International Business Machines Corporation

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

May 8, 2020

2019004867 (P.T.A.B. May. 8, 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.
14/862,295 09/23/2015 David Contreras AUS920140304US2 1024
50170 7590 05/08/2020
IBM CORP. (WIP)
c/o WALDER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW, P.C.
445 CRESTOVER CIRCLE
RICHARDSON, TX 75080
EXAMINER
TIEDEMAN, JASON S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3626
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/08/2020 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte DAVID CONTRERAS, ROBERT C. SIZEMORE, and
STERLING R. SMITH
____________

Appeal 2019-004867
Application 14/862,295
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before JEFFREY N. FREDMAN, JOHN G. NEW, and
RACHEL H. TOWNSEND, Administrative Patent Judges.

FREDMAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

This is an appeal1,2 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) involving claims to a
method to implement a question answering system which operates for
performing a duration-based operation. The Examiner rejected the claims as
indefinite and as reciting non-statutory subject matter. 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 International Business
Machines Corporation (see Appeal Br. 2).
2 We have considered and herein refer to the Specification of Sept. 23, 2015
(“Spec.”); Final Office Action of Oct. 11, 2018 (“Final Act.”); Appeal Brief
of Mar. 8, 2019 (“Appeal Br.”); Examiner’s Answer of Apr. 2, 2019 (“Ans.”);
and Reply Brief of May 31, 2019 (“Reply Br.”). We affirmed the Examiner
in the related appeal 2019-002601 on application 14/507,919.
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Statement of the Case
Background
“[H]umans are currently inundated and overwhelmed with the amount
of information available to them . . . QA [Question and Answer] systems
provide automated mechanisms for searching through large sets of sources of
content, e.g., electronic documents, and analyze them with regard to an input
question” (Spec. ¶ 2). “For example, in the medical domain, doctors often
make clinical notes regarding the patients that they treat . . . . While there are
explicit dates/times associated with such notes, durations are not generally
explicitly stated in such documents” (id. ¶ 15). “However, durations may be
important to know in order to make [medical] decisions” (id.). The
Specification teaches “automated mechanisms for analyzing dates/times in
different portions of one or more documents, as well as their associated text,
utilizing natural language processing techniques, to calculate implicit
durations in the documents” (id. ¶ 17).
The Claims
Claims 1–7 and 10 are on appeal. Independent claim 1 and dependent
claim 10 are representative and read as follows:
1. A method, in a data processing system comprising a
processor and a memory comprising instructions that are
executed by the processor to specifically configure the processor
to implement a question answering system which operates for
performing a duration-based operation, the method comprising:
receiving, by the question answering system, an input
question from a requesting user in a natural language form;
receiving, by an implicit duration engine executing within
the question answering system, at least one document having a
plurality of associated dates and/or times and concepts associated
with the dates and/or times, wherein the at least one document
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does not explicitly specify a duration between the dates and/or
times;
correlating, by implicit duration analysis logic executing
within the implicit duration engine, dates and/or times in the at
least one document having a similar associated concept;
calculating, by implicit duration comparison logic
executing within the implicit duration engine, for the correlated
dates and/or times, an implicit duration for the associated concept
based on the dates and/or times, wherein the implicit duration for
the associated concept is implicit in the at least one document but
not explicitly specified in the at least one document;
associating, by the implicit comparison logic, the
associated concept with the implicit duration;
annotating, by implicit duration annotation logic
executing within the implicit duration engine, a first document in
the at least one document with an implicit duration annotation
that specifies the implicit duration and the associated concept;
generating, by the question answering system, one or more
candidate answers to the input question;
modifying, by a hypothesis and evidence scoring stage of
the question answering system, scoring of the one or more
candidate answers for the input question based on a
correspondence between the implicit duration specified in the
implicit duration annotation and one or more duration criteria
associated with the one or more candidate answers;
ranking, by a final confidence merging and ranking stage
of the question answering system, the one or more candidate
answers based on the modified scoring to form a ranked set of
candidate answers; and
presenting, by the question answering system, the ranked
set of candidate answers to the requesting user.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one document
comprises a patient medical record, and wherein performing the
duration-based operation comprises generating and outputting a
treatment recommendation for a patient corresponding to the
patient medical record based on a comparison of the implicit
duration to duration requirements in one or more medical
treatment policies.
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The Rejections
The Examiner rejected claims 1–7 and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as
indefinite (Final Act. 7).
The Examiner rejected claims 1–7 and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as
directed to an abstract idea (Final Act. 3–7).
A. 35 U.S.C. § 112(b)
The Examiner finds claim 1 is indefinite
as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission
amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The
omitted steps are: scoring of the one or more candidate answers.
The method modifies scoring; however scoring was never recited
to occur and thus it is unclear how such scoring can be modified.
(Final Act. 7).
Appellant contends
the invention is not directed to initial scoring without taking
implicit durations into account, but rather to modified scoring of
the one or more candidate answers for the input question based
on a correspondence between the implicit duration specified in
the implicit duration annotation and one or more duration criteria
associated with the one or more candidate answers. Thus, the
claims clearly recite modifying scoring, which results in
modified scoring. In other words, the essential element of
(modified) scoring is indeed present in the claims.
(Appeal Br. 14).
The test for indefiniteness requires “that a patent’s claims, viewed in
light of the specification and prosecution history, inform those skilled in the
art about the scope of the invention with reasonable certainty.” Nautilus, Inc.
v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., 572 U.S. 898, 911 (2014).
We agree with the Examiner that the claim phrase at issue of
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“modifying, by a hypothesis and evidence scoring stage of the question
answering system, scoring of the one or more candidate answers” is indefinite
because of an unclear relationship between the “modifying” and the “scoring
of the one or more candidate answers” recited in claim 1.
As the Examiner points outs, there is no previous step of “scoring”
recited in claim 1 for the “modifying” step to act upon (see Ans. 11). While
the absence of antecedent basis alone does not necessarily render the claim
indefinite, here, the absence of any previous “scoring” step makes it unclear
what is being modified because the immediate previous “generating” step
provides answers, but does not suggest that these answers are ranked or scored
in any particular way. Thus, we agree with the Examiner that there is not
reasonable certainty as to what “scoring” the “modifying” step is acting upon,
and therefore claim 1 is indefinite.

B. 35 U.S.C. § 101
The Examiner finds
The claimed invention is directed a method of organizing human
activity; the claimed invention encompass managing personal
behavior such as following rules or instructions. To paraphrase,
the claimed invention receives a question, utilizes data to infer
an implicit duration within the data, associates the implicit
duration with a concept, adds the implicit duration to the data,
creates a set of potential answers, modifies scoring of the
answers, ranks the answers, and presents the ranked answers.
This is a method of organizing human activity.
(Ans. 5).
Appellant responds “the invention is directed to configuring a
processor to implement a question answering system comprising an
implicit duration engine, implicit duration analysis logic, implicit
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duration comparison logic, implicit duration annotation logic, a
hypothesis and evidence scoring stage, and a final confidence merging
and ranking stage” (Reply Br. 3). Appellant contends “[e]very function
in the claim is performed by these computer-implemented elements,
and none of the functions are performed by a human. That is, there is
no human activity being organized in the invention” (id.).
Principles of Law
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 implicit
exceptions: “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas” are not
patentable. See, 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. Alice, 573 U.S. 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 therefore 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) and mental processes (Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972)).
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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))).
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 United States Patent and Trademark Office published guidance on
the application of 35 U.S.C. § 101. USPTO’s 2019 Revised Patent Subject
Matter Eligibility Guidance (“Guidance”).3 Under the Guidance, in
determining what concept the claim is “directed to,” 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 activity such as a fundamental economic

3 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50–
57 (January 7, 2019).
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practice, or mental processes) (Guidance Step 2A, Prong 1); and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial
exception into a practical application (see MPEP § 2106.05(a)–
(c), (e)–(h)) (Guidance Step 2A, Prong 2).
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 contains an “‘inventive concept’ sufficient to ‘transform’” the claimed
judicial exception into a patent-eligible application of the judicial exception.
Alice, 573 U.S. at 221 (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 82). In so doing, we thus
consider whether the claim:
(3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception
that are not “well-understood, routine and 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.
(Guidance Step 2B). See Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 54–56.

