Ex Parte Wu et al

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 11, 2019

14401044 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Apr. 11, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
14/401,044 11/13/2014 Hsu-Hsiang Wu
138627 7590 04/15/2019
Gilliam IP PLLC (Halliburton)
7200 N. Mopac
Suite 440
Austin, TX 78731
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
164.2011-IP-046505 Ul US 7870
EXAMINER
DALBO, MICHAEL J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2865
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/15/2019 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):
uspto@gilliamip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte HSU-HSIANG WU and LUIS EMILIO SAN MARTIN 1
Appeal 2018-004266
Application 14/401,044
Technology Center 2800
Before GEORGE C. BEST, CHRISTOPHER C. KENNEDY, and
AVEL YN M. ROSS, Administrative Patent Judges.
KENNEDY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
decision rejecting claims 1-5, 7-16, and 21-24. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE.
BACKGROUND
According to the Specification, "[ u ]nderstanding the structure and
properties of geological formations can reduce the cost of drilling wells for
oil and gas exploration." Spec. ,r 1. Various sensors can be used during
drilling to take measurements and obtain relevant information. Id.
1 According to the Appellants, the real party in interest is Halliburton Energy
Services, Inc. App. Br. 3.
Appeal2018-004266
Application 14/401,044
However, "when the transmitters and receivers are separately installed in
different bottom hole assembly (BHA) sections ( e.g., a mandrel, a drill bit
section, etc.), sometimes the rotational speeds of different sections differ
from each other, due to the effects of various coupling mechanisms."
Id. ,r 2. "When this occurs, the signals between transmitters and receivers
may become unsynchronized, resulting in reduced measurement accuracy."
Id.
The subject matter on appeal relates to apparatuses and methods "that
may operate to increase the accuracy of variably, rotationally coupled
sensors when they are used in down hole applications." Spec. ,r 10. The
Specification states that "various embodiments of the invention can be used
to calibrate received sensor data by effectively synchronizing signals
between sets of transmitting and receiving sensors that are rotating at
different relative speeds." Id. Claim 1 is reproduced below from page 14
( Claims Appendix) of the Appeal Brief:
1. An apparatus, comprising:
a housing including a first downhole component variably,
rotationally coupled to a second downhole component;
at least one tilted transmitter attached to the first downhole
component and at least one tilted receiver attached to the
second downhole component;
a first spatial orientation package that detects instantaneous
location and rotation speed of the at least one tilted transmitter;
a second spatial orientation package that detects instantaneous
location and rotation speed of the at least one tilted receiver;
and
a processor housed by the housing, the processor configured to,
determine spatial orientations of the at least one tilted
receiver relative to the at least one tilted transmitter, at
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Application 14/401,044
common points in time during rotation of the first and the
second downhole components, based on the detected
instantaneous locations and rotation speeds of the at least
one tilted transmitter and the at least one tilted receiver; and
transform raw measurements of transmitter signals provided
by the at least one tilted receiver into calibrated
measurements based on the spatial orientations at the
common points in time.
ANALYSIS
Claims 1-5, 7-16, and 21-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as
directed to patent-ineligible subject matter.
Determining whether a claimed invention is directed to patent-eligible
subject matter is a two-step process that requires (1) evaluating whether the
claim is "directed to" a patent-ineligible concept, i.e., a law of nature, natural
phenomenon, or abstract idea; and, if so, (2) determining whether the
claim's elements, considered both individually and as an ordered
combination, transform the nature of the claim into a patent-eligible
application. See Alice Corp. v. CLS Banklnt'l, 573 U.S. 208, 216-18
(2014).
As to Alice step 1, the Examiner determines that claim 1 is directed to
"the abstract idea/ data processing algorithm of analyzing measured gathered
data in order to transform raw measurements into calibrated measurements."
Final Act. 2. The Examiner specifically identifies the "determine" and
"transform" steps as reciting abstract subject matter. Id. at 2-3.
As to Alice step 2, the Examiner finds that the "additional elements of
using the tilted transmitter, tilted receiver, and spatial orientation packages
to gather data amounts to insignificant extrasolution activity, i.e., mere data
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Application 14/401,044
gathering." Id. at 3--4. The Examiner also finds that the additional claim
elements are well-understood, routine, and conventional. Id. at 4.
The Appellants argue that "[ t ]he second, third, and fourth elements of
claim 1 ( the specific configuration of the tilted transmitter, the tilted
receiver, and the spatial orientation packages that detect[] instantaneous
location and rotation speed of the tilted transmitter and the tilted receiver)
should not be considered abstract because they are describing operations
involving specific physical activities of physical objects in a specific
configuration." App. Br. 7-8. The Appellants cite Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft
Corp., 822 F.3d 1327 (Fed. Cir. 2016), and argue that "the recited physical
acts improve well logging technology." Id.; see also Reply Br. 3--4;
Spec. ,r 10 (stating that the invention "operate[s] to increase the accuracy of
variably, rotationally coupled sensors when they are used in down hole
applications").
The USPTO recently published revised guidance on the application of
§ 101. USPTO's 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance,
84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019) ("Guidance"). Under the 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 interactions such as a fundamental economic practice, or
mental processes); and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a
practical application (see MPEP § 2106.0S(a}-(c), (e}-(h) (9th ed.
2018)).
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Appeal2018-004266
Application 14/401,044
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
(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 52, 55-56.
Consistent with the Examiner's analysis, claim 1 uses data (i.e.,
location and rotation speed data) collected by sensors (i.e., "spatial
orientation package[s]" including, e.g., "[a] magnetometer and/or gravity
tool," see Spec. ,r 34) to "determine" spatial orientations at common points
in time based on collected data. The "transform" step of claim 1 uses the
spatial orientations at the common points in time to "transform raw
measurements of transmitter signals provided by the at least one tilted
receiver into calibrated measurements." Mathematical equations and/or
relationships are used to carry out the "determine" and "transform" steps.
E.g., Spec. ,r,r 35-45, ,r 46 ("After reference ( e.g., non-rotating)
measurements are obtained at block 370, the raw measurements can be
obtained and calibrated by transforming them, using Equation ( 6), at block
380. Calibrated measurements ... are the result."). Thus, in accordance
with the Guidance, step (1 ), we determine that claim 1 recites a
mathematical concept.
Nevertheless, claim 1 is not "directed to" an abstract idea because, at
step (2) of the Guidance, we determine that claim 1 integrates the abstract
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Application 14/401,044
idea into a practical application. As set forth above, the Specification
identifies a particular technical problem known in the art:
During drilling operations, when the transmitters and receivers
are separately installed in different bottom hole assembly
(BHA) sections (e.g., a mandrel, a drill bit section, etc.),
sometimes the rotational speeds of different sections differ from
each other, due to the effects of various coupling mechanisms.
When this occurs, the signals between transmitters and
receivers may become unsynchronized, resulting in reduced
measurement accuracy.
Spec. ,r 2. The Specification goes on to describe a technical solution to that
problem involving the use of spatial orientations, detected by spatial
orientation packages, to transform the less accurate raw measurements into
calibrated measurements of enhanced accuracy. See, e.g., Spec. ,r,r 10-11;
claim 1.
Those disclosures are reflected in the claims. See, e.g., claim 1.
Claim 1, for example, recites an apparatus comprising downhole drilling
components, a transmitter, a receiver, spatial orientation packages, and a
processor that determines spatial orientations of the transmitter and receiver
at common points in time, and then uses those orientations to "transform"
raw measurements into calibrated measurements, see id., thereby yielding
more accurate data relative to apparatuses and methods that do not use the
described solution, see Spec. ,r 10.
Thus, consistent with the Guidance, we determine that claim 1 is not
directed to an ineligible abstract idea because it reflects a technological
improvement. See Guidance 55 ( explaining that additional elements may
integrate an abstract idea into a practical application when they "reflect[]
an ... improvement to other technology or technical field"); see also Alice,
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Application 14/401,044
573 U.S. at 223 ( describing the claims at issue in Diamond v. Diehr, 450
U.S. 175 (1981), as "employ[ing] a 'well-known' mathematical equation"
but nevertheless reciting eligible subject matter because the claims "used
that equation in a process designed to solve a technological problem in
'conventional industry practice."'); McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games
Am. Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1316 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (holding claim eligible
because it "uses the limited rules in a process specifically designed to
achieve an improved technological result in conventional industry practice").
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Because the Examiner's rejection of the remaining
claims on appeal suffers from similar deficiencies, we likewise do not
sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 2-5, 7-16, and 21-24.
CONCLUSION
We REVERSE the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-5, 7-16, and 21-
24.
REVERSED
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