Jan-Carl Plagge

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Aug 15, 2019

11802929 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Aug. 15, 2019)

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.
11/802,929 05/25/2007 Jan-Carl Plagge 10-604-US 3996
128144 7590 08/15/2019
Rimon PC
One Embarcadero Center
Suite 400
San Francisco, CA 94111
EXAMINER
OYEBISI, OJO O
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3697
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/15/2019 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):
docketing.rimonlaw@clarivate.com
eofficeaction@appcoll.com
patentdocketing@rimonlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte JAN-CARL PLAGGE
____________

Appeal 2018-002826
Application 11/802,929
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before ANTON W. FETTING, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and
AMEE A. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judges.

SHAH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1
Appellant2 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final decision rejecting claims 1, 2, and 4–32 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being
directed to a judicial exception without significantly more. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 Throughout this Decision, we refer to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief
(“Appeal Br.,” filed Aug. 21, 2017), Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Jan. 23,
2018), and Specification (“Spec.,” filed May 25, 2007), and to the
Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Jan. 9, 2018) and Final Office Action
(“Final Act.,” mailed Sept. 20, 2016).
2 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Deutsche Börse AG.
Appeal Br. 2.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant’s invention “relates to data processing apparatus and
methods and, more particularly, to processing data relating to a financial
instrument that has a plurality of constituents.” Spec. 1, ll. 7–9. The
embodiment claimed relates to “building a financial minimum variance
instrument having a plurality of constituents weighted by respective
individual constituent weights.” Appeal Br. 2; Spec. 2, ll. 7–9.
Claims 1, 14, and 27 are the independent claims on appeal.
Independent claim 1, which we reproduce below, is illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal:
1. A computer-implemented method of building a
financial minimum variance instrument having a plurality of
constituents weighted by respective individual constituent
weights, comprising:
accessing, by a computing device, data recorded over a
predetermined first period of time, the data indicating
characteristics of each of the plurality of constituents;
determining, by a computing device, optimum constituent
weights for all of the plurality of constituents by minimizing a
financial instrument variance determined from said
characteristics of each of the plurality of constituents;
weighting, by a computing device, the plurality of
constituents by the determined optimum constituent weights;
determining, after a second period of time has elapsed,
updated optimum constituent weights for all of the plurality of
constituents by minimizing a further financial instrument
variance determined from characteristics recorded during a third
period of time; and
weighting the plurality of constituents by the updated
optimum constituent weights.
Appeal Br. 17 (Claims App.).
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ANALYSIS
35 U.S.C. § 101 Framework
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. 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, 67 (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
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rubber, smelting ores” (id. at 182 n.7 (quoting Corning v. Burden, 56 U.S.
252, 267–68 (185))); 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
statutory does not become nonstatutory simply because it uses a
mathematical formula.” Diehr, 450 U.S. at 176; 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 (citation 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. (alterations in original) (quoting Mayo,
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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.
Earlier this year, the PTO published revised guidance on the
application of § 101. 2019 REVISED PATENT SUBJECT MATTER ELIGIBILITY
GUIDANCE, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019) (“2019 Revised Guidance”).
Under the 2019 Revised 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 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) (9th Ed., Rev.
08.2017, Jan. 2018)).
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 2019 Revised Guidance.
Failure to Follow USPTO Guidelines
We first address the Appellant’s contention that the Examiner’s
rejection is in error because “[t]he Examiner has failed to follow these [May
2016] guidelines.” Appeal Br. 6 (citing MAY 2016 SUBJECT MATTER
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ELIGIBILITY UPDATE, 81 Fed. Reg. 27381 (May 6, 2016) (“May 2016
Update”); see also id. at 5, 7–10; Reply Br. 1–23. We disagree.
We note that the 2019 Revised Guidance “applies to all applications,
and to all patents resulting from applications, filed before, on, or after
January 7, 2019.” 84 Fed. Reg. at 50. The USPTO has been clear that any
guidance issued “does not constitute substantive rulemaking and does not
have the force and effect of law.” Id. at 51; see also May 2016 Update, 81
Fed. Reg. at 27382. In particular, the guidance “does not create any right or
benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable by any party against the
USPTO,” and although USPTO personnel are “expected to follow the
guidance,” failure to do so “is not, in itself, a proper basis for either an
appeal or a petition.” 2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 51; see also
May 2016 Update, 81 Fed. Reg. at 27382. Thus, to the extent the Appellant
contends that there is “an error” in the Decision because the Examiner fails
to follow the guidelines (see Appeal Br. 5–10; Reply Br. 1–3), we disagree.
Here, the Examiner applies the Supreme Court’s two-step framework,
described in Mayo and Alice, and considers Office guidelines in that
application. See Final Act. 4–8. Specifically, the Examiner notifies the
Appellant that “claim [1] is directed towards the abstract idea of processing
data relating to a financial instrument[, which ]. . . is a fundamental
economic practice; and as a result, claim 1 includes an abstract idea” (id.
at 4; see also Ans. 3) and cites to judicial precedent in determining that the
claims recite an abstract idea (Final Act. 4; Ans. 3). The Examiner further
considers the elements “individually and as an ordered combination” (Final

3 The pages of the Reply Brief are not numbered. We refer to the title page
as page 1 with each page thereafter consecutively numbered.
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Act. 4) and notifies the Appellant that “there are no meaningful limitations
in the claim that transform the judicial exception into a patent eligible
application such that the claim amounts to significantly more than the
judicial exception itself” (id. at 8). We note that the guidelines do not
require that the Examiner “must” write the rejection a certain way
(cf. Appeal Br. 6); rather, the guidelines clearly state that the Examiner
“should” make certain determinations (see, e.g., May 2016 Update,
Memorandum 2–4; 2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 53–56). The
Examiner has notified the Appellant of the reasons for the rejection in a
sufficiently articulate and informative manner as to meet the notice
requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 132. See In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1362 (Fed.
Cir. 2011).
We disagree with the Appellant’s contention that the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 2 and 4–32 is in error because the Examiner “fails to
explain why any claims other than claim 1 are rejected under § 101.”
Appeal Br. 4; see also id. at 5; Reply Br. 3. There is no specific requirement
that each claim be examined individually by the Examiner in determining
that the claims are directed to an abstract idea. See Alice, 573 U.S. 208 at
217–21 (addressing the claims together). The Examiner includes the other
claims in the heading of the rejection (Final Act. 3) and states that the other
claims are “subject to the same analysis as in claim 1 and are rejected using
the same rationale as in claim 1 above” (id. at 6 (emphasis omitted); see also
Ans. 4–5). There is no indication that the Appellant was not put on notice of
the Examiner’s rejection regarding claims 2 and 4–32.
Furthermore, any alleged failure to follow the guidelines is not a
proper basis for an appeal. The Appellant’s recourse for addressing such an
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alleged impropriety in the examination procedure would be to either
(1) request the Examiner’s SPE to exercise supervisory oversight or (2) file a
petition to the Director to invoke supervisory authority under 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.181(a)(3).
Step One of the Mayo/Alice Framework
Under the first step of the Mayo/Alice framework, the Examiner
determines that claim 1 is “directed towards . . . processing data relating to a
financial instrument[, which ]. . . is a fundamental economic practice; and as
a result, claim 1 includes an abstract idea.” Final Act. 4; see also Ans. 3.
“The [E]xaminer contends that the recited steps describe the concept of
processing data, which corresponds to concepts identified as abstract ideas
by the courts, such as information processing in ContentExtraction; and as a
result, claim 1 includes an abstract idea.” Ans. 3. When viewed through the
lens of the 2019 Revised Guidance, the Examiner’s analysis depicts the
claimed subject matter as a “[c]ertain methods of organizing human
activity—fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging,
insurance, mitigating risk)” under Prong One of Revised Step 2A. 2019
Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52.
The Appellant does not state to what they consider the claim directed
or reciting, nor do they offer an alternate characterization of the claim.
Rather, the Appellant argues that the “Appellant is unable to identify claim
limitations that support finding that the claim is directed to the abstract idea
of ‘processing data relating to a financial instrument’” (Appeal Br. 9–10)
and “unable to identify any court case which found a method similar to the
method recited in claims 1, 14 or 27 to be directed to an abstract idea” (id.
at 10).
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Before determining whether the claims at issue are directed to an
abstract idea, we first determine to what the claims are directed.
[T]he “directed to” inquiry applies a stage-one filter to claims,
considered in light of the specification, based on whether “their
character as a whole is directed to excluded subject matter.”
Internet Patents Corp. v. Active Network, Inc., 790 F.3d 1343,
1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015); see Genetic Techs. Ltd. v. Merial L.L.C.,
818 F.3d 1369, 1375, 2016 WL 1393573, at *5 (Fed. Cir. 2016)
(inquiring into “the focus of the claimed advance over the prior
art”).
Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2016). The
question is whether the claims as a whole “focus on a specific means or
method that improves the relevant technology” or are “directed to a result or
effect that itself is the abstract idea and merely invoke generic processes and
machinery.” McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am. Inc., 837 F.3d 1299,
1314 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
An examination of claim 1 shows that the claim recites “[a] computer-
implemented method of building a financial minimum variance instrument
having a plurality of constituents weighted by respective individual
constituent weights, comprising”: (a) “accessing, by a computing device,
data [indicating characteristics] recorded over a predetermined first period of
time”; (b) “determining, by a computing device, optimum constituent
weights for all of the plurality of constituents by minimizing a financial
instrument variance determined from said characteristics”; (c) “weighting,
by a computing device, the plurality of constituents by the determined
optimum constituent weights”; (d) “determining, after a second period of
time has elapsed, updated optimum constituent weights”; and (e) “weighting
the plurality of constituents by the updated optimum constituent weights.”
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Appeal Br. 17 (Claims App.). We note that steps (d) and (e) are not recited
as being performed by the computing device.
Claim 14 recites a computer medium with instructions that cause a
processor to “generate a financial instrument having a plurality of
constituents weighted by respective individual constituent weights by:”
receiving data, determining optimum constituent weights by maximizing a
ratio based on total return and variance, and associating each constituent
weight with its determined optimum weight. See id. at 21–22 (Claims
App.). Claim 27 similarly recites “[a] data processing apparatus for
adjusting constituent weights of a financial instrument having a plurality of
constituents, the apparatus comprising:” an input unit configured to receive
information, and an adjuster configured to determine a logarithmic return,
generate a covariance matrix, and adjust weights based on the matrix. See
id. at 26–27 (Claims App.). The computing device that performs steps (a),
(b), and (c) of claim 1 of accessing, determining, and weighting, the
processor of claim 14, and the data processing apparatus of claim 27 can
comprise a general purpose computing system that “may include, but are not
limited to, personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop
devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, network
PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing
environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the
like.” Spec. 4, ll. 17–24.
The Specification provides for a data processing apparatus and
methods for “processing data relating to a financial instrument that has a
plurality of constituents.” Spec. 1, ll. 7–9. In the “Description of the
Related Art” section, the Specification discusses that “[i]ndices which are
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built from a number of constituents are well known in the art.” Spec. 1,
l. 11. The Specification further discusses how the Dow Jones Industrial
Index calculates a benchmark using price as the only consideration in
determining the value of the index, such that “the price movement of even a
single security will heavily influence the value of the index even though the
dollar shift is less significant in a relatively highly valued issue,” as opposed
to “a price-weighted index, market value or capitalization weighted indices
. . . [that] factor in the size of a company . . . [so that] a relatively small shift
in the price of a large company will heavily influence the value of the
index.” Id. at 1, l. 17–2, l. 2. “However, the charts of such indices are
subject to great variations . . . [that] are undesirable since they reduce the
predictability of a future chart evolution.” Id. at 2, ll. 3–5. Conventionally,
“an investor aims at maximizing the return of a portfolio for a given risk,”
the risk being “determined from the variance of the return.” Id. at 4, ll. 7–9.
“A risk-averse investor tries to keep the risk of an investment as low as
possible.” Id. at 4, ll. 9–10. Embodiments of the invention “provide the
risk-averse investor with a financial instrument allowing for risk-averse
decisions” and “provide the investor with a trade-off between a risk as low
as possible and a return as high as possible.” Id. at 4, ll. 10–16.
When considered collectively and under the broadest reasonable
interpretation of the claims’ limitations, the claims recite a method and
apparatuses for processing data to generate, build, and adjust a financial
instrument having weighted constituents.4 Accessing and receiving data are

4 We note that “[a]n abstract idea can generally be described at different
levels of abstraction.” Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d 1229, 1240
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extra-solution activities. See In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 963 (Fed. Cir. 2008)
(en banc), aff’d sub nom Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593 (2010)
(characterizing data gathering steps as insignificant extra-solution activity).
The steps of determining weights are recited as being performed by
“minimizing a financial instrument variance determined from”
characteristics and by “maximizing a ratio” without any details as to how the
minimizing, maximizing, and determination of characteristics are done, i.e.,
in what way(s) technologically or by what algorithm. Similarly, the steps of
weighting constituents, determining a logarithmic return, and generating a
matrix based on those returns are functionally recited without any detail how
the results are accomplished, i.e., in what way(s) technologically or by what
algorithm. Determining weights, weighting constituents, determining a
return, and generating a matrix comprise calculating or analyzing data by
standard mathematical correlations or algorithms (see Spec. 8, l. 13–12,
l. 13; 13, l. 23–16, l. 9), which can be done mentally.