Analysis
Applying the Guidance to the facts on this record, we find that
Appellant’s claims 1–7 and 10 are directed to patent-ineligible subject matter.
Because the same issues are present in each of the claims, we focus our
consideration on representative claim 1. The same analysis applied below to
claim 1 also applies to the other rejected claims.
A. Guidance Step 2A, Prong 1
The Guidance instructs us first to determine whether any judicial
exception to patent eligibility is recited in the claim. The Guidance identifies
three judicially-excepted groupings identified by the courts as abstract ideas:
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(1) mathematical concepts, (2) certain methods of organizing human behavior
such as managing personal behavior, and (3) mental processes.
Claim 1 reasonably falls within the judicially-excepted groupings listed
in the Guidance: mental processes of determining durations in a document
(and with respect to claim 10, durations in medical records).4
The Federal Circuit has “recognize[d] that defining the precise abstract
idea of patent claims in many cases is far from a ‘straightforward’ exercise.”
Synopsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp., 839 F.3d 1138, 1150 (Fed. Cir.
2016). However, “we continue to ‘treat[] analyzing information by steps
people [could] go through in their minds, or by mathematical algorithms,
without more, as essentially mental processes within the abstract-idea
category.’” Id. at 1146. The Federal Circuit has recognized that “a claim for
a new abstract idea is still an abstract idea.” Id. at 1151. It is well established
that mental processes are abstract ideas. CyberSource instructs that “a method
that can be performed by human thought alone is merely an abstract idea and
is not patent-eligible under § 101.” CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions,
Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1373, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“That purely mental
processes can be unpatentable, even when performed by a computer, was
precisely the holding of the Supreme Court in Gottschalk v. Benson.”).

