Fields, Mike et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 23, 2020

15134983 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jan. 23, 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.
15/134,983 04/21/2016 Mike Fields SF-16091.106021 4824
164349 7590 01/23/2020
Faegre Baker Daniels/State Farm
300 N. Meridian Street
Suite 2500
Indianapolis, IN 46204
EXAMINER
NGUYEN, TIEN C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3694
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/23/2020 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):
inteas@faegrebd.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MIKE FIELDS, ROBERT T. TREFZGER, RAMAKRISHNA
DUVVURI, and TIM G. SANIDAS
Appeal 2019-001751
Application 15/134,983
Technology Center 3600
Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, PHILIP J. HOFFMANN, and
BRADLEY B. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judges.
CRAWFORD, 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 to reject claims 1–20. 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. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as State Farm Mutual
Automobile Insurance Company. Appeal Br. 2.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims relate to “automatically providing customized pricing and
product information based on limited personal data.” Spec. 2. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal.
1. A non-transitory tangible computer readable medium
encoded with processor readable instructions to perform a
method for providing quantitative product information based on
a subset of prospective customer profile records, instructing the
processor to perform:
providing an interactive website interface from a server to
a remote user interface device, comprising a display which
allows a remote user to input a subset of prospective customer
profile records;
reading the input subset of prospective customer profile
records from the interactive website interface;
segmenting existing customer profile records with a
segmentation model based at least in part on the input subset of
prospective customer profile records, said segmenting
comprising:
building a dataset of existing customer profile
records, wherein the database stores representative customer
information comprising at least one statistic relating to: the dollar
value of insurance premiums paid, coverages elected, limits
elected, deductibles elected, and additional products owned;
building a segmentation model based at least in part
on the input subset of prospective customer profile records the
segmentation model depending on insurance policy criteria
selected from: an age of an insured, a sex of the insured, a type
of property insured, details regarding the property insured a
presence of alarms associated with the property insured, and a
number of accidents, citations received by the insured, or claims
filed by the insured within a specified timeframe;
testing the segmentation model against at least a
subset of existing customer profile records;
measuring the accuracy of the segmentation model by
comparing a premium paid by existing customers in a plurality
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of segments against an expected value associated with each of
the plurality of segments; and
validating the segmentation model;
running the segmentation model to identify a segment of
existing customer profile records similar to the input subset of
prospective customer profile records;
running a propensity model based on the segment
identified by the segmentation model, wherein the propensity
model determines the propensity of a prospective customer to
defect from the prospective customer's current insurance policy,
identifies product offerings and price information for products
purchased by the identified segment of existing customer profile
records, and tailors the product offerings and price information
to encourage the prospective customer to defect from the
prospective customer’s current insurance policy;
providing to the interactive website interface a product
menu display of the product offerings and price information to
the remote user; and
providing to the interactive website interface a display
which allows a remote user to input a complete set of prospective
customer profile records.
REJECTION
Claims 1–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed
invention is directed to non–statutory subject matter.

OPINION
The Appellant argues claims 1–20 together as a group, based on
language in claim 1. See Appeal Br. 5–9. We select claim 1 as
representative. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
An invention is patent-eligible if it claims a “new and useful process,
machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” 35 U.S.C. § 101.
However, the Supreme Court has long interpreted 35 U.S.C. § 101 to include
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implicit exceptions: “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract
ideas” are not patentable. E.g., Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208,
216 (2014).
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. Id. at 217–18 (citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus
Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 75–77 (2012)). 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, 69 (1972)). Concepts
determined to be patent eligible include physical and chemical processes,
such as “molding rubber products” (Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 191
(1981)); “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 (1853))); 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 that “[a] claim drawn to subject matter otherwise
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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
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. (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.”).
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 (quotation marks 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. (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.
The PTO recently published revised guidance on the application of
§ 101. See 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:
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(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); and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into
a practical application (see Manual of Patent Examining
Procedure (“MPEP”) § 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h)).
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.
