Ex Parte Mattson et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 14, 2017

14216073 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 14, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O.Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
14/216,073 03/17/2014 Howard Charles Duncan Mattson 2014P01608US 7775
45113 7590
Siemens Corporation
Intellectual Property Department
3501 Quadrangle Blvd Ste 230
Orlando, EL 32817
EXAMINER
JONES, HUGH M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2128
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/18/2017 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
IPDadmin.us@siemens.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte HOWARD CHARLES DUNCAN MATTSON, DOUGLAS
JOSEPH KING, MICHAEL JOHN GIBBENS, and YANONG ZHU1
Appeal 2017-003497
Application 14/216,073
Technology Center 2100
Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, JOHN P. PINKERTON, and
ALEX S. YAP, Administrative Patent Judges.
NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the final
rejection of claims 1 through 23. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
INVENTION
The invention is directed to a method of populating a data structure
associated with a CAD model. See Abstract of Appellants’ Specification.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and is reproduced below.
1 Applicant is Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc.
Appeal 2017-003497
Application 14/216,073
1. A method performed by a data processing system,
comprising:
receiving a CAD model including a plurality of input features;
initializing a data structure representing multi-level structures in
the CAD model;
identifying at least two equal groups of the plurality of input
features;
applying a single-level structure recognition process on the groups
of features to produce detected structures;
populating the data structure according to the detected structures,
wherein the data structure includes leaf nodes representing
input features, intermediate nodes representing structures of
the input features, and a top-level node identifying a top-
level structure of intermediate-node structures discovered in
the CAD model; and
storing the data structure as associated with the CAD model.
REJECTIONS AT ISSUE
The Examiner has rejected claims 1 through 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 101
being directed to non-statutory subject matter. Final Action 2.
The Examiner has rejected claims 1 through 23 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(a) as anticipated by Dinesh Shikhare et al., Compression of Large 3D
Engineering Models using Automatic Discovery of Repeating Geometric
Features, VMV 2001 233—240 (2001) (“Shikhare”). Final Action 4—8.
ISSUES
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101
Appellants’ argue on pages 17 through 30 of the Appeal Brief and
pages 10 through 33 of the Reply Brief, that the Examiner’s rejection of
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claims 1 through 72 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is in error. The issues raised by
these arguments are:
1) Did the Examiner err in finding the claims are directed to an
abstract concept?
2) Did the Examiner err in finding that the claims do not recite an
inventive concept which transforms the abstract algorithm into a
patent eligible invention?
Appellants’ arguments directed to claims 8 through 14 and 22 on page
31 through 32 of the Appeal Brief present the same issues as discussed with
respect to claim 1.
Appellants’ arguments directed to claims 15 through 20 and 23 on
page 33 through 34 of the Appeal Brief present the same issues as discussed
with respect to claim 1.
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102
Appellants present several arguments on pages 10 through 14 of the Appeal
Brief and pages 3 through 8 of the Reply Brief directed to the Examiner’s
rejection of independent claims 1, 8, and 15. The dispositive issue raised by
these arguments is: Did the Examiner err in finding that Shikhare teaches
populating a data structure according to the detected structures, wherein the
data structure includes leaf nodes representing input features, intermediate
2 Appellants did not list claim 21, which is also rejected by the Examiner and
depends on claim 1. We assume Appellants intend for the discussions in
these pages to apply also to claim 21.
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Application 14/216,073
nodes representing structures of the input features, and a top-level node
identifying a top-level structure of intermediate-node structures discovered
in the CAD mode, as recited in each of independent claims 1, 8, and 15?
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellants’ arguments in the Briefs, the
Examiner’s rejection, and the Examiner’s response to Appellants’
arguments. Appellants’ arguments have not persuaded us of error in the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 through 23 as directed to non-statutory
subject matter. However, Appellants’ arguments have persuaded us of error
in the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of claims 1 through 23.
Rejection of Claims 1 through 23 under 35 U.S.C. §101
Appellants argue that independent claim 1 is directed to “operations
[that] implement a process that is not shown to be performed by any prior
system to automatically analyze a CAD model to identify groups of input
features, detect structures in them, and populate a data structure in a specific
manner according to the detected structures.” App. Br. 24—25.
The Examiner has found that claim 1 is directed to the abstract
concept of identifying duplicate patterns in CAD structures and storing the
information. Answer 6. We concur with the Examiner. Claim 1 is directed
to the abstract concept of storing a data structure associated with a CAD
model, by using algorithms that initialize a data structure in a model,
identify groups of input features, apply a process to the groups of the inputs
and populate the data structure according to the process applied to the inputs.
