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Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jul 14, 2020

2019001394 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 14, 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. 13/944,558 07/17/2013 Steven R. Boal 60202-0248 8842 124871 7590 07/14/2020 Hickman Palermo Becker Bingham / Quotient 1 Almaden Boulevard, Floor 12 San Jose, CA 95113 EXAMINER SCHMUCKER, MICHAEL W ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3681 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/14/2020 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): usdocket@h35g.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte STEVEN R. BOAL ____________ Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before ANTON W. FETTING, PHILIP J. HOFFMANN, and BRUCE T. WIEDER, Administrative Patent Judges. FETTING, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE1 Steven R. Boal (Appellant) seeks review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of a final rejection of claims 1, 5-11, 13-22, and 25-30, the only claims pending 1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed June 29, 2018) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed November 30, 2018), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed October 3, 2018) and Final Action (“Final Act.,” mailed May 3, 2018). Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 2 in the application on appeal.2 We have jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). The Appellant invented a way of generation, processing, storage, management, usage, distribution and/or delivery of digital offers, including digital coupons and other digital promotional vehicles. Specification para. 3. An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of exemplary claim 22, which is reproduced below (bracketed matter and some paragraphing added). 22. A method for facilitating consumer identity resolution, the method comprising: [1] receiving at least two collections of consumer records from at least two different sources, the first collection including a set of first data fields and the second collection including a set of second data fields; [2] computing a set of first trust scores for the first data fields and a set of second trust scores for the second data fields, the set of first trust scores quantifying how accurate the fields in the set of first data fields of the first collection are and the set of second trust scores quantifying how accurate the fields in the set of second data fields of the second collection are; [3] generating correlations between a record from the first collection and a record from the second collection, the correlations being based on identifying one or more data fields in the set of first data fields of the first collection that are similar to and have similar values to 2 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Quotient Technology Inc. (Appeal Br. 1). Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 3 one or more data fields in the set of second data fields of the second collection, the set of first trust scores for the first data fields, and the set of second trust scores for the second data fields; [4] generating a master collection of consumer records comprising at least one master consumer record, the at least one master consumer record being based on the correlations, each master consumer record describing a different consumer entity; [5] receiving a set of contextual transaction data, the contextual transaction data including information regarding at least one of: a universal product code, a quantity of product purchased, a number of items purchased, a transaction amount, at least a portion of a credit card number used, a payment identifier used, a secure payment hash key, a data processing system or facility, time, date, one or more offers activated or redeemed, customer name, phone number, pin number, password, code, loyalty card number, RFID data, a device identifier, one or more items that were purchased in a previous or concurrent transaction, Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 4 or a transaction number; [6] identifying a consumer based on the contextual transaction data and the master collection of consumer records; [7] selecting at least one offer based on the identification of the consumer; [8] transmitting, to a retailer point of sale terminal, instructions for causing printing a paper receipt that includes the offer in response to a request for a paper receipt made by the consumer; [9] printing, at a retailer point of sale terminal, a paper receipt that includes the offer. Claims 1, 5-11, 13-22, and 25-30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to a judicial exception without significantly more. ISSUES The issues of eligible subject matter turn primarily on whether the claims recite more than abstract conceptual advice of results desired. ANALYSIS STEP 13 Claim 22, as a method claim, nominally recites one of the enumerated categories of eligible subject matter in 35 U.S.C. § 101. The issue before us is whether it is directed to a judicial exception without significantly more. 3 For continuity of analysis, we adopt the steps nomenclature from 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019) (“Revised Guidance”). Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 5 STEP 2 The Supreme Court set forth a framework for distinguishing patents that claim laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those that claim patent-eligible applications of those concepts. First,[] determine whether the claims at issue are directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts. If so, we then ask, “[w]hat else is there in the claims before us? To answer that question, []consider the elements of each claim both individually and “as an ordered combination” to determine whether the additional elements “transform the nature of the claim” into a patent- eligible application. [The Court] described step two of this analysis as a 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.” Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 217-18 (2014) (citations omitted) (citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs, Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012)). To perform this test, we must first determine what the claims are directed to. This begins by determining whether the claims recite one of the judicial exceptions (a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea). Then, if the claims recite a judicial exception, determining whether the claims at issue are directed to the recited judicial exception, or whether the recited judicial exception is integrated into a practical application of that exception, i.e., that the claims “apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the judicial exception.” Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 54. If the claims are directed to a judicial exception, then finally determining whether the claims provide an inventive concept because the Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 6 additional elements recited in the claims provide significantly more than the recited judicial exception. STEP 2A Prong 1 At a high level, and for our preliminary analysis, we note that method claim 22 recites receiving consumer data, computing trust scores, generating correlations data, generating consumer records, receiving transaction data, identifying consumer data, and selecting, transmitting, and printing offer data. Computing scores and generating correlations data are mathematical algorithms used in data analysis. Identifying and selecting data are rudimentary data analysis. Thus, claim 22 recites receiving, analyzing, generating, transmitting, and printing data. None of the limitations recite technological implementation details for any of these steps, but instead recite only results desired by any and all possible means. From this we see that claim 22 does not recite the judicial exceptions of either natural phenomena or laws of nature. Under Supreme Court precedent, claims directed purely to an abstract idea are patent in-eligible. As set forth in the Revised Guidance, which extracts and synthesizes key concepts identified by the courts, abstract ideas include: (1) mathematical concepts;4 (2) certain methods of organizing human activity;5 and (3) mental processes.6 Among those certain methods 4 See, e.g., Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 71-72 (1972); Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 611 (2010); Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co. v. Radio Corp. of Am., 306 U.S. 86, 94 (1939); SAP America, Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1163 (Fed. Cir. 2018). 5 See, e.g., Bilski, 561 U.S. at 628; Alice, 573 U.S. at 219-20; Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709, 715 (Fed Cir. 2014); Smart Sys. Innovations, LLC v. Chicago Transit Auth., 873 F.3d 1364, 1383 (Fed. Cir. Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 7 of organizing human activity listed in the Revised Guidance are commercial or legal interactions. Like those concepts, claim 22 recites the concept of managing advertising. Specifically, claim 22 recites operations that would ordinarily take place in advising one to select and print an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data. The advice to select and print an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data involves transmitting, to a retailer point of sale terminal, instructions for causing printing a paper receipt that includes an offer, which is an economic act, and printing, at a retailer point of sale terminal, a paper receipt that includes the offer, which is an act ordinarily performed in the stream of commerce. For example, claim 22 recites “transmitting, to a retailer point of sale terminal, instructions for causing printing a paper receipt that includes the offer,” which is an activity that would take place when one is providing a commercial offer. Similarly, claim 1 recites “printing, at a retailer point of sale terminal, a paper receipt that includes the offer,” which is also characteristic of managing commercial advertising. The Examiner determines the claims to be directed to sending and receiving data to select and send targeted advertising. Final Act. 3. The preamble to claim 22 recites that it is a method for facilitating consumer identity resolution. The steps in claim 22 result in managing advertising by selecting and printing an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction 2017); In re Marco Guldenaar Holding B.V., 911 F.3d 1157, 1160-61 (Fed. Cir. 2018). 6 See, e.g., Benson, 409 U.S. at 67; CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1371-72 (Fed. Cir. 2011); Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1318 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 8 data and scored and correlated consumer master data absent any technological mechanism other than a conventional computer for doing so. As to the specific limitations, limitations 1 and 5 recite receiving data. Limitations 2-4 and 6-9 recite generic and conventional analyzing, generating, transmitting, and printing of consumer, transaction, and ad data, which advise one to apply generic functions to get to these results. The limitations thus recite advice for selecting and printing an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data. To advocate selecting and printing an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data is conceptual advice for results desired and not technological operations. The Specification at paragraph 3 describes the invention as relating to “generation, processing, storage, management, usage, distribution and/or delivery of digital offers, including digital coupons and other digital promotional vehicles.” Thus, all this intrinsic evidence shows that claim 22 recites managing advertising. This is consistent with the Examiner’s determination. This in turn is an example of commercial or legal interactions as a certain method of organizing human activity because advertising is a way of eliciting commerce. The concept of managing advertising by selecting and printing an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data is one idea for managing how ads are selected. The steps recited in claim 22 are part of how this might conceptually be premised. Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 9 Our reviewing court has found claims to be directed to abstract ideas when they recited similar subject matter. Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709, 715 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (advertising). Alternately, this is an example of concepts performed in the human mind as mental processes because the steps of receiving, analyzing, generating, transmitting, and printing data mimic human thought processes of observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion, perhaps with paper and pencil, where the data interpretation is perceptible only in the human mind. See In re TLI Commc’ns LLC Patent Litig., 823 F.3d 607, 611 (Fed. Cir. 2016); FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., Inc., 839 F.3d 1089, 1093-94 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Claim 22, unlike the claims found non-abstract in prior cases, uses generic computer technology to perform data reception, analysis, generation, transmission, and printing and does not recite an improvement to a particular computer technology. See, e.g., McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am. Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1314-15 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (Finding claims not abstract because they “focused on a specific asserted improvement in computer animation.”). As such, claim 22 recites receiving, analyzing, generating, transmitting, and printing data, and not a technological implementation or application of that idea. From this we conclude that at least to this degree, claim 22 recites managing advertising by selecting and printing an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data, which is a commercial and legal interaction, one of certain methods of organizing human activity identified in the Revised Guidance, and, thus, an abstract idea. Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 10 STEP 2A Prong 2 The next issue is whether claim 22 not only recites, but is more precisely directed to this concept itself or whether it is instead directed to some technological implementation or application of, or improvement to, this concept i.e. integrated into a practical application.7 At the same time, we tread carefully in construing this exclusionary principle lest it swallow all of patent law. At some level, “all inventions . . . embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of nature, natural phenomena, or abstract ideas.” Thus, an invention is not rendered ineligible for patent simply because it involves an abstract concept. “[A]pplication[s]” of such concepts [“]to a new and useful end[”], we have said, remain eligible for patent protection. Accordingly, in applying the [section] 101 exception, we must distinguish between patents that claim the [‘]buildin[g] block[s’] of human ingenuity and those that integrate the building blocks into something more. Alice, 573 U.S. at 217 (citations omitted). Taking the claim elements separately, the operation performed by the computer at each step of the process is expressed purely in terms of results, devoid of implementation details. Steps 1 and 5 are pure data gathering steps. Limitations describing the nature of the data do not alter this. Steps 7-9 are insignificant post solution activity, such as storing, transmitting, or displaying the results. Steps 2-4 and 6 recite generic computer processing expressed in terms of results desired by any and all possible means and so present no more than conceptual advice. All purported inventive aspects reside in how the data is interpreted and the 7 See, e.g., Alice, 573 U.S. at 223 (discussing Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175 (1981)). Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 11 results desired, and not in how the process physically enforces such a data interpretation or in how the processing technologically achieves those results. Viewed as a whole, Appellant’s claim 22 simply recites the concept of managing advertising by selecting and printing an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data as performed by a generic computer. This is no more than conceptual advice on the parameters for this concept and the generic computer processes necessary to process those parameters, and does not recite any particular implementation. Claim 22 does not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of the computer itself. Nor does it effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. The Specification only spells out different generic equipment and parameters that might be applied using this concept and the particular steps such conventional processing would entail based on the concept of managing advertising by selecting and printing an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data under different scenarios.8 It does not describe any particular improvement in the manner a computer functions. Instead, claim 22 at issue amounts to nothing significantly more than an instruction to apply managing advertising by selecting and printing an ad for an 8 The Specification describes a desktop computer, laptop computer, netbook, electronic notebook, ultra mobile personal computer (UMPC), electronic tablet, client computing device, client terminal, client console, mobile telephone, smartphone, wearable computer, head-mounted computer, or personal digital assistant. Spec. para. 56. The Specification also describes using smartphones, personal computers. Spec. para. 170. Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 12 identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data using some unspecified, generic computer. Under our precedents, that is not enough to transform an abstract idea into a patent- eligible invention. See Alice, 573 U.S. at 225-26. None of the limitations reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, applies or uses a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition, implements a judicial exception with, or uses a judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or applies or uses 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 22 is directed to achieving the result of managing advertising by advising one to select and print an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data, 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. Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 13 STEP 2B The next issue is whether claim 22 provides an inventive concept because the additional elements recited in the claim provide significantly more than the recited judicial exception. The introduction of a computer into the claims does not generally alter the analysis at Mayo step two. the mere recitation of a generic computer cannot transform a patent-ineligible abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention. Stating an abstract idea “while adding the words ‘apply it’” is not enough for patent eligibility. Nor is limiting the use of an abstract idea “‘to a particular technological environment.’” Stating an abstract idea while adding the words “apply it with a computer” simply combines those two steps, with the same deficient result. Thus, if a patent’s recitation of a computer amounts to a mere instruction to “implemen[t]” an abstract idea “on . . . a computer,” that addition cannot impart patent eligibility. This conclusion accords with the preemption concern that undergirds our § 101 jurisprudence. Given the ubiquity of computers, wholly generic computer implementation is not generally the sort of “additional featur[e]” that provides any “practical assurance that the process is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the [abstract idea] itself.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 223-24 (citations omitted). “[T]he relevant question is whether the claims here do more than simply instruct the practitioner to implement the abstract idea[] on a generic computer.