4 Although the Examiner characterizes the method as organizing human
activity, he explains that “the claimed invention applies user-performable
functions via a computer” (Ans. 5). Thus, the Examiner also understood and
described to Appellant that the steps were steps that a person performed
without a computer, i.e., mental steps (Id. (“the claimed invention applies
user-performable functions via a computer (‘apply it’), presumably in order
to perform the functions faster, more accurately, and/or more conveniently.
This is what computers are designed to do.”)).
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Claim 1, especially in the more limited medical situation recited in
claim 10, implements on a machine the types of mental analyses performed
by a physician considering a patient’s medical records. Indeed, we determine
“with the exception of generic computer implemented steps, there is nothing
in the claims themselves that foreclose them from being performed by a
human, mentally or with pen and paper.” Intellectual Ventures I LLC v.
Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1318 (Fed. Cir. 2016). In particular, the
physician, in considering medical treatments, reviews medical documents in
natural language form for medical concepts such as symptoms, drugs or
procedures, and/or test results, and determines the duration of time between
medical events in the patient’s record to determine what further treatment, if
any, is required by the patient based on the medical concepts and the times
between activities. The physician may have varying levels of confidence in
the diagnosis, depending upon the particular fact pattern. As a simple
example, an OB/Gyn who reviews a patient’s positive pregnancy test would
reasonably expect that within about 40 weeks, a hospital visit for delivery of
a newborn would be necessary, with reasonably high confidence. “Courts
have examined claims that required the use of a computer and still found that
the underlying, patent-ineligible invention could be performed via pen and
paper or in a person’s mind.” Versata Dev. Grp. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d
1306, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
This understanding of claim 1 is consistent with the Specification,
which teaches “the mechanisms operate on documents that are patient medical
histories and medical policy documents” (Spec. ¶ 20). The Specification
explains that “the QA system operates to analyze an input question and
generate a final response” where “a user inputs, via a user interface, an input
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question for which the user wishes to obtain an answer” (id. ¶ 60). The next
step “parses the input question using natural language processing (NLP)
techniques to extract major features” following which the “queries are applied
to one or more databases storing information” (id. ¶¶ 60, 62). Then
“algorithms of various complexity may be used to generate scores for
candidate answers and evidence” (id. ¶ 67).
We find the instant claims similar to those in SmartGene, where the
Federal Circuit held that claims directed to “comparing new and stored
information and using rules to identify medical options” did not satisfy Alice
step one. See SmartGene, Inc. v. Advanced Biological Labs., SA, 555 F.
App’x 950, 951–52, 955–56 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (nonprecedential). As in
SmartGene, the instantly claimed steps do not rely on an inventive device or
technique for obtaining or displaying medical information, but rather recite
undefined algorithms for mathematically manipulating naturally occurring
data. See id. at 954 (holding claims were patent ineligible because they did
“no more than call on a ‘computing device,’ with basic functionality for
comparing stored and input data and rules, to do what doctors do routinely.”).
Here, the claims recite steps of a computer program for analyzing
medical information for specific durations and concepts within that
information, which people could go through in their minds to determine and
rank the most likely medical conditions, diagnoses, and then present those to
the patient, which is a mental process within the abstract-idea category.
Accordingly, we conclude that the steps of claim 1 recite the judicial
exceptions of mental processes.
B. Guidance Step 2A, Prong 2
Having determined that the claims are directed to a judicial exception,
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the Guidance directs us to next consider whether the claims integrate the
judicial exception into a practical application. Guidance Step 2A, Prong 2.
“[I]ntegration into a practical application” requires that the claim recite an
additional element or a combination of elements, that when considered
individually or in combination, “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.” Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 54.
We agree with the Examiner that a judicial exception is not integrated
into a practical application when the claims are drawn to the mere use of “a
computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea.” Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at
55; see Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1335–36 (Fed. Cir.
2016) (determining whether the claims at issue were focused on a “specific
asserted improvement in computer capabilities” or “a process that qualifies as
an ‘abstract idea’ for which computers are invoked merely as a tool”).
Here, there is no practical integration of the abstract idea. Other than
the limitations directed to the abstract idea, discussed above, the invention is
claimed at a very high level of generality and relies upon standard computing
devices (see Spec. ¶¶ 54–56). We appreciate that simply because standard
devices are used is not solely dispositive of practical integration.
However, in addition to using standard computer technology, the
instant claims do not recite anything unconventional regarding the types of
“natural language” questions (see Spec. ¶ 66, “What was the first movie?”);
the types of medical documents being evaluated (see id. ¶ 15, “doctors often
make clinical notes regarding the patients that they treat”); the medical
concepts being identified (see id. ¶ 73, “resources 393 may comprise a
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dictionary of medical terms/phrases, e.g., the terms ‘renal’, ‘autoimmune’,
‘carcinoma’, and a plethora of other terms/phrases in the medical domain”);
the algorithms used to determine and associate durations of the medical
information or the algorithms used for generating, ranking, and scoring the
information (see id. ¶ 38, “application of the queries using a variety of
reasoning algorithms. There may be hundreds or even thousands of reasoning
algorithms applied”). We note that the Specification does not clearly disclose
or provide specific algorithms from among the thousands that may be applied.
Moreover, the Specification acknowledges known prior art computer
based question answering systems such as “the IBM Watson™ QA system
[that] receives an input question which it then parses to extract the major
features of the question, that in turn are then used to formulate queries that are
applied to the corpus of data” (Spec. ¶ 47).
Thus, claim 1 does not recite elements that integrate the abstract idea
into a practical application that is more than the abstract idea itself. Instead,
