Facebook, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

May 21, 2020

14249160 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 21, 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.
14/249,160 04/09/2014 Sean Michael Bruich 26295-26488/US 9760
87851 7590 05/21/2020
Facebook/Fenwick
Silicon Valley Center
801 California Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
EXAMINER
REFAI, SAM M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3681
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/21/2020 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 SEAN MICHAEL BRUICH

Appeal 2019–004296
Application 14/249,160
Technology Center 3600

Before HUBERT C. LORIN, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
KENNETH G. SCHOPFER, Administrative Patent Judges.

LORIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant appeals from the
Examiner’s Final decision to reject claims 1–5 and 11–15.1 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 Facebook, Inc. as the real party in interest.
Appeal Br. 2.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claimed subject matter “relates to the field of computer data
storage and retrieval, and more specifically, to deriving information for
estimating viewership of digital content such as online advertisements.”
(Spec. para. 2). Claim 1, reproduced below with emphasis added, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method comprising:
receiving a user identifier associated with an advertising
impression of an advertising campaign;
generating an obscured user data item associated with the
received user identifier;
sending the obscured user data item and an identifier of
the advertising campaign to a plurality of user data sources,
each obscured user data item corresponding to a user identifier
on at least two of the plurality of user data sources;
receiving a plurality of demographics reports, each
demographics report associated with a corresponding user data
source from the plurality of user data sources, wherein the
demographics report is generated after receiving the obscured
user data item and the identifier of the advertising campaign and
wherein each demographics report:
describes user demographics of each advertising
impression associated with the advertising campaign, and
includes demographic information stored at the user data
source that relates to the obscured user data sent to the user data
source and corresponds to the user identifier at the user data
source; and
based at least in part on the received plurality of
demographics reports, generating one or more estimated
viewing statistics for the advertising campaign, the estimated
viewing statistics associated with viewership and demographics
of one or more users who have viewed the advertising campaign
and combining data for the obscured user data items in more
than one demographics report.
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REFERENCE
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
Heffernan US 2012/0158954 A1 Jun. 21, 2012

REJECTIONS
Claims 1–5 and 11–15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being
directed to judicially-excepted subject matter.
Claims 1–5 and 11–15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2) as
being anticipated by Heffernan.
OPINION
The rejection of claims 1–5 and 11–15 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being
directed to judicially-excepted subject matter.
The Appellant argues these claims as a group. See Appeal Br. 18–39.
We select claim 1 as the representative claim for this group, and the
remaining claims 1–5 and 11–15 stand or fall with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
Preliminary comment
Our following analysis will comport with the 2019 Revised Patent
Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019),
hereinafter “2019 Revised 101 Guidance.” Previous guidance such as the
Office’s 2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility (cited at
Appeal Br. 19) has been superseded by the 2019 Revised 101 Guidance, 84
Fed. Reg. at 51 (“Eligibility–related guidance issued prior to the Ninth
Edition, R–08.2017, of the MPEP (published Jan. 2018) should not be relied
upon.”).
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Introduction
35 U.S.C. § 101 provides that “[w]hoever invents or discovers any
new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or
any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor.”
In that regard, claim 1 covers a “process” and is, thus, statutory
subject matter for which a patent may be obtained.2 This is not in dispute.
However, the § 101 provision “contains an important implicit
exception: Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not
patentable.” Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 216 (2014).
(2014) (quoting Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc.,
569 U.S. 576, 589 (2013)).
In that regard, notwithstanding that claim 1 covers statutory subject
matter, the Examiner has raised a question of patent eligibility on the ground
that claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea.
Alice identifies a two-step framework for determining whether
claimed subject matter is directed to an abstract idea. Id. at 217.
Alice step one – the “directed to” inquiry
According to Alice step one, “[w]e must first determine whether the
claims at issue are directed to a patent-ineligible concept.” Id. at 218
(emphasis added).
The Examiner determined that claim 1 is directed to, inter alia,
“generating one or more estimated viewing statistics for an advertising