Processing data to generate, build, and adjust a financial instrument
having weighted constituents is similar to the concepts of “selecting certain
information, analyzing it using mathematical techniques, and reporting or
displaying the results of the analysis” in SAP Am., Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC,
898 F.3d 1161, 1167 (Fed. Cir. 2018), of collecting, analyzing,
manipulating, and processing data and displaying the results of the analysis,
manipulation, and processing in Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One
Fin. Corp., 850 F.3d 1332, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2017), of “hedging risk in the
energy market” in Bilski, 561 U.S. at 612, of “financial instruments that are

(Fed. Cir. 2016). The Board’s “slight revision of its abstract idea analysis
does not impact the patentability analysis.” Id. at 1241.
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designed to protect against the risk of investing in financial instruments” in
In re Chorna, 656 F.App’x 1016, 1020 (Fed. Cir. 2016), and of calculating
alarm limit values for a specific purpose in Flook, 437 U.S. at 594–95.
Accordingly, we conclude the claims recite a way of evaluating information,
a concept performed in the human mind, which is one of the mental
processes identified in the 2019 Revised Guidance (84 Fed. Reg. at 52) to
generate, build, and adjust a financial instrument, a fundamental economic
principles, which is one of the “[c]ertain methods of organizing human
activity,” processes identified in the 2019 Revised Guidance (id.). As such,
we find unpersuasive the Appellant’s arguments that there is no “court case
which found a method similar to the method recited in claims 1, 14 or 27 to
be directed to an abstract idea” (Appeal Br. 10; see also id. at 11) and that
the Examiner ignores the claim language (id. at 12; see also Reply Br. 1–2).
Under Step 2A, Prong 2 of the 2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg.
at 54, we look to whether the claims “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,” i.e., “integrates a judicial exception into
a practical application.” Here, the Appellant contends that “the claims effect
the transformation of the plurality of constituent weights.” Appeal Br. 13.
When viewed through the lens of the 2019 Revised Guidance, the Appellant
contends that the elements of the claim integrate the abstract idea into a
practical application because “an additional element effects a transformation
or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing.” 84 Fed. Reg.
at 55. We disagree. The Appellant does state what the weights are
transformed into. The weighted data remains data and is not transformed
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into a different state. See Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881 F.3d 1360, 1367 (Fed.
Cir. 2018) (“That the parser transforms data from source to object code does
not demonstrate non-abstractness without evidence that this transformation
improves computer functionality in some way.”). Rather, the claims here
merely use a general purpose computer as tool for calculating and using
weighted data.
The Appellant also contends that “[t]he claimed invention entails an
unconventional technological solution to a technical problem.” Reply Br. 4.
When viewed through the lens of the 2019 Revised Guidance, the Appellant
contends that the elements of the claim integrate the abstract idea into a
practical application by “reflect[ing] an improvement in the functioning of a
computer.” 84 Fed. Reg. at 55 (citing DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com,
L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1258–59 (Fed. Cir. 2014). We disagree.
In DDR Holdings, the Federal Circuit determined that the claims
addressed the problem of retaining website visitors who, if adhering to the
routine, conventional functioning of Internet hyperlink protocol, would be
transported instantly away from a host’s website after clicking on an
advertisement and activating a hyperlink. DDR Holdings, 773 F.3d at 1257.
The Federal Circuit, thus, held that the claims were directed to statutory
subject matter because they claim a solution “necessarily rooted in computer
technology in order to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm
of computer networks.” Id. The court cautioned that “not all claims
purporting to address Internet-centric challenges are eligible for patent.” Id.
at 1258. And the court contrasted the claims to those at issue in
Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709 (Fed. Cir. 2014), in that, in
DDR Holdings, the computer network was not operating in its “normal,
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expected manner” and the claims did not “recite an invention that is []
merely the routine or conventional use of the Internet.” Id. at 1258–59.
Here, the Appellant contends that the claim addresses “an investment
problem” by “reduc[ing] . . . undesirable variations” in financial indices.
Reply Br. 5. However, investment problems based on unpredictable or
varying data are not technological problems or problems rooted in
technology arising out of computer networks, but rather problems that
existed prior to the Internet and computers. See Bilski, 561 U.S. at 611
(describing that protecting against risk, also known as hedging, was old and
well known financial issue). Also, unlike DDR Holdings, here, the
purported solution comprises the use of a conventional computing device or
processor operating in its ordinary capacity (see supra) to access, receive,
determine, weight, associate, generate, and adjust data. The Appellant does
not direct attention to, and we do not see, where the Specification describes
computer components, such as a computing device and processor, acting in
an unconventional manner to further the desired solution of building,
generating, and adjusting a financial instrument.
Thus, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s determination
that claims 1, 14, and 27 are directed to an abstract idea.
The Second Step
Under the second step in the Alice framework (corresponding to Step
2B of the 2019 Revised Guidance), we find supported the Examiner’s
determination that the claims’ limitations, taken individually or as an
ordered combination, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial
exception and that the “generic computer components recited as performing
generic computer functions that are well-understood, routine and
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conventional activities amount to no more than implementing the abstract
idea with a computerized system.” Final Act. 4–8; Ans. 5–6.
The Appellant does not offer additional reasoning or argument why
the claims “[a]dd[] a specific limitation or combination of limitations that
are not well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field, which is
indicative that an inventive concept may be present.” 2019 Revised
Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 56.
Taking the claimed elements separately, the function performed by the
computer at each step of the process is purely conventional. The claimed
computing device and processor comprise a conventional, general purpose
computer. See supra. It is clear, from the Specification, including the
claims’ language, that the “limitations require no improved computer
resources [the Appellant] claims to have invented, just already available
computers, with their already available basic functions, to use as tools in
executing the claimed process” performed by the claimed system. SAP Am.,
898 F.3d at 1169–70. We agree with the Examiner that the computing
device and processor operate in their ordinary and conventional capacities to
perform the well-understood, routine, and conventional functions of
accessing, receiving, determining, weighting, associating, generating, and
adjusting data. See Elec. Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d
1350, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (gathering, sending, monitoring, analyzing,
selecting, and presenting information does not transform the abstract process
into a patent-eligible invention); Trading Techs. Int’l, Inc. v. IBG LLC, 921
F.3d 1084, 1093 (data gathering and displaying are well-understood, routine,
and conventional activities); SAP Am., 898 F.3d at 1170 (“[A]n invocation
of already-available computers that are not themselves plausibly asserted to
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be an advance, for use in carrying out improved mathematical calculations,
amounts to a recitation of what is ‘well-understood, routine, [and]
conventional.’”) (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 73).
Considered as an ordered combination, the components of the
Appellant’s claims add nothing that is not already present when the steps are
considered separately. The sequence of data communication (accessing and
receiving), analyzing (determining and weighting), and using the analysis to
generate or adjust data is equally generic and conventional or otherwise held
to be abstract. See Capital One, 850 F.3d at 1341 (holding that the sequence
of collecting, organizing, identifying, mapping, organizing, defining, and
detecting was abstract); Elec. Power, 830 F.3d at 1354–56 (holding that the
sequence of gathering, analyzing, and displaying in real-time was abstract);
Inventor Holdings, LLC v. Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc., 876 F.3d 1372, 1378
(Fed. Cir. 2017) (holding that the sequence of data retrieval, analysis,
modification, generation, display, and transmission was abstract); SAP Am.,
898 F.3d at 1170 (holding that the sequence of storing, receiving, analyzing,
and generating data was abstract). The ordering of the steps is, therefore,
ordinary and conventional.
Thus, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s determination
that the limitations of claims 1, 14, and 27 do not transform the claims into
significantly more than the abstract idea.
For at least the reasons above, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection
under 35 U.S.C. § 101 of independent claims 1, 14, and 27.
Regarding the dependent claims, the Appellant contends that they
“recite additional elements that are more than merely the alleged abstract
idea.” Appeal Br. 13. However, the Appellant merely restates the
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limitations of the claims (id. at 13–16) and contends that “[t]he additional
data manipulations further remove the claims from the alleged abstract idea.
These are specific process steps of manipulating data to achieve a beneficial
result” (id. at 16). The Appellant provides no further reasoning or evidence
(other than that provided for the independent claims) as to why the
Examiner’s rejection of the dependent claims is in error. See In re Jung, 637
F.3d at 1365 (“[I]t has long been the Board’s practice to require an applicant
to identify the alleged error in the examiner’s rejections,” citing Ex Parte
Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072 (BPAI 2010) (precedential) (“The panel then
reviews the obviousness rejection for error based upon the issues identified
by appellant, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced
thereon.”)).
Thus, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s determinations
that dependent claims 2, 4–13, 15–26, and 28–32 are directed to an abstract
idea and that the limitations of these claims do not transform the claims into
significantly more than the abstract idea.
For at least the reasons above and the reasons for the independent
claims, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 of
dependent claims 2, 4–13, 15–26, and 28–32.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, and 4–32 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 101 is AFFIRMED.
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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)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED