Ex Parte Grady et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 13, 2017

14296098 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 13, 2017)

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.
14/296,098 06/04/2014 James Grady 62/1719US(l) 4354
22822 7590 10/17/2017
LEWIS RICE LLC
ATTN: BOX IP DEPT.
600 Washington Ave.
Suite 2500
ST LOUIS, MO 63101
EXAMINER
NGUYEN, TRAN N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3686
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/17/2017 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):
IPDEPT@LEWISRICE.COM
KDAMMAN@LEWISRICE.COM
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JAMES GRADY, DAVID CHRISTENSON,
and ROBERT UECKER
Appeal 2016-005127
Application 14/296,098
Technology Center 3600
Before NINA L. MEDLOCK, AMEE A. SHAH, and
ALYSSA A. FINAMORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
SHAH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL1
The Appellants2 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final decision rejecting claims 1—12. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b). The Appellants’ representative appeared for oral hearing in this
appeal on September 19, 2017 (“Hearing”).3 We AFFIRM.
1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief
(“Appeal Br.,” filed Aug. 24, 2015), Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Apr. 12,
2016), and Specification (“Spec.,” filed June 4, 2014), and to the Examiner’s
Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Feb. 12, 2016) and Final Office Action (“Final
Act.,” mailed Sept. 23, 2014).
2 According to the Appellants, the real party in interest is “LDM Group,
LLC which was recently acquired by a New Jersey limited liability
company, PDR, LLC.” Appeal Br. 1.
3 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the transcript of the Hearing (“Tr.”).
Appeal 2016-005127
Application 14/296,098
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants’ invention relates generally to “providing content to
patients who have been prescribed medications,” and more specifically to
providing “content at the point of prescribing of the medication” and
“ongoing dialogue between a patient and a medication provider.” Spec. 12.
Claim 1 (Appeal Br. 20 (Claims App.)) is the only independent claim
on appeal, is representative of the subject matter on appeal, and is
reproduced below:
1. A method for generating information at a physician's
office for a patient related to a prescribed medication, the method
comprising:
providing:
a physician’s server attached to the Internet and
running content requesting software;
an auxiliary computer attached to the Internet and
running selection software;
and a bridge server;
entering prescription information into said content
requesting software, as part of a medication being prescribed to
a patient;
said content requesting software forming a first data
structure including at least a portion of said prescription
information;
said content requesting software transmitting said first
data structure to said auxiliary computer;
said selection software using at least a portion of said first
data structure to select content for said patient;
said bridge server requesting a communication from said
auxiliary computer;
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only upon receipt of such a request from said bridge
server, said auxiliary computer sending a second data structure
indicative of said content to said bridge server.
THE REJECTION
Claims 1—12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to non-
statutory subject matter. Final Act. 2.
ANALYSIS
The Appellants argue claims 1—12 as a group. See Appeal Br. 7, 8
(providing no separate arguments for dependent claims 2—12). We select
independent claim 1 as representative of the group; claims 2—12 stand or fall
with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
Under 35 U.S.C. § 101, a patent may be obtained for “any new and
useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new
and useful improvement thereof.” The Supreme Court has “long held that
this provision contains an important implicit exception: Laws of nature,
natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable.” Alice Corp. Pty.
Ltd. v. CLS Bank Inti, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2354 (2014) (quoting Assn for
Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2107, 2116
(2013)). The Court has, thus, made clear that “[pjhenomena of nature,
though just discovered, mental processes, and abstract intellectual concepts
are not patentable, as they are the basic tools of scientific and technological
work.” Gottschalkv. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972) (emphasis added).
Following the Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit has similarly held
that mental processes are not patent-eligible subject matter. Therefore, the
Court has held that methods which can be performed entirely in the human
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mind are unpatentable not because “there is anything wrong with claiming
mental method steps as part of a process containing non-mental steps,” but
rather because “methods which can be performed entirely in the human mind
are the types of methods that embody the ‘basic tools of scientific and
technological work’ that are free to all men and reserved exclusively to
none.” CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1373
(Fed. Cir. 2011) (citation omitted).