2 This corresponds to Step 1 of the 2019 Revised 101 Guidance which
requires determining whether “a claim is to a statutory category.” Id. at 53.
See also sentence bridging pages 53 and 54 (“consider[ ] whether the
claimed subject matter falls within the four statutory categories of patentable
subject matter identified by 35 U.S.C. 101 . . . .”).
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campaign based on a plurality of received demographics reports.” Final
Act. 2.
Appellant argues that the claim is not directed to an abstract idea but
rather to a process that “provides a specific way to obtain metrics for online
advertising using multiple sources of data while ensuring that personally
identifiable information maintained by each data source is not shared outside
the user data source.” Appeal Br. 7.
Accordingly, there is a dispute over whether claim 1 is directed to an
abstract idea. Specifically, is claim 1 directed to “generating one or more
estimated viewing statistics” (Final Act. 2) or “provides a specific way to
obtain metrics for online advertising (Appeal Br. 7)?
The Abstract Idea3
Above, where we reproduce claim 1, we identify in italics the
limitations we believe recite an abstract idea.4 We determine that the
identified limitations describe a scheme for generating estimated viewing
statistics for an advertising campaign. Generating statistics, including in this
case for an advertising campaign, is a fundamental economic practice that
humans have performed for hundreds of years. It falls within the enumerated

3 This corresponds to Step 2A of the 2019 Revised 101 Guidance. Step 2A
determines “whether a claim is ‘directed to’ a judicial exception,” such as an
abstract idea. Step 2A is two-prong inquiry.
4 This corresponds to Prong One (a) of Step 2A of the 2019 Revised 101
Guidance. “To determine whether a claim recites an abstract idea in Prong
One, examiners are now to: (a) [i]dentify the specific limitation(s) in the
claim under examination (individually or in combination) that the Examiner
believes recites an abstract idea . . . .” 2019 Revised 101 Guidance, 84 Fed.
Reg. at 54.
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“[c]ertain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas
set forth in the 2019 Revised 101 Guidance.5
Appellant argues that the claims
do not themselves direct or organize human behavior. While the
claims relate to an activity that has been performed by humans,
the claims are not directed to organizing such behavior. Further,
while the online system receives demographics reports from user
data sources and generates estimated viewing statistics for the
campaign based on the received reports, the claims are not
directed to mathematical relationships or formulas.
Appeal Br. 6. We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s argument.
Statistics concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation
and presentation of data, a discipline that has been around at least a thousand
years. Generating statistics has been around just as long. With regard to “the
online system” (id.) used to receive reports and generate statistics, claim 1
makes no mention of an “online” system.

5 This corresponds to Prong One (“Evaluate Whether the Claim Recites a
Judicial Exception”) (b) of Step 2A of the 2019 Revised 101 Guidance. “To
determine whether a claim recites an abstract idea in Prong One, examiners
are now to: . . . (b) determine whether the identified limitation(s) falls within
the subject matter groupings of abstract ideas enumerated in Section I of the
[2019 Revised 101 Guidance].” 2019 Revised 101 Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg.
at 54. This case implicates subject matter grouping “(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).” Id. at 52.
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Improvement In the Functioning of a Computer6 (Appellant’s
Argument)
The Examiner’s characterization of what the claim is directed to is
essentially the same as ours.
We have reviewed the record and are unpersuaded as to error in the
Examiner’s characterization of what claim 1 is directed to.
Appellant’s argument has been fully considered but the principal
difficulty with Appellant’s position is that it is not commensurate in scope
with what is claimed. “Many of appellant’s arguments fail from the outset
because, . . . they are not based on limitations appearing in the claims . . . .”
In re Self, 671 F.2d 1344, 1348 (CCPA 1982). Cf. In re Jobin, Appeal
No. 2020-1067, 2020 WL 2298381, at *4 (Fed. Cir. May 8, 2020) (“We
reject Jobin’s arguments to the contrary, which amount to nothing more than
conclusory statements unmoored from specific claim language.”)
Appellant argues that the claimed subject matter is directed to a
process which
provides a specific way to obtain metrics for online advertising
using multiple sources of data while ensuring that personally