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The Supreme Court reiterated the framework set out in Mayo
Collaborative Services, v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 132 S.Ct. 1289 (2012),
for “distinguishing patents that claim . . . abstract ideas from those that claim
patent-eligible applications of those concepts.” Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd., v. CLS
Bank International, 134 S.Ct. 2347, 2355 (2014). Assuming that a claim
nominally falls within one of the statutory categories of machine,
manufacture, process, or composition of matter, the first step in the analysis
is to determine if the claim is directed to a law of nature, a natural
phenomenon, or an abstract idea (judicial exceptions). If so, the second step
is to determine whether any element or combination of elements in the claim
is sufficient to transform the nature of the claim into a patent eligible
application, that is, to ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more
than the judicial exception.
With respect to the first step of the Alice analysis, independent method
claim 1 is nominally directed to one of the statutory classes of invention,
independent claim 8 is directed to a system and claim 15 is directed to a non-
transitory computer readable medium. Each of the claims are directed to the
concept of storing a data structure associated with a CAD, which
Appellants’ Specification describes as providing “the distinct technical
advantage of more efficient and uniform processing of such structures.” See,
e.g., Para. 75 of Appellants’ Specification. We consider this to be an
abstract concept.
Claim 1 recites limitations of receiving a model including an input,
idealizing a data structure, identifying groups of input features, applying a
process to the feature and populating the data structure. Independent claims
8 and 15 recite similar steps.
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Our reviewing court has said that abstract ideas includes “collecting
information, including when limited to particular content.” Elec. Power
Grp., LLC v. Alstrom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Further
“merely presenting the results of abstract processes of collecting and
analyzing information, without more (such as identifying a particular tool for
presentation), is abstract as an ancillary part of such collection and analysis.”
Id. at 1354. Here the claims are merely directed to steps of collecting
information and performing several algorithms on the information to
populate a data structure with the data and thus recites an abstract idea.
Appellants argue that the claimed process provides improvements to
the function of the computer and are not drawn to abstract ideas cited in
Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Reply Br.
20-21. We are not persuaded of error by Appellants’ arguments.
Appellants’ asserted improvement that it provides “the technical advantage
of more efficient and uniform processing of such structures” is merely
reciting an illusory and undefined advantage. App. Br. 28 (citing
Specification 28 and 75). Further, this improvement is recited in Appellants’
Specification and not the claims, whereas the claims of Enfish were in
means-plus-fimction format and the court looked to the specification to
define the limits of the claim limitations.
With respect to the second step of the Alice analysis, we do not find
claims 1,8, and 15 recite an inventive concept which transforms the abstract
algorithm into a patent eligible invention. See Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2357
(“[W]e 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. A claim that recites an abstract idea
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must include ‘additional features’ to ensure ‘that the [claim] is more than a
drafting effort designed to monopolize the [abstract idea].’” (internal
citations omitted)). Each of claims 1, 8, and 15, recites a data processing
system and storing the data structure as associated with the CAD model.
Thus, the claims generically recite a data processing system, computing
equipment, that performs the recited algorithm and which is insufficient to
transform the nature of the claim into a patent-eligible application. “[T]he
use of generic computer elements like a microprocessor or user interface do
not alone transform an otherwise abstract idea into patent-eligible subject
matter.” FairWarning IP, LLC, v. Iatric Sys., Inc., 839 F.3d 1089, 1096
(Fed. Cir. 2016) (citing DDR Holdings, LLC, v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d
1245, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2014)). Thus, we agree with the Examiner that
independent claims 1,8, and 15, and the claims which depend thereupon, are
not directed to patent-eligible subject matter.
Rejection of Claims 1 through 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) (D
Appellants argue the Examiner errs in finding that Shikhare teaches
populating a data structure according to the detected structures, wherein the
data structure includes leaf nodes representing input features, intermediate
nodes representing structures of the input features, and a top-level node
identifying a top-level structure of intermediate-node structures discovered
in the CAD mode, as recited in each of independent claims 1, 8, and 15.
The Examiner responds to Appellants’ arguments and finds that
Shikhare teaches detecting nested repeating patterns at different levels of
granularity, i.e., a hierarchy. Answer 23. Although we concur with the
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Examiner that Shikhare teaches detecting patterns in a hierarchy, we do not
find that this meets the claimed data structure of leaf nodes representing
input features, intermediate nodes representing input features, and top-level
node identifying top level structure. Accordingly, we do not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 8, and 15, and the claims
which depend upon them, under § 102(a)(1).
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1 through 23 is
affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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