The Supreme Court in Alice reiterated the two-step framework, set
forth previously in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus
Laboratories, Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1300 (2012), “for distinguishing patents
that claim laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those
that claim patent-eligible applications of those concepts.” Alice, 134 S. Ct.
at 2355. The first step in that analysis is to “determine whether the claims at
issue are directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts.” Id. (citing
Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1296—97) (emphasis added). If so, the second step is to
consider the elements of the claims “individually and ‘as an ordered
combination’” to determine whether the additional elements “‘transform the
nature of the claim’ into a patent-eligible application.” Id. (quoting Mayo,
132 S. Ct. at 1297-98).
In other words, the second step is to “search for an ‘inventive
concept’—i.e., an element or combination of elements that is ‘sufficient to
ensure that the patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent
upon the [ineligible concept] itself.’” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting
Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1294). The Court acknowledged in Mayo, that “all
inventions at some level embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of
nature, natural phenomena, or abstract ideas.” Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1293.
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We, therefore, look to whether the claims focus on a specific means or
method that improves the relevant technology or are instead directed to a
result or effect that itself is the abstract idea, and merely invoke generic
processes and machinery. See Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d
1327, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
Initially, we find unpersuasive the Appellants’ argument that the
Examiner’s rejection is in error because the Examiner has failed to provide
sufficient reasons for the rejection. Appeal Br. 9; see also id. at 10-13,
Reply Br. 2—A. In rejecting the pending claims under § 101, the Examiner
analyzed the claims using the Mayo/Alice two-step framework. Specifically,
the Examiner notified the Appellants that claims 1—12 are directed to a
process of generating information related to prescribed medication (Ans. 3)
and to “the abstract idea of a fundamental economic practice, a method of
organizing human activities, an idea of itself, and/or a mathematical
relationship or formula,” (Final Act. 2), and that the limitations comprise an
abstract idea similar to “the concept of comparing new and stored
information using rules to identify options” (Ans. 3—4). The Examiner
further notified the Appellants that there are no meaningful limitations that
transform the claims into something significantly more than the abstract idea
itself (Final Act. 2—3). The Examiner, thus, set forth sufficient reasons in
properly setting forth a rejection of the claims under § 101 such that the
burden shifted to Appellants to explain why the claims are patent-eligible.
Further, we are aware of no controlling authority that requires the
Office to provide factual evidence to support a finding that a claim is
directed to an abstract idea. Nor, contrary to Appellants’ suggestion (see
Appeal Br. 12), did this Board hold, in Ex parte Renald Poisson, Appeal
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2012-011084 (PTAB 2015), that there is any such requirement.4 There is no
specific requirement that the Examiner must provide “material reasoning,
rationale, or factual support” (Reply Br. 2) in determining that the claims are
directed to an abstract idea. See Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2355—57; see also para.
IV July 2015 Update: Subject Matter Eligibility (“Update”) to 2014
Interim Guidance on Subject Matter Eligibility (2014IEG), 79 Fed.
Reg. 74618 (Dec. 16, 2014).
The courts consider the determination of whether a claim is
eligible (which involves identifying whether an exception such
as an abstract idea is being claimed) to be a question of law.
Accordingly, courts do not rely on evidence that a claimed
concept is a judicial exception, and in most cases resolve the
ultimate legal conclusion on eligibility without making any
factual findings.
Update 6. (emphases added); cf. In re Fisher, 421 F.3d 1365, 1372 (Fed. Cir.
2005) (“The MPEP and Guidelines ‘are not binding on this court.’”); and
MPEP, Foreword (“The Manual does not have the force of law or the force
of the rules in Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations.”).
Instead, the Federal Circuit has repeatedly noted that “the prima facie
case is merely a procedural device that enables an appropriate shift of the
burden of production.” Hyatt v. Dudas, 492 F.3d. 1365, 1369 (Fed. Cir.
2007) (citing In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992)). The
court has, thus, held that the USPTO carries its procedural burden of
establishing a prima facie case when its rejection satisfies the requirements
of 35 U.S.C. § 132 by notifying the applicant of the reasons for rejection,
“together with such information and references as may be useful in judging
4 We would not be bound, in any event, by a non-precedential decision of a
different panel of the Board.
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of the propriety of continuing the prosecution of [the] application.” See In
re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2011). Thus, all that is required of
the Office is that it set forth the statutory basis of the rejection in a
sufficiently articulate and informative manner as to meet the notice
requirement of § 132. Id.\ see also Chester v. Miller, 906 F.2d 1574, 1578
(Fed. Cir. 1990) (Section 132 “is violated when the rejection is so
uninformative that it prevents the applicant from recognizing and seeking to
counter the grounds for rejection.”). As discussed above, the Examiner has
done so.