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 225. They do not. Taking the claim elements separately, the function performed by the computer at each step of the process is purely conventional. Using a computer for receiving, analyzing, generating, transmitting, and printing data amounts to electronic data query and retrieval-some of the most basic Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 14 functions of a computer. All of these computer functions are generic, routine, conventional computer activities that are performed only for their conventional uses. See Elec. Power Grp. LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2016); see also 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,’ . . . those functions can be achieved by any general purpose computer without special programming”). None of these activities is used in some unconventional manner nor does any produce some unexpected result. Appellant does not contend it invented any of these activities. In short, each step does no more than require a generic computer to perform generic computer functions. As to the data operated upon, “even if a process of collecting and analyzing information is ‘limited to particular content’ or a particular ‘source,’ that limitation does not make the collection and analysis other than abstract.” SAP America, Inc. v. InvestPic LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1168 (Fed. Cir. 2018). Considered as an ordered combination, the computer components of Appellant’s claim 22 add nothing that is not already present when the steps are considered separately. The sequence of data reception-analysis- generation-transmission-print is equally generic and conventional. See Ultramercial, 772 F.3d at 715 (sequence of receiving, selecting, offering for exchange, display, allowing access, and receiving payment recited an abstraction), Inventor Holdings, LLC v. Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc., 876 F.3d 1372, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (sequence of data retrieval, analysis, modification, generation, display, and transmission), Two-Way Media Ltd. v. Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, 874 F.3d 1329, 1339 (Fed. Cir. Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 15 2017) (sequence of processing, routing, controlling, and monitoring). The ordering of the steps is therefore ordinary and conventional. We conclude that claim 22 does not provide an inventive concept because the additional elements recited in the claim do not provide significantly more than the recited judicial exception. REMAINING CLAIMS Claim 22 is representative. The remaining method claims merely describe process parameters. We conclude that the method claims at issue are directed to a patent-ineligible concept itself, and not to the practical application of that concept. As to the structural claims, they are no different from the method claims in substance. The method claims recite the abstract idea implemented on a generic computer; the system claims recite a handful of generic computer components configured to implement the same idea. This Court has long “warn[ed] . . . against” interpreting § 101 “in ways that make patent eligibility ‘depend simply on the draftsman’s art.’ Alice, 573 U.S. at 226. As a corollary, the claims are not directed to any particular machine. LEGAL CONCLUSION From these determinations we further determine that the claims do not recite an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself or to any other technology or technical field, a particular machine, a particular transformation, or other meaningful limitations. From this we conclude the claims are directed to the judicial exception of the abstract idea of certain Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 16 methods of organizing human activity as exemplified by the commercial and legal interaction of managing advertising by advising one to select and print an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data, without significantly more. APPELLANT’S ARGUMENTS As to Appellant’s Appeal Brief arguments, we adopt the Examiner’s determinations and analysis from Final Action 3-9 and Answer 3-9 and reach similar legal conclusions. We now turn to the Reply Brief. Appellant argues that the asserted claims are akin to the claims found patent-eligible in Data Engine Techs. LLC v. Google LLC, 906 F.3d 999 (Fed. Cir. 2018). Reply Br. 1-2. But some of the claims in Data Engine were ineligible. In contrast to Data Engine’s representative claim 12, the Data Engine court found claim 1 of another of the patents before it to be directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. The court explained that, unlike representative claim 12, claim 1 was “directed at something a bit more general.” It found that claim 1’s more general recitation was “not limited to the specific technical solution and improvement in electronic spreadsheet functionality,” but instead was directed to “any means for identifying electronic spreadsheet pages.” Data Engine, 906 F.3d at 1012. The instant claims are analogously not limited to a specific technical solution and improvement in user identification and ad selection functionality, but instead are directed to any means for selecting and printing an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data. We are not persuaded by Appellant's argument that Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 17 the focus of the claims on computing trust scores for data fields in transaction records, indicating how accurate the data in these fields are, correlating collections based on trust scores, then generating or selecting offers based on both correlated records with trusted fields and context data for a current transaction, culminating in transmitting the offer and printing a receipt, are unusual and different in the art as well as specifically tied to particular machine operations. The claims cannot be abstract because of the particular operations that they require a computer to perform and because the result is a specific kind of data transmission and printing of a receipt. In other words, the means used to determine and transmit a digital offer is so specifically claimed and unusual compared to past practice that it cannot be considered to cover all ways, abstractly, of generating and sending digital offers at a point of sale. Reply Br. 3. The first sentence contends novelty, not eligibility. “A claim for a new abstract idea is still an abstract idea. The search for a § 101 inventive concept is thus distinct from demonstrating § 102 novelty.” Synopsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp., 839 F.3d 1138, 1151 (Fed. Cir. 2016). The operations only require a computer because they are recited as being in a computer context. Data reception, analysis, generation, transmission, and printing can be done with paper and pencil in a manual context. “The Supreme Court and this court have repeatedly made clear that merely limiting the field of use of the abstract idea to a particular existing technological environment does not render the claims any less abstract.” Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v. DirecTV, LLC, 838 F.3d 1253, 1258 (Fed. Cir. 2016). The result is a specific kind of data transmission and printing of a receipt only in the sense it is specified using words and described as including offer data. There is nothing technologically specific about the result or how it is obtained. Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 18 To say that “it cannot be considered to cover all ways, abstractly, of generating and sending digital offers at a point of sale” (argument supra) is to say so only in the sense the claims more precisely recite any means for selecting and printing an ad for an identified consumer based on transaction data and scored and correlated consumer master data. As the added details are conceptual ideas for data sources, this is still no more than a conceptual idea devoid of implementation details. At that level of generality, the claims do no more than describe a desired function or outcome, without providing any limiting detail that confines the claim to a particular solution to an identified problem. The purely functional nature of the claim confirms that it is directed to an abstract idea, not to a concrete embodiment of that idea. Affinity Labs., 838 F.3d at 1269. Appellant also attempts to analogize the claims to those involved in McRO, supra. Reply Br. 4. In McRO, the court held that, although the processes were previously performed by humans, “the traditional process and newly claimed method . . . produced . . . results in fundamentally different ways.” FairWarning, 839 F.3d at 1094 (differentiating the claims at issue from those in McRO). In McRO, “it was the incorporation of the claimed rules not the use of the computer, that improved the existing technology process,” because the prior process performed by humans “was driven by subjective determinations rather than specific, limited mathematical rules.” McRO, 837 F.3d at 1314 (citation and alterations omitted). In contrast, the claims of the instant application merely implement an old practice of using decision criteria in making ad decisions in a new environment. Appellant has not argued that the claimed processes of selecting ads apply rules of selection in a manner technologically Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 19 different from those which humans used, albeit with less efficiency, before the invention was claimed. Merely pigeon holing the objects of decision making in tiers to aid decision making is both old and itself abstract. The claims in McRO were not directed to an abstract idea, but instead were directed to “a specific asserted improvement in computer animation, i.e., the automatic use of rules of a particular type.” We explained that “the claimed improvement [was] allowing computers to produce ‘accurate and realistic lip synchronization and facial expressions in animated characters’ that previously could only be produced by human animators.” The claimed rules in McRO transformed a traditionally subjective process performed by human artists into a mathematically automated process executed on computers. FairWarning, 839 F.3d at 1094. We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the claims have the benefit of “identifying an ambiguous consumer based on computed trust scores and transactional data and delivering a targeted electronic offer to the identified consumer, has the benefit of reducing the use of computer resources such as CPU cycles that would be used for delivering less than optimal offers to unidentified consumers.” Reply Br. 5. This only contends that the information, not the underlying technology, is improved. “The claims are focused on providing information to traders in a way that helps them process information more quickly, not on improving computers or technology. . . . The ‘tool for presentation’ here . . . is simply a generic computer.” Trading Techs. Int’l, Inc. v. IBG LLC, 921 F.3d 1378, 1384-85 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (citations omitted). The asserted reduction in computer resources is only that resulting from any improvement in reducing data input, negating need for more information retrieval. This is not a technological improvement. Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 20 We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that “claim 1 recites not only the transmission of instructions for printing, but also transforming the offer data to a different state by printing a paper receipt.” Reply Br. 6. The Specification describes using conventional rather than special purpose computers. Printing a paper receipt is a conventional retail operation by conventional equipment used for their conventional purpose. We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that “[c]laim 1 recites unconventional steps of an unconventional solution that achieves an improved technological result, so it does not matter that [c]laim 1 recites standard computing elements included in a data processing system. What matters is the process innovation as evidenced by the recited and unconventional steps.” Reply Br. 7. We determine supra that all steps are conventional receiving, analyzing, generating, transmitting, and printing operations. We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that “pages . . . of the Examiner’s Answer fail to provide a showing of fact that the additional elements in the independent and dependent claims are not sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.” Reply Br. 7. Appellants cite Berkheimer for the proposition that evidence of something being conventional is necessary. Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881F.3d1360 (Fed. Cir. 2018). Support for this finding is provided under Step 2B supra. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW The rejection of claims 1, 5-11, 13-22, and 25-30 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to a judicial exception without significantly more is proper. Appeal 2019-001394 Application 13/944,558 21 CONCLUSION The rejection of claims 1, 5-11, 13-22, and 25-30 is affirmed. In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 5-11, 13-22, 25-30 101 Eligibility 1, 5-11, 13-22, 25-30 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) (2011). AFFIRMED