6 This corresponds to Prong Two (“If the Claim Recites a Judicial Exception,
Evaluate Whether the Judicial Exception Is Integrated Into a Practical
Application”) of Step 2A of the 2019 Revised 101 Guidance. “A claim that
integrates a judicial exception into a practical application will 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.” 2019 Revised 101
Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 54. One consideration, implicated here, that is
“indicative that an additional element (or combination of elements)[] may
have integrated the exception into a practical application” (id. at 55) is if
“[a]n additional element reflects an improvement in the functioning of a
computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field” (id.
at 55).
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identifiable information maintained by each data source is not
shared outside the user data source.
Appeal Br. 8 (emphasis added). See also id. at 10 (“The current claims
describe a specific improvement that allows the system to obtain metrics for
online advertising using multiple sources of data.”) This is not a persuasive
argument because the claim is not limited to online advertising. Although
the term “data” is recited a number of times in the claim, which one of
ordinary skill in the art may reasonably broadly construe as limited to
electronic data, nothing in the claim limits the data being processed to an
“online” environment; an “online” environment infers the use of a network.
This “online” argument is repeated in various other ways in the briefs.
See e.g., Appeal Br. 11 (“the claims recite a practical application of the
identified judicial exceptions that addresses a specific challenge in the field
of online advertising”) and Reply Br. 3 (“Here, the claims, as a whole, recite
a practical application that applies data obfuscation for separate data sources
to improve the field of online advertising”). The Reply Brief at page 4 goes
even further:
The claimed method provides a technical and practical solution
to these problems by using a centralized advertising impression
system that gathers data from multiple sources while avoiding
the data leakage that could occur if the different user data sources
were to share their data with one another. Specifically, the
advertising impression system provides a hashed user ID to
multiple user data sources, permitting each data source to provide
demographics information about its own users to a data
aggregator. Since each user data source manages its own
translation of the hashed user ID to the user IDs associated with
the data source and generates its own report, the personally
identifiable information maintained by each data source is not
shared outside the data source.
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The difficulty with these arguments is that claim 1 is not so limited. Apart
from the use of the term “data” as in “data sources,” suggesting the use of an
electronic device, no further technical details are provided. Nothing in the
claim limits the scope of the claim to an online environment, let alone “a
centralized advertising impression system that gathers data from multiple
sources while avoiding the data leakage that could occur if the different user
data sources were to share their data with one another … [by] provid[ing]
[inter alia] a hashed user ID to multiple user data sources” (Reply Br. 4).
We are not placed in a position to determine whether, within the
meaning of the 2019 Revised 101 Guidance, there is integration into a
practical application, i.e., an online environment, because claim 1 is not so
limited.
We have considered Appellant’s other arguments challenging the
Examiner’s determination under step one of the Alice framework and find
them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, the record supports the
Examiner’s determination that claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea.

Alice step two – Does the Claim Provide an Inventive Concept?7
Step two is “a search for an ‘inventive concept’—i.e., an element or
combination of elements that is ‘sufficient to ensure that the patent in

7 This corresponds to Step 2B of the 2019 Revised 101 Guidance (see
84 Fed. Reg. at 56). “[I]f a claim has been determined to be directed to a
judicial exception under revised Step 2A, examiners should then 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).”
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practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the [ineligible
concept] itself.’” Alice, 573 U.S. at 221 (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 73).
In that regard, the Examiner determined that:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are
sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial
exception because the additional computer elements, which are
recited at a high level of generality, provide generic computer
functions that do not add meaningful limits to practicing the
abstract idea.
Final Act. 2.
For its part, Appellant makes the same “online” arguments. See e.g.,
Appeal Br. 14–15:
The claims also recite an unconventional and non-routine
way to assess the effectiveness of online advertisements, hence
amounting to an inventive concept that is “significantly more”
that an abstract idea. Conventional methods of estimating
viewership might obtain data from a single data source, such as
a social networking site. For example, user data on social
networking sites typically includes information such as age, sex,
and interests, as well as users’. historical reactions to
advertisements previously presented. However, the user base of
these social networking sites does not perfectly represent,
demographically, the population in general or that of another
website on which advertisements might be placed. For example,
the user demographics of a given social networking site are
unlikely to perfectly match those of an online news website.
Thus, although the user data on a social networking site could be
directly used to estimate the effectiveness of an advertisement
placed on the online news website, the accuracy of the estimate
could be enhanced. …. Specifically, the advertising impression
system provides a hashed user ID to multiple user data sources,
permitting the data sources to provide demographics information
about its users to a data aggregator. …. [T]he claims recite a
method of assessing the effectiveness of online advertising that
is not normally achievable by conventional methods.
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We are not placed in a position to determine whether the claimed
process is sufficient to ensure that the claimed subject matter in practice
amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself for its ability to
assess the effectiveness of online advertisements because claim 1 is not
limited to an online environment.
No other persuasive arguments having been presented, and we
conclude that no error has been committed in the determination under Alice
step two that claim 1 does not include an element or combination of
elements circumscribing the patent-ineligible concept it is directed to so as
to transform the concept into an inventive application.
We have considered all of the Appellant’s arguments (including those
made in the Reply Brief) and find them unpersuasive.
Accordingly, because we are not persuaded as to error in the
determinations that representative claim 1, and claims 2–5 and 11–15 which
stand or fall with claim 1, are directed to an abstract idea and do not present
an “inventive concept,” we sustain the Examiner’s conclusion that they are
directed to patent-ineligible subject matter for being judicially-excepted
from 35 U.S.C. § 101. Cf. LendingTree, LLC v. Zillow, Inc., 656 Fed. App’x
991, 997 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“We have considered all of LendingTree’s
remaining arguments and have found them unpersuasive. Accordingly,
because the asserted claims of the patents in suit are directed to an abstract
idea and do not present an ‘inventive concept,’ we hold that they are directed
to ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.”); see, e.g., OIP Techs.,
788 F.3d at 1364; FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., Inc., 839 F.3d 1089,
1098 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
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The rejection of claims 1–5 and 11–15 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being
anticipated by Heffernan.
Appellant argues that Heffernan does not describe, inter alia,
“sending the obscured user data item and an identifier of the advertising
campaign to a plurality of user data sources, each obscured user data item
corresponding to a user identifier on at least two of the plurality of user data
sources” (independent claim 1; the other independent claim 11 provides
similar language). Appeal Br. 15–16 and Reply. Br. 5. We agree.
According to the Examiner, said claim limitation is described at
paras. 29, 31, 37, 49-56, 58, 64-67, 74, 83, 91–92, and 112, and “at least”
Figures 1–2 and 4–11 of Heffernan. Final Act. 7. It is unclear where
precisely said claim limitation is described. The Final Action provides no
further explanation to assist us. The Answer reproduces paras. 29, 31, 37,
39, 40, 44, 49, 87, 91, and 111 of Heffernan and then concludes “[t]herefore,
the Heffernan reference does in fact disclose at least the limitations of
“sending the obscured user data item and an identifier of the advertising
campaign to a plurality of user data sources, each obscured user data item
corresponding to a user identifier on at least two of the plurality of user data
sources … .” Ans. 12–18. But no further explanation is given.
We have reviewed the cited Heffernan passages. For the reasons
discussed in the Briefs, we agree that Heffernan describes each client being
identified only by a single database proprietor. This contrasts with the
claimed subject matter which requires “each obscured user data item
correspond to a user identifier on at least two of the plurality of user data
sources.” As Appellant explains,
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as discussed in paragraphs [0029] and [0088]–[0089], the
audience measurement company or the first database proprietor
(also referred to as “partner A”) redirect the client to a next
proprietor (also referred to as “partner B”) “if the client is not a
subscriber of [partner A].” If partner B cannot identify the client
“the same process of failure notification or further HTTP
redirects may be used by partner B to provide a next other partner
site an opportunity to identify the client and so on in a similar
manner until a partner site identifies the client.” Id. ¶ [0089].
Heffernan refers to this process as a “daisy chain approach” at
paragraph [0088]. Thus, unlike the claimed method, in which a
single user is identified by at least two of a plurality of data
sources, Heffernan’s client is identified solely by the first
database proprietor in the daisy chain of which the client is a
subscriber.
Reply Br. 6.
According to Heffernan, a redirect occurs “whenever it [a site] cannot
identify the client” (¶88); that is, when a user ID (contained in database
proprietor) does not match a registered user for a specific partner. Thus, a
single database proprietor identifies only one client. By contrast, the claimed
subject matter calls for “a user identifier on at least two of the plurality of
user data sources.”
Accordingly, a prima facie case of anticipation has not been made out
in the first instance. The rejection is not sustained.
CONCLUSION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1–5 and 11–15 is
affirmed.
More specifically:
The rejection of claims 1–5 and 11–15 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being
directed to judicially-excepted subject matter is affirmed.
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The rejection of claims 1–5 and 11–15 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2) as
being anticipated by Heffernan is reversed.
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–5, 11–15 101 1–5, 11–15
1–5, 11–15 102 Heffernan 1–5, 11–15
Overall
Outcome
1–5, 11–15

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