Prong One
The Examiner rejects claims 1–20 as directed to abstract ideas,
specifically “[c]ollecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain
results of the collection and analysis (Electr[]ic Power Group).” Final
Act. 3. The Examiner further finds the “additional limitations of the claim
include a processor and the interactive website interfaces . . . perform
nothing more than the computer functions of receiving, processing, and
storing data, electronically scanning or extracting data from a physical
document, automating mental tasks, and receiving or transmitting data over
a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data.” Final Act. 4 (emphasis
omitted).
Claim 1 recites “building a segmentation model based . . . on the input
subset of prospective customer profile records . . . testing the segmentation
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model . . . measuring the accuracy of the segmentation model by comparing
a premium paid . . . against an expected value . . . validating the
segmentation model[,] running the segmentation model to identify a
segment of existing customer profile records similar to the input subset . . .
[and] running a propensity model . . . [which] determines the propensity of a
prospective customer to defect from the prospective customer’s current
insurance policy, identifies product offerings and price information for
products purchased by the identified segment of existing customer profile
records, and tailors the product offerings and price information to encourage
the prospective customer to defect from the prospective customer's current
insurance policy.” Under Prong One of Revised Step 2A of the Guidance,
this claim language is directed to certain methods of organizing human
activity, in that it involves fundamental economic practices in the form of
insurance and marketing or sales activities. Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52.
The claim language is also directed to mental processes which involve
observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion, because a human can gather
the data, compare it to other customer records, find patterns, and base
recommendations and pricing on that analysis, which uses the mind to
examine data. Id. We thus agree with the Examiner that the claims are
directed to abstract ideas.
Prong Two
We next turn to Prong Two, and determine if the claims integrate the
abstract idea into a practical application. Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 54.
Here, claim 1 recites steps that involve “providing an interactive website
interface . . . which allows a remote user to input” data, and “reading the
[data] from the website interface.” These are data-gathering steps, which do
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not receive weight during this analysis. Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 55 n.31;
see also MPEP § 2106.05(g). In addition, providing information to the
interactive website interface for display, as recited in the last two limitations,
is also insignificant extra-solution activity.
The method embodied on the claimed medium does not improve the
underlying “server” recited as performing the limitations of claim 1, because
any computer can be used to execute the claimed method. See Spec. 19:8
(“Computer 110 may be any type of general purpose or specialized computer
system.”). In addition, the method is directed to providing “customized
pricing information,” “customized product information,” and “peer group
insurance policy information” (Spec. 6–9), and as such the claimed method
does not improve another technology, because it is directed to selling
insurance coverage (Spec. 2). Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at55; see also MPEP
§ 2106.05(a). Because a particular computer is not required, the claim also
does not define or rely on a “particular machine.” Id.; see also MPEP
§ 2106.05(b). Further, the method does not transform matter. Id.; see also
MPEP § 2106.05(c).
Instead, the claim stores data, builds, tests, measures the accuracy of,
and validates a segmentation model, runs another model based on output
from the segmentation model, and provides to a remote user the product
offerings and prices identified by the second model via user interface on a
website. As such, the method has no other meaningful limitations, and thus
merely recites instructions to execute the abstract idea on a computer. Id.;
see also MPEP § 2106.05(e), (f).
Therefore, we determine that claim 1 does not integrate the judicial
exception into a practical application.
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Step 2B
The only elements, beyond the abstract idea of gathering, analyzing,
comparing, selecting, and presenting data about insurance coverages, are “an
interactive website interface from a server to a remote user interface device”
and “a processor to perform” the claimed steps. The server, however, is a
general purpose computer (Spec. 19:8), and the website interface also “may
include software and/or hardware for presenting information to a prospective
customer or agent and accepting input in response” (id. at 19–20). The
operations of receiving, storing, analyzing, and presenting data are primitive
computer operations found in any computer system. See In re Katz
Interactive Call Processing Patent Litig., 639 F.3d 1303, 1316 (Fed. Cir.
2011). Thus, the only additional functional or structural elements, beyond
the abstract idea, are well-understood, routine, and conventional. Guidance,
84 Fed. Reg. at 56; see also MPEP ¶ 2106.05(d).
Thus, claims 1–20 are directed to abstract ideas, and do not recite
limitations that transform the abstract ideas into eligible subject matter, by
integrating the abstract ideas into a practical application, or by reciting an
inventive concept. We turn to and consider Appellant’s arguments.
