. ¶ 53. “‘Logic’, as used herein, includes a Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 11 computer or electrical hardware component(s), firmware, a non-transitory computer storage medium that stores instructions, and/or combinations of these components configured to perform a function(s) or an action(s), and/or to cause a function or action from another logic, method, and/or system.” Id. ¶ 59. Further, “interfaces 401-403 are operably connected to the indicator apparatus 410 to support computer communication between the indicator apparatus 410 and the interfaces 401-403.” Id. ¶ 30. The operations of storing, analyzing, receiving, and writing data are primitive computer operations found in any computer system. See In re Katz Interactive Call Processing Patent Litig., 639 F.3d 1303, 1316 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“Absent a possible narrower construction of the terms ‘processing,’ ‘receiving,’ and ‘storing,’ discussed below, those functions can be achieved by any general purpose computer without special programming.”). Also see Inventor Holdings, LLC v. Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc., 876 F.3d 1372, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (holding that considering claims reciting data retrieval, analysis, modification, generation, display, and transmission as an “ordered combination” reveals that they “amount to ‘nothing significantly more’ than an instruction to apply [an] abstract idea” using generic computer technology). The additional elements recited in the claims, beyond the abstract mental processes, are thus well-understood, routine, and conventional elements performing well-understood, routine, and conventional functions. We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the elements of the claims “are not abstract,” because they are directed to improving a technological process of storing, in electronic storage, a value for an item that is imported with an interface of a retail merchandising system, and using the stored Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 12 value to determine a relationship of another instance of the item imported using an interface of the retail merchandising system. Appeal Br. 12. Storing data, as claimed, uses conventional methods to store data, and the claims thus do not improve the technological process of storing data. The determination is a mental process. We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s argument that “the Examiner provided an unsupported conclusion that the present invention did not constitute an improvement.” Appeal Br. 15. In actuality, as Appellant notes, the Examiner finds the claims “are not directed to an ‘improvement to computer technology,’ . . . but to the abstract idea itself.” Id. (emphasis added). Our analysis, above, results in the same, that general-purpose computers are used in conventional ways to perform well-understood, routine, and conventional functions on data, merely using the computers as tools to implement the abstract ideas. The claims, therefore, do not represent an improvement to computers. The improvement Appellant advances is actually part of the abstract idea itself. Even unconventional abstract ideas are still unpatentable. See SAP America, Inc. v. Investpic, LLC, 890 F.3d 1016, 1018 (Fed. Cir. 2018). “What is needed is an inventive concept in the non-abstract application realm.” SAP Am., Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1168 (Fed. Cir. 2018). Appellant further argues “like McR[O], the present claims are improvements in computer-related technology, and therefore are not directed to an abstract idea.” Appeal Br. 17. We disagree with Appellant. Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 13 In McRO5, the Federal Circuit addressed claims directed to “[a] method for automatically animating lip synchronization and facial expression of three-dimensional characters” McRO, 837 F.3d at 1307. The court reviewed the specification of the patent at issue and found that, rather than invoking the computer merely as a tool, “[c]laim 1 of the [asserted] patent is focused on a specific asserted improvement in computer animation.” Id. at 1314. The court found that the plain focus of the claim was on an improvement to computer functionality itself, not on economic or other tasks for which a computer is used in its ordinary capacity. Unlike McRO, which focused on a specific means or method that improved the relevant technology, claims 10 and 15 here are not improving any computer technology. Instead, the claims focus on using generic computer operations, in which a computer is used in its ordinary capacity, for receiving, examining, storing, comparing, and determining data about an inventory items, using a generic graphic user interface of a general-purpose computer system. Appellant argues that “claims 10 and 15 do not merely use a generic computer to perform what a person would otherwise do by hand, but instead, use an unconventional combination of data from different data sources similar to the patent eligible claims in Thales Visionix.” Appeal Br. 18. Appellant’s reliance on Thales is misplaced. In Thales Visionix Inc. v. United States, 850 F.3d 1343 (Fed. Cir. 2017) the Federal Circuit held the claims were not directed to an abstract idea under Alice step one because the “claims specify a particular configuration of inertial sensors and a particular 5 McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am. Inc., 837 F.3d 1299 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (hereinafter “McRO”). Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 14 method of using the raw data from the sensors in order to more accurately calculate the position and orientation of an object on a moving platform.” Id. at 1349. The claims here use data from user input, inventory transactions, and stored data, which do not represent non-conventional sources of data in commercial operations, and do not attempt to improve the sensors from which data is sourced, while merely utilizing general-purpose computers as a tool to implement an abstract mental process. We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that claims 10 and 15 recite “something more” than an abstract idea, because “claims 10 and 15 contain an ‘inventive concept’ in [their] ordered combination of limitations that are not found in the prior art.” Appeal Br. 20. A novel and nonobvious claim directed to a purely abstract idea is, nonetheless, patent-ineligible. See Mayo, 566 U.S. at 90. Appellant next argues “the claims use a non-conventional combination of elements that improve a technological process similar to the claims in Bascom and is patent-eligible.” Appeal Br. 22. Contrary to Appellant’s argument, we disagree that the claims are patent-eligible in view of Bascom6. In Bascom, the Federal Circuit held that “[t]he inventive concept described and claimed in the '606 patent is the installation of a filtering tool at a specific location, remote from the end-users, with customizable filtering features specific to each end user.” Bascom, 827 F.3d at 1350. The court explained that the remote location of a filtering tool having customizable user-specific filtering features provides the filtering tool both the benefits of a filter on a local computer and the benefits of a 6 Bascom Global Internet Servs., Inc. v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 15 filter on the ISP server, which is a technical improvement over prior art ways of filtering content. Id. at 1350–51. Here, Appellant has not demonstrated any particular arrangement in the claim as providing an inventive concept parallel to Bascom in claiming a technology-based solution. Instead, the claimed system and method merely identify and store a data field representing whether an item belongs in inventory or not. That way, when another item of the same type is encountered, especially one that does not belong in the local inventory, one can just look up whether it belongs, without having to look through all the inventory records to see if the new item is already there or not. This is similar to looking up the price of an item, rather than having to set a price, through a pricing algorithm, each time an item is sold. Thus, rather than being a technology-based solution, the claimed system and method merely propose to keep track of an additional element of data that can be referred to later, to save time and effort, much as is the purpose of many business records commonly kept on inventory items. Appellant argues “The claimed elements as a whole recite steps that are not ‘well-understood, routine, and conventional.’ based on the recent Federal Circuit decision in Berkheimer v. HP, the Examiner has not supplied the appropriate evidence to support a conclusion that the claim elements are ‘well-understood, routine, and conventional.’” Appeal Br. 23 (emphasis omitted); see also Reply Br. 2–7. Appellant misunderstands the application of Berkheimer, which does not require the claim as a whole to be demonstrated, with evidence, as being not well-understood, routine, and conventional to be considered non- abstract. Instead, the test is whether “additional elements,” beyond the abstract idea, are well-understood, routine, and conventional. Guidance, 56. Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 16 We determined, above, that the additional elements are the “processor” and other computer components, which are general purpose in nature and use, and thus well-understood, routine, and conventional. We are also unpersuaded by Appellant’s argument that “claims 10 and 15 are limited to a specific structure and/or process that does not preempt other approaches.” Appeal Br. 25. This is unpersuasive, because the “Supreme Court has made clear that the principle of preemption is the basis for the judicial exceptions to patentability” and “[f]or this reason, questions on preemption are inherent in and resolved by the § 101 analysis.” Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (citing Alice). Yet although “preemption may signal patent ineligible subject matter, the absence of complete preemption does not demonstrate patent eligibility.” Id. The remainder of Appellant’s arguments describe each case the Examiner cited as being similar to claims 10 and 15, and argue the claims of each case “have no similarities to the present claims.” Appeal Br. 25–36. These alleged case similarities and alleged lack of similarities are irrelevant, given the analysis advanced in this Decision. Appellant has not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claims as directed to abstract ideas. Thus, we sustain the rejection of claims 10–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. CONCLUSION The Examiner’s rejection is AFFIRMED. Appeal 2018-008712 Application 14/175,075 17 DECISION SUMMARY Claims Rejected Basis Affirmed Reversed 10–20 § 101 10–20 Overall Outcome 10–20 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 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation