Adam D'Angelo et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 3, 2020

12853242 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jan. 3, 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.
12/853,242 08/09/2010 Adam D'Angelo 26295-17243 5476
87851 7590 01/03/2020
Facebook/Fenwick
Silicon Valley Center
801 California Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
EXAMINER
SITTNER, MATTHEW T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3682
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/03/2020 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):
fwfacebookpatents@fenwick.com
ptoc@fenwick.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ADAM D’ANGELO, ADITYA AGARWAL,
KANG-XING JIN, YUN-FANG JUAN, LEVY KLOTS,
OLEKSANDR MOSKALYUK, and YISHAN WONG

Appeal 2018-003882
Application 12/853,242
Technology Center 3600
Before JOHN C. KERINS, EDWARD A. BROWN, and
ANNETTE R. REIMERS, Administrative Patent Judges.

KERINS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–15, which are all claims pending in
the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37
C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Facebook,
Inc. Appeal Br. 2.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to a method for targeting advertisements in a
social network. See Spec. (Title). Claim 1, reproduced below, is
representative of the subject matter on appeal:
1. A method comprising:
receiving, by a social networking system, a plurality of
interactions from users of the social networking system with a
plurality of objects maintained by the social networking system;
storing, for each user of the social networking system,
interactions between objects of the plurality of objects in
connection with a user profile at the social networking system;
receiving multiple advertisements for the social
networking system, each advertisement including a set of
targeting criteria that specify one or more interactions of the
plurality of received interactions between a user and an object
of the plurality of objects in the social networking system;
selecting, using a processor, candidate advertisements for
a user of the social networking system, the user having
performed at least one of the one or more interactions specified
by the targeting criteria of each of the candidate advertisements;
computing, using the processor, an affinity score between
the user and each of the candidate advertisements, the affinity
score for a candidate advertisement based on the user’s
affinities for the targeting criteria associated with the candidate
advertisement;
receiving a bid amount for each of the candidate
advertisements;
selecting, using the processor, one or more of the
candidate advertisements based on the affinity scores and the
bid amounts associated with the candidate advertisements; and
sending the selected candidate advertisements to a client
device of the user for display.

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REJECTION
Claims 1–15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to
a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an
abstract idea) without significantly more. Final Act. 3.

ANALYSIS
Appellant argues that the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–15 under
35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to patent-ineligible subject matter is in
error. Appeal Br. 3–14; Reply Br. 2–7. Appellant presents arguments
directed to independent claim 1, and does not present separate arguments
directed to any of claims 2–15. We take claim 1 as representative of the
group, and claims 2–15 stand or fall with claim 1.
We address the rejection by applying the USPTO’s Revised Guidance,
informed by our governing case law concerning 35 U.S.C. § 101.
A. 35 U.S.C. § 101
An invention is patent-eligible if it is a “new and useful process,
machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” 35 U.S.C. § 101.2
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. Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs.,
Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 70 (2012) (brackets in original) (citing Diamond v. Diehr,
450 U.S. 175, 185 (1981)).

2 This threshold analysis of whether a claim is directed to one of the four
statutory categories of invention, i.e., a process, machine, manufacture, or
composition of matter, is referred to as “Step 1” in the USPTO’s patent-
eligibility analysis under § 101. MPEP § 2106.
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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. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 217–18 (2014)
(citing Mayo, 566 U.S. at 75–77). 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
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, 67 (1972)). Concepts
determined to be patent eligible include physical and chemical processes,
such as “molding rubber products” (Diehr, 450 U.S. at 191); “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 “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
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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. (citation omitted) (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.”).
Abstract ideas may include fundamental economic practices, methods
of organizing human activities, and mathematical formulas or relationships.
Alice, 573 U.S. at 217–21. Under this guidance, we must therefore ensure at
step one that we articulate what the claims are directed to with enough
specificity to ensure the step one inquiry is meaningful. Id. at 217 (“[W]e
tread carefully in construing this exclusionary principle lest it swallow all of
patent law.”).
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-
eligible application.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 221 (citation 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. (alterations in original) (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.
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B. USPTO Revised Guidance
The USPTO recently published revised guidance in the Federal
Register concerning the application of § 101. 2019 Revised Patent Subject
Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (January 7, 2019) (hereinafter
“Revised Guidance”) (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-01-
07/pdf/2018-28282.pdf).
Under the Revised 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);3 and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial
exception into a practical application (see Manual for Patent
Examining Procedure (“MPEP”) §§ 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h)).4
See Revised Guidance 52–53.
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

3 Referred to as “Revised Step 2A, Prong 1” in the Revised Guidance
(hereinafter “Step 2A(i)”).
4 Referred to as “Revised Step 2A, Prong 2” in the Revised Guidance
(hereinafter “Step 2A(ii)”).
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(4) simply appends well-understood, routine,
conventional activities previously known to the industry,
specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception.5
See Revised Guidance 56.
Step 2A(i) – Abstract Idea
Informed by our judicial precedent, the Revised Guidance extracts and
synthesizes key concepts identified by the courts as abstract ideas to explain
that the abstract idea exception includes the following groupings of subject
matter, when recited as such in a claim limitation:
(a) Mathematical concepts—mathematical relationships,
mathematical formulas or equations, mathematical calculations;
(b) Certain methods of organizing human activity —
fundamental economic principles or practices (including
hedging, insurance, mitigating risk); commercial or legal
interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts;
legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or
behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or
relationships or interactions between people (including social
activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions); and
(c) Mental processes—concepts performed in the human
mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion).
Revised Guidance 52 (footnotes omitted).
Under the Revised Guidance, if the claim does not recite a judicial
exception (a law of nature, natural phenomenon, or subject matter within the
enumerated groupings of abstract ideas above), then the claim is patent-

5 Items (3) and (4) continue to be collectively referred to as “Step 2B” of the
Supreme Court’s two-step framework, described in Mayo and Alice.
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eligible at Step 2A(i). This determination concludes the eligibility analysis,
except in situations identified in the Revised Guidance.6
However, if the claim recites a judicial exception (i.e., an abstract idea
enumerated above, a law of nature, or a natural phenomenon), the claim
requires further analysis for a practical application of the judicial exception
in Step 2A(ii).
Step 2A(ii) – Practical Application
If a claim recites a judicial exception in Step 2A(i), we determine
whether the recited judicial exception is integrated into a practical
application of that exception in Step 2A(ii) by: (a) identifying whether there
are any additional elements recited in the claim beyond the judicial
exception(s); and (b) evaluating those additional elements individually and
in combination to determine whether they integrate the exception into a
practical application.
The seven identified “practical application” sections of the MPEP,7
cited in the Revised Guidance under Step 2A(ii), are:
(1) MPEP § 2106.05(a) Improvements to the Functioning of
a Computer or To Any Other Technology or Technical
Field

6 In the rare circumstance in which an examiner believes a claim limitation
that does not fall within the enumerated groupings of abstract ideas should
nonetheless be treated as reciting an abstract idea, the procedure described in
the Guidance for analyzing the claim should be followed. See Revised
Guidance, Section III.C.
7 See MPEP §§ 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h). Citations to the MPEP herein refer
to revision [R-08.2017]. Sections 2106.05(a), (b), (c), and (e) are indicative
of integration into a practical application, while sections 2106.05(f), (g), and
(h) relate to limitations that are not indicative of integration into a practical
application.
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(2) MPEP § 2106.05(b) Particular Machine
(3) MPEP § 2106.05(c) Particular Transformation
(4) MPEP § 2106.05(e) Other Meaningful Limitations
(5) MPEP § 2106.05(f) Mere Instructions To Apply An
Exception
(6) MPEP § 2106.05(g) Insignificant Extra-Solution Activity
(7) MPEP § 2106.05(h) Field of Use and Technological
Environment
See Revised Guidance 55.
If the recited judicial exception is integrated into a practical
application as determined under one or more of the MPEP sections cited
above, then the claim is not directed to the judicial exception, and the patent-
eligibility inquiry ends. See Revised Guidance 54. If not, then analysis
proceeds to Step 2B.
Step 2B – “Inventive Concept” or “Significantly More”
Under our reviewing courts’ precedent, it is possible that a claim that
does not “integrate” a recited judicial exception under Step 2A(ii) is
nonetheless patent eligible. For example, the claim may recite additional
elements that render the claim patent eligible even though one or more claim
elements may recite a judicial exception.8 The Federal Circuit has held
claims eligible at the second step of the Alice/Mayo test (USPTO Step 2B)
because the additional elements recited in the claims provided “significantly
more” than the recited judicial exception (e.g., because the additional
elements were unconventional in combination).9 Therefore, if a claim has

8 See, e.g., Diehr, 450 U.S. at 187.
9 See, e.g., Amdocs (Israel), Ltd. v. Openet Telecom, Inc., 841 F.3d 1288,
1300, 1304 (Fed. Cir. 2016); BASCOM Global Internet Servs., Inc. v. AT&T
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been determined to be directed to a judicial exception under Revised Step
2A, we must also evaluate the additional elements individually and in
combination under Step 2B to determine whether they provide an inventive
concept (i.e., whether the additional elements amount to significantly more
than the exception itself).10
Under the Revised Guidance, we must consider in Step 2B whether an
additional element or combination of elements: (1) “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 (2) “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.” See Revised Guidance,
Section III.B.11

Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341, 1349–52 (Fed. Cir. 2016); DDR Holdings,
LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1257–59 (Fed. Cir. 2014).
10 The patent eligibility inquiry may contain underlying issues of fact.
Mortg. Grader, Inc. v. First Choice Loan Servs. Inc., 811 F.3d 1314, 1325
(Fed. Cir. 2016). In particular, “[t]he question of whether a claim element or
combination of elements is well-understood, routine and conventional to a
skilled artisan in the relevant field is a question of fact.” Berkheimer v. HP
Inc., 881 F.3d 1360, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
11 In accordance with existing Step 2B guidance, an Examiner’s finding that
an additional element (or combination of elements) is well understood,
routine, conventional activity must be supported with at least one of the four
specific types of evidence required by the USPTO Berkheimer
Memorandum, as shown above. For more information concerning
evaluation of well-understood, routine, conventional activity, see MPEP
§ 2106.05(d), as modified by the USPTO Berkheimer Memorandum
(USPTO Commissioner for Patents Memorandum dated Apr. 19, 2018,
“Changes in Examination Procedure Pertaining to Subject Matter Eligibility,
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In the Step 2B analysis, an additional element (or combination of
elements) is not well-understood, routine or conventional unless the
examiner finds an evidentiary basis, and expressly supports a rejection in
writing with, one or more of the following:
1. A citation to an express statement in the
specification or to a statement made by an applicant during
prosecution that demonstrates the well-understood, routine,
conventional nature of the additional element(s). . . .
2. A citation to one or more of the court decisions
discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(d)(II) as noting the well-
understood, routine, conventional nature of the additional
element(s).
3. A citation to a publication that demonstrates the
well-understood, routine, conventional nature of the additional
element(s). . . .
4. A statement that the examiner is taking official
notice of the well-understood, routine, conventional nature of
the additional element(s). . . .
See Berkheimer Memo 3–4.
If the Examiner or the Board determines under Step 2B that the
element (or combination of elements) amounts to significantly more than the
exception itself, the claim is eligible, thereby concluding the eligibility
analysis.
However, if a determination is made that the element and combination
of elements do not amount to significantly more than the exception itself, the
claim is ineligible under Step 2B, and the claim should be rejected for lack of
subject matter eligibility.

Recent Subject Matter Eligibility Decision (Berkheimer v. HP, Inc.)”
(hereinafter “Berkheimer Memo”).
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ANALYSIS
Step 1 – Statutory Category
Claim 1, as a method or process claim, recites one of the enumerated
categories of eligible subject matter in 35 U.S.C. § 101. Therefore, the issue
before us is whether it is directed to a judicial exception without
significantly more.
Step 2A(i): Does the Claim Recite a Judicial Exception?
The Examiner determined that claim 1 is directed to the abstract idea
of targeting and presenting advertisements to users of a social network based
upon targeting criteria, a computed affinity score, and a bid amount. Final
Act. 3. The Examiner finds this to fall into the grouping of certain methods
of organizing human activity. Id. at 3–4. The Revised Guidance instructs
that advertising is a form of commercial or legal interaction specified under
the umbrella of certain methods of organizing human activity. Revised
Guidance 52.
After reciting data gathering steps for receiving and storing
interactions between users and a plurality of objects, claim 1 sets forth
several steps involving advertisements or steps involving selecting
advertisements for display, including “receiving multiple advertisements for
a social networking system,” “selecting . . . candidate advertisements,”
“computing . . . an affinity score between [a] user and each of the candidate
advertisements,” “receiving a bid amount for each of the candidate
advertisements,” and “selecting” and “sending” candidate advertisements to
a client device. Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner that the claim
recites a method of presenting advertising, a form of commercial or legal
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interaction. Therefore, claim 1 recites a judicial exception in the form of an
abstract idea.
Appellant argues that claim 1 is not directed to an abstract idea, and
that “the [E]xaminer should have instead defined the abstract idea without
limiting it to the actual claim elements and/or detailed implementation
features,” and that the claim involves a specific implementation of targeted
advertising. Appeal Br. 4. Appellant does not, however, argue that claim 1
does not recite an abstract idea in some form. Indeed, Appellant’s principal
objection to the Examiner’s position is that, despite “the fact that the claims
involve an abstract concept (i.e., targeted advertising),” the Examiner erred
in “ignoring . . . key limitations that are directed to a non-conventional
application of that abstract concept.” Reply Br. 3. That argument is more
appropriately addressed under the second prong of Step 2A, below.
Step 2A(ii): Judicial Exception Integrated into a Practical Application?
Since claim 1 recites a judicial exception, as we conclude above, we
proceed to the “practical application” Step 2A(ii), in which we determine
whether the recited judicial exception is integrated into a practical
application of that exception by: (a) identifying whether there are any
additional elements recited in the claim beyond the judicial exception(s); and
(b) evaluating those additional elements individually and in combination to
determine whether they integrate the exception into a practical application.
In other words, we evaluate claim 1 to determine whether they not only
recite a judicial exception, but also whether they are directed to that judicial
exception, or, alternatively, are directed to some technological
implementation or application of, the judicial exception.
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Appellant broadly argues that the Examiner has mischaracterized what
the abstract idea recited in claim 1 is, with the result that alleged non-
conventional features of claim 1 are ignored, particularly in the analysis as to
whether such features amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Reply Br. 2. Appellant argues, “claim 1 does not merely claim ‘the idea of a
solution or outcome’ of targeted advertising, but rather claims a single
implementation of targeted advertising that determines a user’s affinity for
the targeting criteria of a candidate advertisement where the targeting
criteria specifically identifies interactions between a user and an object in a
social networking system.” Id. at 5. Effectively, Appellant takes the
position that the recited step of
computing, using the processor, an affinity score between the
user and each of the candidate advertisements, the affinity score
for a candidate advertisement based on the user’s affinities for
the targeting criteria associated with the candidate advertisement
in claim 1, and the additional condition that each advertisement “includ[es] a
set of targeting criteria that specify one or more interactions . . . between a
user and an object . . . in [a] social networking system,” is erroneously
considered to be part of the abstract idea. Id.; Appeal Br., Claims Appendix.
Appellant’s argument is to the effect that these limitations should be
considered as being additional elements beyond the abstract idea that must
be evaluated individually and in combination with the abstract idea to
determine whether claim 1 integrates the judicial exception into a practical
application.
The condition that each advertisement is to include a set of targeting
criteria is ancillary to the fact that the step including this limitation, i.e.,
“receiving multiple advertisements for the social networking system,” is a
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pure data gathering step, and limiting the nature of the data does not alter
this. Appeal Br., Claims Appendix. The step of computing an affinity score
between the user and the advertisements is, at base, also a step involved in
the abstract idea of targeting of advertising, and moreover, includes a
mathematical relationship between some undefined and unclaimed value(s)
ascribed to a user’s affinities for data associated with various candidate
advertisements.12 This is nothing more than generating data to be used as
criteria in targeting advertisements to users, which is itself an abstract idea.
See Synopsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corporation, 839 F.3d 1138, 1151
(Fed. Cir. 2016) (“a claim for a new abstract idea is still an abstract idea”)
Appellant cites to the Federal Circuit decision in McRO,13 stating that,
as in that case, claim 1 here does not merely claim the idea of a solution or
outcome, but instead claims a single implementation of targeting advertising
that “as in McRO, allows a computer to perform a function that was not
previously performable by a computer.” Reply Br. 5. However, we fail to
see any evidence of record that even hints at the notion that the claimed
method would not have been previously performable by a computer.

12 The Specification does not describe, or provide any specific example of,
obtaining an affinity score. Rather, in discussing the computation of an
expected value for each candidate advertisement, it is mentioned that one
may estimate the probability that a user will click on a given advertisement
by “comput[ing] this probability as a weighted function of the [user’s]
affinities for the targeting criteria associated with the candidate ads.” Spec.,
para. 55.
13 McRO, Inc. v. BANDAI Namco Games America, 837 F.3d 1299 (Fed. Cir.
2016).
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Accordingly, we do not find error in the Examiner’s inclusion of the
step of computing an affinity score based on certain criteria as being part of
the abstract idea of targeting advertising, to be in error.
The additional recitations requiring certain aspects of the process to
involve a social networking system and the use of a processor to select
candidate advertisements and compute an affinity score, do not alone or in
combination with the judicial exception, reflect an improvement in the
functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or
technical field; do not apply or use a judicial exception in conjunction with a
particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim; do not effect
a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or
thing; and do not apply or use the judicial exception in some other
meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to
a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is
more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
We conclude that claim 1 is directed to achieving the result of
delivering advertising to users of a social networking system via a targeted
advertising, as distinguished from a technological improvement for
achieving or applying that result. This amounts to commercial or legal
interactions, which fall within certain methods of organizing human activity
that constitute abstract ideas. The claim does not integrate the judicial
exception into a practical application.
Step 2B – “Inventive Concept”/“Significantly More”?
The next aspect of the inquiry is whether claim 1 provides an
inventive concept because the additional elements beyond the recited
judicial exception provide significantly more than that judicial exception.
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Appellant’s main argument with respect to this aspect is that “if the
claims recite features that are inventive over other ways of performing the
alleged abstract idea, then those features should at least be addressed” in this
step. Reply Br. 6. Appellant maintains that “the claims recite a novel
combination of features for delivering ad content,” that provide “something
more” than the abstract idea. Id.
The argument is premised upon the limitation of computing an affinity
score based on certain recited parameters and conditions being “something
more” than the abstract idea, rather than a part of the abstract idea itself. As
noted in the previous section of this analysis, we determine here that the
limitations in dispute constitute aspects of the abstract idea itself, and thus
do not constitute something more than the same.
Appellant does not dispute that the recited social networking system
and the generically-recited processor, are anything more than well-known,
understood and conventional components, or contribute significantly more to
the invention, when the limitations are considered individually as together as
a whole.
Accordingly, we conclude that claim 1 does not provide an inventive
concept beyond the judicial exception because the additional elements
recited in the claim do not provide significantly more than the recited
judicial exception.
Therefore, based upon the findings and legal conclusions above, on
this record and in consideration of the Revised Guidance, we sustain the
§ 101 rejection of independent claim 1, and of claims 2–15, which depend
from claim 1 and are not separately argued.
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CONCLUSION
Under our Revised Guidance, governed by relevant case law, we do
not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection of claims 1–15.
DECISION SUMMARY
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
References/
Basis
Affirmed Reversed
1–15 101 Subject Matter
Eligibility
1–15

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

AFFIRMED