Appellant’s Arguments
We are unpersuaded that “the claims of the present application are
directed to an improvement in the functioning of computers, particularly
those with an interactive website interface for providing quantitative product
information based on a subset of prospective customer profile records,”
based on Trading Technologies International, Inc. v. CQG, Inc., 675 Fed.
Appx. 1001, 1004 (Fed. Cir. 2017). Appeal Br. 7. The claims gather, store,
analyze, and present information from the analysis, using standard
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computing techniques, and display the information using a commonly-
employed “web interface” to a remote computer. These actions do not
improve the functioning of computers, as they do not affect the manner in
which computers operate by virtue of executing the claimed model-based
steps.
We are unpersuaded that the claims represent eligible subject matter
based on the argument that “the segmentation model is an inventive
concept.” Id. Even unconventional abstract ideas are still unpatentable. See
SAP America, Inc. v. Investpic, LLC, 890 F.3d 1016, 1018 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
“What is needed is an inventive concept in the non-abstract application
realm.” SAP Am., Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1168 (Fed. Cir.
2018).
The Appellant next argues, citing Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. v.
LG Elecs., Inc., 880 F.3d 1356, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2018):
Just as in the Core Wireless case, where users being able
to more quickly navigate on small screens is an improvement in
the functioning of computers, users being able to more
efficiently and accurately obtain quantitative product
information using an interactive website interface is an
improvement in the functioning of computers.
Appeal Br. 9.
We are not persuaded by the Appellant’s argument, because the
claimed method embodied on the medium merely displays product
information to a customer, which does not alter or improve the manner in
which the user interface operates to display the information, since essentially
any user interface, such as a web interface, can be used. See Spec. 19–20.
We discern no discussion in the Specification that improves the operation of
a computer or user interface to display information to a user. Instead, the
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computer is used to gather, analyze, and select information to present, based
on abstract models, and the user interface is merely used in a generic manner
to display the selected information. The Federal Circuit holds that claims
broadly covering data collection, communication, and processing are
directed to abstract ideas. See, e.g., Univ. of Fla. Research Found., Inc. v.
Gen. Elec. Co., 916 F.3d 1363, 1366–68 (Fed. Cir. 2019); SAP Am., Inc. v.
InvestPic LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1164–67 (Fed. Cir. 2018); Secured Mail Sols.
LLC v. Universal Wilde, Inc., 873 F.3d 905, 907–08, 910–11 (Fed. Cir.
2017); Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Services, 859 F.3d 1044, 1055
(Fed. Cir. 2017); RecogniCorp, LLC v. Nintendo Co. Ltd., 855 F.3d 1322,
1326–27 (Fed. Cir. 2017); Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Fin.
Corp., 850 F.3d 1332, 1339–41 (Fed. Cir. 2017). As the Federal Circuit has
explained, “[a] process that start[s] with data, add[s] an algorithm, and
end[s] with a new form of data [is] directed to an abstract idea.”
RecogniCorp, 855 F.3d at 1327.
As to the data operated upon, in this case “customer profile records,”
“customer information,” “at least one statistic relating to: the dollar value of
insurance premiums paid, coverages elected, limits elected, deductibles
elected, and additional products owned,” “insurance policy criteria selected
from: an age of an insured, a sex of the insured, a type of property insured,
details regarding the property insured a presence of alarms associated with
the property insured, and a number of accidents, citations received by the
insured, or claims filed by the insured within a specified timeframe,” “a
premium paid by existing customers in a plurality of segments against an
expected value associated with each of the plurality of segments,” and
“product offerings and price information,” “even if a process of collecting
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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 Am. Inc. v. InvestPic LLC, 890 F.3d 1016, 1022 (Fed. Cir.
2018).
The Appellant has not established error in the rejection of claims 1–
20, as directed to ineligible subject matter in the form of abstract ideas,
without something more to transform the abstract ideas into eligible subject
matter. For this reason, we sustain the rejection of claims 1–20 under
35 U.S.C. § 101.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s rejection is AFFIRMED.
DECISION SUMMARY
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis  Affirmed Reversed
1–20 101 Eligibility 1–20

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
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