the claims recite conventional components that are used to apply the abstract
algorithms.
Appellant contends the
Federal Circuit found that the claims in Enfish were not ones in
which general-purpose computer components are added after the
fact to a fundamental economic practice or mathematical
equation, but were directed to a specific implementation of a
solution to a problem in the software arts, and concluded that the
Enfish claims were thus not directed to an abstract idea (under
Step 2A).
(Appeal Br. 8–9). Appellant contends
the claimed invention improves the functioning of the computer
by annotating a document with an implicit duration annotation
that specifies the implicit duration and an associated concept and
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modifying scoring of one or more candidate answers for the input
question based on a correspondence between the implicit
duration specified in the implicit duration annotation and one or
more duration criteria associated with the one or more candidate
answers. One cannot say that the claims only recite data, because
the annotations allow for a significant functional change in the
question answering system.
(Appeal Br. 10).
We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s reliance on Enfish (see Appeal Br.
8–9). Enfish explains that “the first step in the Alice inquiry in this case asks
whether the focus of the claims is on the specific asserted improvement in
computer capabilities . . . or, instead, on a process that qualifies as an ‘abstract
idea’ for which computers are invoked merely as a tool.” Enfish, 822 F.3d at
1335–36. Applied to claim 1, the claimed software product does not teach a
technical improvement in a computer processor or even in a Question and
Answer software system, but rather uses the computer as a tool to perform
data analysis on medical data (see claim 1, Spec. ¶ 2 “QA systems provide
automated mechanisms for searching through large sets of sources of content,
e.g., electronic documents, and analyze them with regard to an input question
to determine an answer to the question and a confidence measure as to how
accurate an answer is for answering the input question.”) That is, the current
claims simply use the computer and software as tools to perform a mental
process routinely performed by a physician as discussed above. See Electric
Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2016)
(“[M]erely selecting information, by content or source, for collection,
analysis, and display does nothing significant to differentiate a process from
ordinary mental processes.”)
Appellant, citing Finjan, Inc. v. Blue Coat Sys., Inc., 879 F.3d 1299,
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1305 (Fed. Cir. 2018), contends “the claimed invention improves the
functioning of the computer by annotating a document with an implicit
duration annotation . . . because the annotations allow for a significant
functional change in the question answering system” (Appeal Br. 10).
We find this argument unpersuasive because the claims in Finjan
“employ[] a new kind of file that enables a computer security system to do
things it could not do before. The security profile approach allows access to
be tailored for different users and ensures that threats are identified before a
file reaches a user’s computer.” Finjan, 879 F.3d at 1305. Here, while the
claims recite a specific abstract idea implemented in software, that software
does not alter the computer itself, but rather falls into the category of methods
“that can be performed by human thought alone . . . and is not patent-eligible
under § 101.” CyberSource, 654 F.3d at 1373, 1375 (“That purely mental
processes can be unpatentable, even when performed by a computer, was
precisely the holding of the Supreme Court in Gottschalk v. Benson.”).
Therefore, on this record, we conclude that the ineligible subject matter
in Appellant’s claim 1 is not integrated into a practical application.
C. Guidance Step 2B
Having determined that the judicial exception is not integrated into a
practical application, the Guidance requires us to evaluate the additional
elements individually and in combination to determine whether they provide
an inventive concept, such as a specific limitation beyond the judicial
exception that is not well-understood, routine, conventional in the field, or
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, 84 Fed. Reg. 51.
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Appellant cites Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2018)
for the “well-understood, routine, and conventional” test (see Appeal Br. 11).
Appellant contends, based on the Berkheimer Memorandum, that the “lack of
a rejection based on prior art supports a conclusion that the activities are not
well-understood, routine, and conventional. The Examiner has not
established that the claims fail to recite significantly more than the abstract
idea as a matter of fact” (Appeal Br. 12). Appellant contends “that
independent claim 1 recites a specifically configured computing device by
way of instructions and software elements that add functionality to the
computing device and improve performance” (id. at 13).
We agree with Appellant that Berkheimer mandates evidence showing
the claim elements were well-understood, routine, and conventional in the
prior art is necessary to satisfy Alice step two.
However, we are not persuaded that solely based on the absence of a
prior art rejection, the additional claim elements beyond the abstract ideas are
not well-understood, routine, and conventional. See, e.g., In re Greenstein,
778 Fed. Appx. 935, 939 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (“[T]here is no suggestion that the
‘insuring’ step requires anything more than conventional data processing
performed by a generic computer.”) Just as Greenstein lacked any disclosure
by the patent applicant in that case that anything other than conventional data
processing was required, here too, there is no evidence of record that applying
the mental step of determining duration in documents requires anything other
than conventional and routine data processing.
Indeed, the evidence in the Specification itself demonstrates that the
claim elements other than the abstract idea were well-understood, routine, and
conventional. The Specification establishes that question and answer (QA)
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systems were well known (see Spec. ¶ 3); that electronic medical records
including clinical notes with duration information were known (see id. ¶ 18);
that computers, computer readable media, and computer components were
well known (see id. ¶¶ 25–27, 49–58); that algorithms for QA systems were
well known including scoring and ranking (see id. ¶¶ 38–39, 42–43, 47).
We therefore find that Appellant’s claims do not require anything other
than the use of conventional and well-understood techniques and equipment
to analyze medical records for duration information according to the recited
judicial exceptions. Accordingly, the preponderance of evidence of record
supports the Examiner’s finding that Appellant’s claimed invention is directed
to patent-ineligible subject matter. The rejection of the claims under 35
U.S.C. § 101 is affirmed.
CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–7, 10 112, second
paragraph
Indefiniteness 1–7, 10
1–7, 10 101 Eligibility 1–7, 10
Overall
Outcome
1–7, 10

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

AFFIRMED