Turning to the first step of the Alice framework, the Examiner finds
that the claims are directed to “the abstract idea of a fundamental economic
practice, a method of organizing human activities, an idea of itself, and/or a
mathematical relationship or formula.” Final Act. 2. The Examiner further
finds that “claim 1 recites a method for generating information at a
physician’s office for a patient related to a prescribed medication” (Ans. 3),
and is “similar to the concept of comparing new and stored information
using rules to identify options, which the courts have found to be abstract”
{id. at 4). Conversely, the Appellants argue that the claims are directed to
“computer networking operations among a triad of computer systems,”
which is not an abstract idea. Appeal Br. 14. Thus, before determining
whether the claims at issue are directed to an abstract idea, we must first
determine what the claims are directed to.
The “directed to” inquiry . . . cannot simply ask whether the
claims involve a patent-ineligible concept, because essentially
every routinely patent-eligible claim involving physical products
and actions involves a law of nature and/or natural
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phenomenon—after all, they take place in the physical world.
See Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1293 (“For all inventions at some level
embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of nature, natural
phenomena, or abstract ideas.”) Rather, the “directed to” inquiry
applies a stage-one filter to claims, considered in light of the
specification, based on whether “their character as a whole is
directed to excluded subject matter.” Internet Patents Corp. v.
Active Network, Inc., 790 F.3d 1343, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015); see
Genetic Techs. Ltd. v. Merial L.L.C., 2016 WL 1393573, at *5
(Fed. Cir. 2016) (inquiring into “the focus of the claimed advance
over the prior art”).
Enfish, 822 F.3d at 1335.
With respect to computer-enabled claimed subject matter, it can be
helpful to determine whether “the claims at issue . . . can readily be
understood as simply adding conventional computer components to well-
known business practices” or not. Id. at 1338; see also Affinity Labs of Tex.,
LLCv. DIRECTV, LLC, 838 F.3d 1253, 1257 (Fed. Cir. 2016). In Enfish,
for example, the court noted that “[sjoftware can make non-abstract
improvements to computer technology just as hardware improvements
can[.]” Enfish, 822 F.3d at 1335. The court put the question as being
“whether the focus of the claims is on [a] specific asserted improvement in
computer capabilities ... or, instead, on a process that qualifies as an
‘abstract idea’ for which computers are invoked merely as a tool.” Id. at
1335—1336. In Enfish, the court found that the “plain focus of the claims”
there was on “an improvement to computer functionality itself, not on
economic or other tasks for which a computer is used in its ordinary
capacity.” Id at 1336.
“In determining the eligibility of [Appellants’] claimed process for
patent protection under § 101, their claims must be considered as a whole.”
Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 188 (1981). The question is whether the
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claims as a whole “focus on a specific means or method that improves the
relevant technology” or are “directed to a result or effect that itself is the
abstract idea and merely invoke generic processes and machinery.” McRO,
Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am. Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1314 (Fed. Cir.
2016).
In this case, the claims as a whole are focused on generating and
providing information related to prescribed medications.5 The preamble of
claim 1 is for a “method for generating information at a physician’s office
for a patient related to a prescribed medication.” Appeal Br. 20 (Claims
App.). Independent claim 1 recites the limitations of providing a server and
computer, entering information, requesting formation of a data structure,
transmitting the data structure, using some of data structure to select
content/data, requesting a communication, and sending a second data
structure upon receipt of the request. Id. Dependent claims 2—12 recite
limitations further defining the contents of the data structure, the functions
of the content/data, the location of and apparatus for data entry, and the
server, and further reciting steps of reformatting content, indicating data, and
queuing the content. Id. at 20-21. The Specification provides that the
invention is directed to “providing content to patients who have been
prescribed medications” (Spec. 12), and, more particularly, to “systems and
methods for providing targeted material to a prescription medication patient
which do not require significant hardware investment and provide for
5 We note that “[a]n abstract idea can generally be described at different
levels of abstraction.” Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d 1229, 1240
(Fed. Cir. 2016). The Examiner’s and Board’s “slight revision of its abstract
idea analysis does not impact the patentability analysis.” Id. at 1241.
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streamlined provision of material in a way which is more transparent to the
pharmaceutical provider” (id. 112). The Appellants characterize the
invention as “a specific method for automating content delivery related to
prescribed medication.” Appeal Br. 16.
Although we find nothing that requires the Office to cite evidence to
support its conclusion that claims are directed to a fundamental economic
practice, a method of organizing human activities, an idea itself, or a
mathematical relationship or formula without significantly more, or to
support a finding that a claim is directed to an abstract idea (see Appeal
Br. 12; see also Reply Br. 3—4), the abstract idea here is similar to ones our
reviewing courts have deemed ineligible. See Elec. Power Grp. LLC v.
Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353—54 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (collecting, analyzing,
and displaying of available information in a particular field); Intellectual
Ventures I LLC v. Erie Indemnity Co., 850 F.3d 1315, 1327—28 (Fed. Cir.
2017) (creating an index used to search and retrieve information stored in a
database); id. at 1330 (“Remotely accessing and retrieving user-specified
information is an age-old practice that existed well before the advent of
computers and the Internet.”); and In re Salwan, 681 F. App’x. 938 (Fed.
Cir. 2017) (Billing insurance companies and organizing patient health
information was “little more than the automation of a ‘method of organizing
human activity’ with respect to medical information.”). Here, the claim
involves nothing more than automating the generating and providing of
information without any particular inventive technology — an abstract idea.
See Elec. Power Grp., 830 F.3d at 1354; Intellectual Ventures I, 850 F.3d
at 1328, 1330.
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We find unpersuasive the Appellants’ characterization of the claim as
directed to “computer networking operations among a triad of computer
systems.” Appeal Br. 14; see also Reply Br. 6—7. Although claim 1 recites
servers and a computer, the claim does not focus on how the usage of the
servers and computers leads to an improvement in the technology of servers
and computers nor does it describe how the servers and computer
communicate or are used aside from the broadly recited functions for
performing the generating and providing information. See Intellectual
Ventures /, 850 F.3d at 1329, 1330. As noted above and by the Appellants,
the claims merely automate the delivery of content related to prescribed
medication, without any specific technology. The “technical process”
(Appeal Br. 15) involves the use of generic technology to automate the
manual process of “getting current, up-to-date information directly from the
manufacturer.” Id. at 17.
We further find unpersuasive the Appellant’s argument that “[t]he
Examiner [ijncorrectly [ajpplies the [l]aw.” Reply Br. 4 (emphasis omitted).
The Examiner properly determined that the claims at issue are directed to a
patent-ineligible concept in light of the Specification. Final Act. 2—3;
Ans. 3. See Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2355. The inquiry is not whether the
Specification as a whole possibly describes some patent-eligible invention.
Turning to the second step of the Alice framework, the Appellants
assert that the claims are nonetheless directed to patent-eligible subject
matter because the claims, as a whole, are directed “significantly more than
an abstract idea.” Appeal Br. 16—19; see also Reply Br. 7—8. We disagree.
We find unpersuasive the Appellants’ argument that claim 1 is
significantly more because it is similar to the claims in DDR Holdings, LLC
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v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245 (Fed. Cir. 2014) in being “ rooted in
computer technology in that the particular computer systems recited, the
creation and exchange of data among them, and the inter-relationships
among those transmissions, solve a problem inherent in computer
networking systems.” Appeal Br. 16; see also id. at 17—19, Reply Br. 8. In
DDR Holdings, the Federal Circuit determined that the claims addressed the
problem of retaining website visitors who, if adhering to the routine,
conventional functioning of Internet hyperlink protocol, would be
transported instantly away from a host’s website after clicking on an
advertisement and activating a hyperlink. DDR Holdings, 773 F.3d at 1257.
The Federal Circuit, thus, held that the claims were directed to statutory
subject matter because they claim a solution “necessarily rooted in computer
technology in order to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm
of computer networks.” Id. In contrast, generating and providing
information related to prescribed information is not rooted in technology, but
can be, and for many years has been and continues to be, performed
manually. There is no indication here that the claimed invention addresses a
problem specifically arising in the realm of computer networks; the
Appellants do not provide adequate evidence or technical reasoning how the
process improves the efficiency of the computer, as opposed to the
efficiency of the process, or of any other technological aspect of the
computer.
Further, the problems the invention is attempting to solve are reducing
the inefficiencies in distributing information caused by manufacturers
“misplac[ing]” and “forgetting]” the provided information, making systems
less “cumbersome and redundant,” reducing the amount of “valuable space
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in a crowded office” for the systems, and reducing the required
“maintenance and capital investment” for the systems. Appeal Br. 17 (citing
Spec. H 6, 10). These are not technological problems, but business and
human behavior problems. The solution of using a “web-based prescribing
application” {id. (citing Spec. H 99, 105, Fig. 5)) has not been described or
claimed as anything more than a generic use of existing technology
performing basic, purely conventional functions of a computer. See Alice,
134 S. Ct. at 1259. The Specification supports this view in providing for
generic computers and servers communicating over the Internet to perform
the functions of the claim. The Appellants’ argument that the claim provides
a solution of automating the process to get “current, up-to-date information
directly from the manufacturer, often at the point-of-sale at the pharmacy”
by “us[ing] a web-based prescribing application, but hav[ing] the content for
the patient printed and delivered elsewhere,” that is rooted in technology,
(Appeal Br. 17; see also Tr. 4—5) is not persuasive at least because the
claims do not require printing at a point-of-sale pharmacy. Although the
Specification provides for an embodiment in which the content is printed
{see Spec. 1101; see also Tr. 7), claim 1 is not directed to that embodiment.
See Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2355 (discussing determining “the claims at issue”).
Further, the Specification does not provide that, or how, the computer itself
is technologically improved upon, what technology or technical field is
improved upon, or how the interactions between the computers and servers
improve that technology or technical field.
The claimed limitations, alone and as an ordered combination, do not
transform the generic computer into a specific machine. The functions of
entering data, forming a data structure (i.e., record), transmitting the data,
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selecting content, requesting communication, sending data are conventional,
routine, and well-known and involve the normal, basic functions of a
computer. The Appellants provide no evidence to the contrary.6 Rather, the
Specification supports this in providing for generic computers and generic
software to perform the functions. See Spec. Fig. 1, || 44—54 (describing
generic computers and software); see also id. 146 (defining a computer as
being generic in not being “limited to any type of computing device but is
intended to be inclusive of all computational devices including, but not
limited to, processing devices or processors, personal computers, work
stations, servers, clients, portable computers, and hand held computers,” and
software as generic software comprising “code objects, logic, or command
structures, written in any language and executable in any environment
designed to be executed by or on a computer”). There is no further
specification of particular technology for performing the steps. See Versata
Dev. Grp., Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334 (Fed. Cir. 2015), cert,
denied, 136 S. Ct. 2510 (2016); see also Enfish, 822 F.3d. at 1336 (focusing
on whether the claim is “an improvement to [the] computer functionality
itself, not on economic or other tasks for which a computer is used in its
ordinary capacity”); DDR Holdings, 773 F.3d at 1256 (“[A]fter Alice, there
can remain no doubt: recitation of generic computer limitations does not
6 During the Hearing, the Appellants appeared to argue that the state of the
art at the time of the invention was such that the claimed functions were not
well-understood, routine, and conventional of a computer. Tr. 2—5, 17.
However, this argument was not raised in the Appeal or Reply Briefs and is
thus considered untimely. 37 C.F.R. § 41.47(e)(1). We note that the
Appellants have provided no evidence regarding the state of the art at the
time of the invention. See Tr. 14, 17.
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make an otherwise ineligible claim patent-eligible. . . . The bare fact that a
computer exists in the physical rather than purely conceptual realm ‘is
beside the point.’” (internal citation omitted) (quoting Alice, 134 S. Ct. at
2358)). “In order for the addition of a machine to impose a meaningful limit
on the scope of a claim, it must play a significant part in permitting the
claimed method to be performed, rather than function solely as an obvious
mechanism for permitting a solution to be achieved more quickly, i.e.,
through the utilization of a computer for performing calculations.” Versata,
793 F.3d at 1335 (quoting SiRF Tech., Inc. v. Int’l Trade Comm ’n, 601 F.3d
1319, 1333 (Fed. Cir. 2010)). Here, the servers, computer, and software do
not meet this test, but instead functions solely as mechanisms for the
entering, selecting, and transmitting of data to be performed more quickly.
The introduction of a computer/server/software to implement an abstract
idea is not a patentable application of the abstract idea. Alice, 134 S. Ct. at
2357-58.
We further find unpersuasive the Appellants’ argument that the claim
is significantly more than an abstract idea because it is novel and unobvious
over the prior art. Reply Br. 8. An abstract idea does not transform into an
inventive concept just because the prior art does not disclose or suggest it.
See Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1304—05. “Groundbreaking, innovative, or even
brilliant discovery does not by itself satisfy the § 101 inquiry.” Myriad, 133
S. Ct. at 2117. Indeed, “[t]he ‘novelty’ of any element or steps in a process,
or even of the process itself, is of no relevance in determining whether the
subject matter of a claim falls within the § 101 categories of possibly
patentable subject matter.” Diehr, 450 U.S. at 188—89 (emphasis added); see
also Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1303—04 (rejecting “the Government’s invitation to
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substitute §§ 102, 103, and 112 inquiries for the better established inquiry
under § 101”).
Based on the foregoing, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred
in rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Therefore, we sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 and of claims 2—12, that fall with claim 1.
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—12 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is
AFFIRMED.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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