John Zachary. Sanborn et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 2, 2020

15167507 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jan. 2, 2020)

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.
15/167,507 05/27/2016 John Zachary Sanborn 102913-1096974 2418
20350 7590 01/02/2020
KILPATRICK TOWNSEND & STOCKTON LLP
Mailstop: IP Docketing - 22
1100 Peachtree Street
Suite 2800
Atlanta, GA 30309
EXAMINER
BRUSCA, JOHN S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1631
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/02/2020 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 JOHN ZACHARY SANBORN and DAVID HAUSSLER
____________

Appeal 2018-003683
Application 15/167,507
Technology Center 1600
____________

Before ERIC B. GRIMES, ULRIKE W. JENKS, and RYAN H. FLAX,
Administrative Patent Judges.

JENKS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 submits this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) involving
claims directed to a computer-based sequence analysis system. Examiner
rejected the claims as directed to patent ineligible subject matter, indefinite,
and obvious. 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 Regents of the
University of California. Appeal Br. 1.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Specification “provides methods for generating databases that
may be used to determine an individual’s risk” for developing a disease,
disorder, or condition. Spec. ¶ 5, see also id. ¶ 48. BamBam is a software
tool “that enables a rapid comparison of tumor (somatic) and germline
matched sequencing datasets.” Id. ¶ 73.
“BamBam” is a computationally efficient method for
surveying large sequencing datasets to produce a set of high-
quality genomic events that occur within each tumor relative to
its germline. These results provide a glimpse into the
chromosomal dynamics of tumors, improving our
understanding of tumors’ final states and the events that led to
them.
Id. ¶ 54.
BamBam takes in two short read sequencing datasets, one from
the tumor and the other a matched normal (“germline”) from
the same patient, and the reference genome, and reads these
datasets such that all sequences in both datasets overlapping the
same genomic position are available to be processed at the same
time.
Id. ¶ 76. Because “each dataset is processed by itself, and results are only
merged afterwards” this creates efficiency as opposed to applying a
traditional analysis. Id.
Claims 1–19 are on appeal and can be found in the Claims Appendix
of the Appeal Brief. Claim 1 is representative of the claims on appeal, and
reads as follows:
1. A computer-based genomic sequence analysis system
comprising:
a memory storing at least two genomic sequence datasets
including:
a tumor sequence dataset comprising genomic sequence
strings of a tumor tissue sample of a patient; and
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a matched normal dataset comprising genomic sequence
strings of a normal tissue sample of the same patient; and
a sequence analysis engine coupled with the memory and
configured to:
simultaneously and synchronously read a tumor sequence
string from the tumor sequence dataset and a matched
normal sequence string from the matched normal
sequence dataset;
wherein the tumor sequence string is incrementally
synchronized with the matched normal sequence string
based on a given genomic position;
identify a genomic alteration associated with the given
genomic position according to a probability derived from
reads of the tumor sequence string and of the matched
normal sequence string; and
store the genomic alteration in a device memory.
Appeal Br. 28 (Claims Appendix) (emphasis added).
Appellant requests review2 of the following grounds of rejection3
made by Examiner:
I. Claims 1–19 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph4 as indefinite.

2 Appellant requests reversal of Examiner’s objections to the Specification
and claims. We cannot grant the relief Appellant seeks (see Appeal Br. 5–
13) because doing so is not within our jurisdiction. Objections or other
requirements imposed by an Examiner are reviewed by way of petition to
the Director. See MPEP 1201. We, therefore, express no opinion regarding
the propriety of the objections expressed by Examiner in the Final Rejection.
3 Appellant does not address the obviousness-type double patenting
rejections of claims 1–19 made by Examiner. See Final Act. 10–29, Ans. 6.
We therefore summarily affirm these rejections. See MPEP § 1205.02 (“If a
ground of rejection stated by the examiner is not addressed in the appellant’s
brief, appellant has waived any challenge to that ground of rejection and the
Board may summarily sustain it, unless the examiner subsequently withdrew
the rejection in the examiner’s answer.”).
4 Examiner applies pre-AIA provisions. Final Act. 2.
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II. Claims 1–19 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to patent
ineligible subject matter.
III. Claims 1–10, 12, and 14–17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Sjöblom5 and Swindells.6
IV. Claims 1, 9, and 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Sjöblom, Swindells, and Stratton.7
V. Claims 1 and 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Sjöblom, Swindells, and Kuhn.8

I. Indefiniteness
a. incrementally synchronized
Examiner finds that claims 1–19 are indefinite because the phrase
“incrementally synchronized . . . based on a given genomic position” is not
defined in the Specification. Final Act. 9.
Appellant contends that the Specification at paragraphs 92 and 100
provides support for this phrase. Appeal Br. 15. A review of paragraph 92
of the Specification describes that “[t]he aggregation process consists of
grouping together the unique reads that overlap other reads on both sides of
the putative breakpoint.” Spec. ¶ 92. Paragraph 100 of the Specification
states, “a large intra-chromosomal deletion-type rearrangement should have

5 Sjöblom et al., The Consensus Coding Sequences of Human Breast and
Colorectal Cancers, 314 Science 268–274 in conjunction with the
supporting online material (2006) (“Sjöblom”). See Final Act. 15.
6 Swindells et al., US 2004/0015298 A1, published Jan. 22, 2004
(“Swindells”).
7 Stratton et al., The Cancer Genome, 458 Nature 710–24 (2009)(“Stratton”).
8 Kuhn et al., The UCSC Genome Browser Database: update 2009, 37
Nucleic Acids Research D755–61 (2009) (“Kuhn”).
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a concordant drop in copy number in the region between the breakpoints.”
Both paragraphs 92 and 100 recite breakpoints. What is not clear from the
Appeal Brief, however, is how the breakpoint defines “incrementally
synchronized.”
Examiner acknowledges that “incrementally synchronizing” appears
in the Specification at paragraphs 6, 15, 24, and 25. Ans. 4. There is no
dispute that the Specification contains the phrase “incrementally
synchronized.” The dispute lies with the lack of information from which to
articulate a definition for this phrase. Directing our attention to areas in the
Specification that recite the words does not in and of itself provide insight as
to whether and how one of ordinary skill in the art would have understood
what is meant by “incrementally synchronized” in the context of the
remainder of the disclosure. This board serves as a board of review, not a de
novo examination tribunal. See 35 U.S.C. 6(b) (“The [board] shall, on
written appeal of an applicant, review adverse decisions of examiners upon
applications for patents.”).
On this record, we find that Examiner has the better position and
agree that, without more, the meaning of “incrementally synchronized” is
indefinite. Accordingly, we affirm the rejection of claim 1 as being
indefinite. As claims 2–19 have not been separately argued, they fall with
claim 1.

b. simultaneously and synchronously read
Examiner finds that claims 1–19 are indefinite because the phrase
“simultaneously and synchronously read [two sequences]” is not defined in
the Specification. Final Act. 9. Examiner explains that it is “not clear how
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data can be inputted and aligned simultaneously because alignment of
sequences requires comparison to two previously inputted sequences.” Id. at
10.
Appellant contends that the Specification provides support for this
phrase. Appeal Br. 18 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 2, 6–8, 15, 16, 22–25, 38, 39, 41, 42,
49, 51–53, 73, 76, and 78).
We find that Appellant has the better position. The Specification
provides that “synchronizing comprises aligning at least one of the plurality
of sub-strings based on a known reference string comprising known
locations for the at least one of the plurality of sub-strings.” Spec. ¶ 7.
BamBam is a software tool that allows for simultaneous analyses at “each
genomic position from a patient’s tumor and germline genomes using the
aligned short-read data contained in SAM/BAM-formatted files.” Id. ¶ 39
(citing Li et al., The Sequence Alignment/Map format and SAMtools. 25
Bioinformatics 2078–79 (2009)).
BamBam reads from two files at the same time, constantly
keeping each BAM file in synchrony with the other and piling
up the genomic reads that overlap every common genomic
location between the two files. For each pair of pileups,
BamBam runs a series of analyses listed above before
discarding the pileups and moving to the next common genomic
location. By processing these massive BAM files with this
method, the computer’s RAM usage is minimal and processing
speed is limited primarily by the speed that the filesystem can
read the two files. This enables BamBam to process massive
amounts of data quickly, while being flexible enough to run on
a single computer or across a computer cluster. Another
important benefit to processing these files with BamBam is that
its output is fairly minimal, consisting only of the important
differences found in each file. This produces what is essentially
a whole-genome diff[erentiation] between the patient’s tumor
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and germline genomes, requiring much less disk storage than it
would take if all genome information was stored for each file
separately.
Id. ¶ 42. The Specification explains that short reading sequence datasets are
aligned to a reference genome, which is “a natural way of organizing
sequence data from multiple, related samples.” Id. ¶ 76. These genome
alignments allow the BamBam software to take tumor datasets and normal
(“germline”) datasets from the same patient that overlap the same genomic
position for processing at the same time. Id. “Because BamBam keeps the
sequence data in the pair of files in sync across the genome, a complex
mutation model that requires sequencing data from both tumor and germline
BAM files as well as the human reference can be implemented easily.” Id.
¶ 78.
Based on these disclosures in the Specification, the phrase
“simultaneously and synchronously read” (more than one sequence) is
reasonably understood to mean that genetic information stored in two (or
more) files can be directly compared at the same genomic position at the
same time before moving on to the next genomic position. Accordingly, the
phrase “simultaneously and synchronously read” takes into account more
than just aligning the sequences to a reference genomic position but also
informs that the analysis at a particular genomic position can encompass
multiple datasets at the same time. We, therefore, are not persuaded by
Examiner’s contention that the phrase is indefinite and reverse the rejection
of claims 1–19 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph.

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c. illegible formulas
Examiner rejects claims 18 and 19 because the text in the formulas are
illegible. Final Act. 9; Ans. 4.
Appellant disagrees and asserts that the formulas are indeed legible.
Appeal Br. 17; see id. at 8–13.
Section 112, second paragraph, requires the Specification to
“conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly
claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as
the invention.” As our reviewing court has explained that claims are “to be
cast in clear—as opposed to ambiguous, vague, indefinite—terms.” In re
Packard, 751 F.3d 1307, 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2014). The rationale for requiring
such “reasonable precision” in claim language is because “[i]t is the claims
that notify the public of what is within the protections of the patent, and
what is not.” Id.; see also Ex parte McAward, Appeal 2015-006416, 2017
WL 3669566, at *5 (PTAB Aug. 25, 2017) (precedential) (adopting the
approach for assessing indefiniteness approved by the Federal Circuit in
Packard).
We agree with Examiner that the formulas recited in the claims are
not clear because certain elements of the formulas cannot be made out.
Consultation with the Specification is not helpful because it contains the
same illegible material. For example, the subscripts and superscripts found
in the formulas of paragraph 80 could be any one of 1, 2, l, t, g, or m. See
Spec. ¶ 80. Without clarity in the Specification, we agree with Examiner
that the claims are indefinite. Accordingly, we affirm the rejection of claims
18 and 19 as being indefinite.

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d. related sequencing data sets
Examiner finds that the metes and bound of the phrase “related
sequencing datasets” as recited in the claims is unclear. Final Act. 10.
Appellant contends that the term is clear. Appeal Br. 20–21.
We find that Appellant has the better position. For example, the
Specification explains that the
method is easily extendible to more than two related sequencing
datasets. For example, if three samples, matched normal,
tumor, and relapse, were sequenced, this method could be used
to search for changes specific to the tumor & the relapse
sample, and changes specific only to the relapse, suggesting the
relapse tumor has changed somewhat from the original tumor
from which it had presumably derived.
Spec. ¶ 77. Based on this paragraph, “related sequencing datasets” is
reasonably understood to mean sequences covering the same genomic region
that can then be compared with each other. Accordingly, we reverse the
rejection of claim 10 as being indefinite.

II. Patent Ineligible Subject Matter
Examiner finds that the claims are directed to “the abstract idea of
comparing information of a sample or test subject to a control or target
data.” Id. at 12 (citing In re BRCA1- and BRCA2-Based Hereditary Cancer
Test Patent Litigation, 774 F.3d 755 (Fed. Cir. 2014)). Examiner finds that
any additional elements such as the use of “[c]omputer memory, processors,
and inputting and outputting data using computer memory are conventional
computer processing components and activities.” Id. Examiner finds that
the process of comparing sequence data using a genome browser and
computer interface are conventional activities engaged by artisans in the
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field. Id. at 13 (citing Kuhn in support). Examiner concludes that these
additional elements “when considered individually or as an ordered
combination” do not transform the abstract idea into “a patent-eligible
application of the judicial exception.” Id.
Appellant contends that the claims are more than an abstract idea,
because they show an improvement to the functioning of a computer by
improving the efficiency. Appeal Br. 21–22. Specifically, “claim 1
limitations relating to the configuration of the sequence analysis engine,
describe a computer-based genomic sequence analysis system that is more
efficient than, and produces results more quickly than the known techniques
described in paragraphs 41 and 76” of the Specification. Id. at 22.
The Supreme Court has established a two-step framework for
“distinguishing patents that claim laws of nature, natural phenomena, and
abstract ideas from those that claim patent-eligible applications of those
concepts.” Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 217 (2014). The
United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) issued the 2019 Revised
Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (“Guidance”), indicating how the
PTO can analyze patent eligibility under the Supreme Court’s two-step
framework and the October 2019 Update to the Revised Guidance
(“Update”), which provides further details regarding how the Patent Office
is to analyze patent-eligibility questions under 35 U.S.C. § 101. 84 Fed.
Reg. 50−57 (Jan. 7, 2019); 84 Fed. Reg. 55,942 (Oct. 18, 2019). Following
the Guidance, under Revised Step 2A, we first look to whether the claim
recites the following:
(1) any judicial exceptions, including certain groupings of
abstract ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of
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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 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,
under Step 2B of the Guidance, to whether the claim:
(3) adds specific limitations beyond the judicial exception that
are 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.
Appellant does not argue the claims separately. We analyze claim 1
as representative.
STEP 1:
We first find that claim 1 is directed to a “sequence analysis system.”
We therefore conclude that the claims are directed to a “manufacture” for
carrying out the sequence analysis and thus falls into one of the broad
categories of patentable subject matter under section 101. See MPEP
2106.03 (“because a microprocessor is generally understood to be a
manufacture, a product claim to the microprocessor or a system comprising
the microprocessor satisfies Step 1 regardless of whether the claim falls
within any other statutory category (such as a machine)”).
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STEP 2A, Prong One:
Under the Guidance, in determining what concept a claim is “directed
to” in step one of the Supreme Court’s two-step framework, we first look to
whether the claim recites any judicial exceptions to Section 101, such as an
abstract idea, a law of nature, or a natural phenomenon. Guidance, 84 Fed.
Reg. at 52, 54 (Step 2A, Prong One).
In Mayo, the Supreme Court found “mental processes and abstract
intellectual concepts are not patentable, as they are the basic tools of
scientific and technological work.” Mayo Collaborative Servs. v.
Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 71 (2012) (quoting Gottschalk v.
Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972)). Comparison between two gene sequences
represents a mental process, i.e., an abstract idea. See In re BRCA1- and
BRCA2-Based Hereditary Cancer Test Patent Litigation, 774 F.3d 755, 762
(2014).
Claim 1 requires “identifying a genomic alteration” at any given
genomic position between tumor tissue sequence and normal tissue sequence
from the same patient. This “identifying” step of the sequence analysis
system is a mental process, i.e., the comparison between a tumor sequence
dataset and a normal sequence dataset. See Final Act. 12 (“comparing
information of a sample or test subject to a control or target data”). Claim 1,
therefore, recites an abstract idea.
STEP 2A, Prong Two:
Having made the determination that claim 1 recites an abstract idea,
under the Guidance, we next examine whether there are additional elements
beyond the abstract idea that integrate the judicial exception into a practical
application. Under the Guidance, this is referred to as the “Prong Two”
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inquiry under “Step 2A.” Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 54–55. Under the
Prong Two analysis, we look to whether the claim as a whole “appl[ies],
rel[ies] on, or use[s] the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a
meaningful limit on the judicial exception.” Id.
Examiner acknowledges that one way to overcome this rejection is to
establish that the combination as claimed results in an improvement to the
technology, and the improvement is a result of the additional elements.
Final Act. 14. We consider whether the claim covers a particular solution to
a problem or a particular way to achieve a desired outcome, as opposed to
merely claiming the idea of a solution or outcome.
Appellant contends that the limitations of claim 1 relate to improving
the sequence analysis to make the process more efficient. Appeal Br. 22.
Appellant cites paragraphs 41 and 76 of the Specification as providing
support that the use of BamBam software improves the sequence analysis.
Paragraph 76 recites:
BamBam takes in two short read sequencing datasets, one from
the tumor and the other a matched normal (“germline”) from
the same patient, and the reference genome, and reads these
datasets such that all sequences in both datasets overlapping the
same genomic position are available to be processed at the same
time. This is the most efficient method for processing such
data, while also enabling complex analyses that would be
difficult or impossible to accomplish in a serialized manner,
where each dataset is processed by itself, and results are only
merged afterwards.
Spec. 76.
The cited passages in the Specification do not provide a sufficiently
detailed disclosure for one of ordinary skill in the art to recognize an
improvement in technology. Binary Alignment/Map (BAM) is a generic
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alignment format for storing read alignments against a reference. See Li
2078; see Spec. ¶ 39. The Specification explains that the “BamBam
[software] reads from two files at the same time, constantly keeping each
BAM file in synchrony with the other and piling up [i.e., gathering] the
genomic reads that overlap every common genomic location between the
two files.” Id. ¶ 42. The art already recognizes the benefits of a BAM file,
specifically, that it “is compact in size and supports fast retrieval of
alignments in specified regions. Using positional sorting and indexing,
applications can perform stream-based processing on specific genomic
regions without loading the entire file into memory.” Li 2079. Here, the
claim relies on a computer as a tool for making comparisons between the
sequences. The improvement, if any, is with the way the sequence files (i.e.
the BAM file) is stored for later retrieval. However, this type of processing,
storage, and retrieval was already known and practiced by ordinary artisans
in the field. See generally Li. Thus, the claim lacks additional elements that
establish an improvement in technology.
STEP 2B:
Step 2B requires that we look to whether the claim “adds a specific
limitation beyond the judicial exception that [is] not ‘well-understood,
routine, conventional’ in the field.” See MPEP § 2106.05(d) (9th ed., rev.
08.2017 (Jan. 2018)). Examiner found that it is conventional to display
lineups of genomic sequences on a computer interface based on results
derived by comparing sequence data in a genome browser. Final Act. 13
(citing Kuhn). Additionally, storing the sequences in the particular BAM
file format for later processing and analysis is conventional. See Li 2078
(BAM is a generic alignment format that “is compact in size and supports
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fast retrieval of alignments in specified regions.”). Thus, the steps of
obtaining sequence datasets for storage in memory and comparing sequences
are well-known conventional steps in assessing genome differences. Final
Act. 13. When the additional steps of the claim are considered individually
or as an ordered combination, they do not add an inventive concept and thus
do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Accordingly, the claim does not add a specific limitation beyond the judicial
exception.
Based on the foregoing, therefore, we conclude that claim 1 is
directed to a judicial exception without significantly more, and therefore, is
not eligible for patent protection. Claims 2–19 have not been argued
separately and therefore fall with claim 1. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv)
(2017).

III. Obviousness Sjöblom and Swindells
Examiner has rejected claims 1–10, 12, and 14–17 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Sjöblom and Swindells.
Examiner relies on Sjöblom for teaching detecting genomic alterations
associated with cancer. Final Act. 16. Examiner acknowledges that
Sjöblom “shows use of a computer analysis but does not discuss inputting
and exporting sequence data to memory or multiple sequence alignment.”
Id. at 17. Examiner relies on the teaching of Swindells for showing multiple
sequence alignments. Id. Based on these teachings, Examiner concludes
that it would be obvious to modify Sjöblom by “having a memory to store
sequence data and to perform multiple sequence alignments” as shown in
Swindells in order to allow analysis of more data at one time. Id.
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Appellant contends that the combination of Sjöblom and Swindells is
missing “the limitation[] of the configuration of the sequence analysis
engine to ‘simultaneously and synchronously read’” a sequence as recited in
claim 1. Appeal. Br. 24.
On this record, we find that Appellant has the better position.
Examiner, for the purpose of examination, interpreted each of the phrases
“incrementally synchronized” and “simultaneously and synchronously read”
as meaning to align sequences. See Final Act. 9–10. Although we agree
with Examiner that “incrementally synchronized” is indefinite (see above
I.a), we do not agree with Examiner’s position that “simultaneously and
synchronously read” a sequence is indefinite in light of the Specification
(see above I.b). The phrase “simultaneously and synchronously read” takes
into account more than just aligning a test sequence to a reference genomic
position but also informs us that the analysis occurs at the same time for the
same position across the various datasets. See above I.b. Because we do not
agree with Examiner’s interpretation that showing sequence alignments,
including multiple alignments based on the disclosure of Sjöblom and
Swindells, is sufficient to meet the limitation of “simultaneously and
synchronously read,” we do not find that Examiner has made out a prima
facie case. The evidence does not support a conclusion that the cited
references disclose or suggest the simultaneous aspect of the sequence read
analysis of claim 1 such that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have
considered it obvious. We therefore reverse the rejection of claim 1, as well
as dependent claims 2–10, 12, and 14–17.

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IV. Obviousness Sjöblom, Swindells, and Stratton
We reverse the rejection of claims 1, 9, and 11 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) based on Sjöblom, Swindells, and Stratton. Examiner has not
pointed to any teaching in Stratton that makes up for the deficiency
discussed above (see III).

V. Obviousness Sjöblom, Swindells, and Kuhn
We reverse the rejection of claims 1 and 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
based on Sjöblom, Swindells, and Kuhn. Examiner has not pointed to any
teaching in Kuhn that makes up for the deficiency discussed above (see III).

SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/
Basis
Affirmed Reversed
1–19 112 (b) indefiniteness 1–19
1–19 101 Patent ineligible
subject matter
1–19
1–10, 12,
14–17
103 Sjöblom,
Swindells
1–10, 12,
14–17
1, 9, 11 103 Sjöblom,
Swindells,
Staratton
1, 9, 11
1, 13 103 Sjöblom,
Swindells, Kuhn
1, 13
Overall
Outcome
1–19

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TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).

AFFIRMED