Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jun 12, 2020

2020001563 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 12, 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.
14/098,191 12/05/2013 Hermann Franz Burgmeier RPS920130156USNP(710.291) 2054
58127 7590 06/12/2020
FERENCE & ASSOCIATES LLC
409 BROAD STREET
PITTSBURGH, PA 15143
EXAMINER
ANDERSON, FOLASHADE
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3623
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/12/2020 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 HERMANN FRANZ BURGMEIER,
RUSSELL SPEIGHT VANBLON, ROD D. WALTERMANN,
SUZANNE MARION BEAUMONT, JONATHAN GAITHER KNOX, and
PETER HAMILTON WETSEL
____________

Appeal 2020-001563
Application 14/098,191
Technology Center 3600
____________

BEFORE DONALD E. ADAMS, RICHARD M. LEBOVITZ, and
ELIZABETH A. LAVIER, Administrative Patent Judges.

ADAMS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from Examiner’s
decision to reject claims 1–20 (see Final Act.2 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. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as “Lenovo
(Singapore) PTE. LTD” (Appellant’s September 16, 2019 Appeal Brief
(Appeal Br.) 3).
2 Examiner’s April 16, 2019 Final Office Action.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Information handling devices (“devices”) come in a
variety of forms, for example laptop computing devices, tablet
computing devices, smart phones, and the like. Such devices
are often mobile and carried by a user or otherwise routinely
accessed by the user such that the user comes to rely on certain
applications, e.g., calendar applications, GPS navigation
applications, purchasing or Internet applications, etc.
throughout their daily routine.
Certain devices provide applications that attempt to assist
the user in organizing their activities. Among these
applications are calendar applications that allow a user to make
calendar entries, e.g., appointments, and set corresponding
reminders for the calendar entries, e.g., reminder notification
one hour prior a meeting. Some calendar applications provide a
list that is provided, e.g., via email, to the user at the beginning
of the day. The list may for example include all calendar
appointments for an upcoming period of time, e.g., the day.
Thus, the user is apprised of all calendar entries in the morning
email such that the user can organize the day’s activities and
may be periodically reminded of upcoming events, e.g.,
meeting at a particular time, via an individual reminder linked
to that meeting in the calendar application.
(Spec.3 ¶¶ 1–2.) Appellant discloses, however, that
[c]onventional solutions to organizing user's activities, e.g.,
calendaring applications, do not really help users based on what
is currently important to them in a broad context. This is
because such solutions tend to be application specific (e.g.,
calendar applications are limited to providing
notifications/reminders regarding calendar entries) and thus

3 Appellant’s December 5, 2013 Specification.
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tend to miss the broader context of the user's life that might
derived from other information accessible to the device.
(Id. ¶ 15.) Thus, Appellant discloses the
leveraging [of] contextual data (e.g., user search history, user
purchase history, calendar entries, current and past location
events, people (e.g., device contacts) the user communicated
with, as well as the contents of communications, collectively
communication events, etc., to determine or infer user interests
and how these interests influence the relevance or priority for
upcoming user events. In other words, [Appellant] . . . provides
a mechanism for determining what is of interest or trending for
the device user right now and may thus be used to intelligently
organize upcoming events accordingly.
[Appellant also discloses a mechanism that] . . . may
reorganize and/or take proactive steps if a user’s trend or
activity list is predicted to be disrupted for some reason. For
example, . . . [a mechanism that] provides a monitoring
functionality that acts to regularly calculate current adherence
to the user’s predicted behavior, e.g., according to the trend list
of activities, such that deviation from the predicted behavior
may be predicted and mitigating actions may be proposed
and/or automatically implemented given the predicted
disruption.
(Id. ¶¶ 16–17.)
Appellant’s claim is reproduced below:
1. A method, comprising:
accessing, using a processor, an event list for a user;
identifying, using a processor, an event type for each
event in the event list, the event type being one of: a high
priority event and a low priority event;
predicting, based on the user's current context, a
disruption to an event in the event list;
determining whether to initiate a proposed modification
to the event list that negates the predicted disruption to the
event, wherein the determining comprises initiating the
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proposed modification for: a high priority event and a low
priority event having a predicted delay greater than a
predetermined threshold amount; and
automatically implementing, responsive to determining
that the proposed modification is necessary and prior to the
predicted disruption, the proposed modification.
(Appeal Br. 32.)

Grounds of rejection before this Panel for review:
Claims 1–3, 5–13, and 15–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over the combination of Johnson4 and Kim.5
Claims 4 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over the combination of Johnson, Kim, and Aaron.6
Claims 1–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

Obviousness:
ISSUE
Does the preponderance of evidence relied upon by Examiner support
a conclusion of obviousness?
FACTUAL FINDINGS (FF)
FF 1. Johnson “relates generally to business process management systems,
and more particularly to scheduling systems in the clinical setting, such as
healthcare delivery institutions or hospitals” (Johnson ¶ 2; see also id.,

4 Johnson et al., US 2009/0089092 A1, published Apr. 2, 2009.
5 Kim et al., US 8,112,299 B2, issued Feb. 7, 2012.
6 Aaron et al., US 2008/0195312 A1, published Aug. 14, 2008.
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Abstract (Johnson discloses “[a] method to schedule resources in delivery of
healthcare to a series of patients”); see Ans.7 19).
FF 2. Johnson’s
system and method . . . can be operable to adapt the scheduling
of clinical activities and procedures in real time that incorporate
variation, asset readiness, biometrical changes in the state of
patient health, changes in process necessitated by protocols
which must be executed that are different than what was
originally scheduled, staff and equipment preferences,
interdependencies and information flow into the clinical
delivery of healthcare that can enable “what-if” capability for
prospective decision support given the changes that are
occurring and provide viable ways forward that minimize the
overall negative system impacts.
(Johnson ¶ 4; see Final Act. 4; Ans. 4.)
FF 3. Johnson discloses a system that
can generally create and output a proactive scheduling plan that
includes calculating predictions or a forecast of procedure
schedules and duration to avoid delays, and can cause an
advanced warning with sufficient time to respond in an event
that scheduled procedures will start or end before or after their
scheduled time. The system . . . can also generate a
recommendation regarding one or more specific decision(s) or
action(s) that can be taken to add, drop or move specific cases
of patients . . ., or tasks of resources. . . . The system . . . can
also generally track or monitor availability of the
resources . . . and available blocks of time in the schedule of
the resources . . . associated with fluctuating demand and
availability for the resources.
(Johnson ¶ 22; see also id. ¶ 23 (Johnson’s system comprises “a scheduling
module . . . configured to schedule procedures or activities in accordance

7 Examiner’s October 22, 2019 Answer.
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with characterized times from [a] duration predictor module”); see Final Act.
4–6 and 8; Ans. 5–7 and 19–20.)
FF 4. Johnson discloses a “method [that] can be represented as program
instructions for execution by one or more processors of the system”
(Johnson ¶ 70).
FF 5. Johnson discloses that its system can
include a set of decision support rules that can be generally
represented by program instructions for the processors of the
system . . . to execute to resolve interdependencies in the
variation of resources . . ., or to reduce change of risk or
confidence associated with interdependencies to variation of
resources . . . . The system . . . can execute one or more of the
decision support rules to identify or calculate a strategy(s) to
identify or calculate changes (e.g., add resources . . ., drop
resources . . ., change locations of resources . . ., etc.) to the
schedule of resources . . . with interdependencies so as to
reduce changes to the risk or confidence or probable duration in
the candidate schedule of resources. . . . Statuses or states of
resources (e.g., assets, personnel, equipment, rooms, etc.) can
be monitored periodically or continuously. In many instances,
the objective is to lower clinical risk as well as schedule risk
and the system can execute commands to readjust the schedule
for clinical risk reduction.
(Johnson ¶ 77; see id. ¶ 87 (Johnson discloses that its method and system
includes calculating [a] change in probabilities of completion of the start
time and end times of [a] schedule of resources . . . or protocol of tasks in
response to [a] delay in receiving[, for example, a] signed form from [a] first
patient); see Final Act. 4–5; Ans. 5–6).
FF 6. Johnson discloses that a
change to [a] schedule can include automatically modifying the
scheduled or allocation of blocks of time of one or more
resources . . . (e.g., . . . delaying the predicted start or duration
of predicted time to acquire images of a lower risk or less
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critical patients, or having a lowest overall risk of completion of
the modified schedule or that will result in a greatest tracked
level of staff or overall resource . . . or patient satisfaction (e.g.,
least wait time, overall patient satisfaction, etc.).
(Johnson ¶ 103; see Final Act. 6; Ans. 6.)
FF 7. Examiner finds that Johnson does not disclose the identification,
“using a processor, an event type for each event in the event list, the event
type being one of a high priority event and a low priority event” (Final Act.
6; Ans. 7).
FF 8. Kim discloses:
A mobile terminal capable of managing schedule and a method
of controlling the mobile terminal are provided[, wherein] [i]n
order to register a new scheduled event to the mobile terminal, a
schedule place corresponding to the new scheduled event may
be displayed on a schedule map. Thereafter, a route between
the schedule place and other routes may be established in
consideration of a current location of the mobile terminal and
traffic information. . . . Therefore, a user may easily obtain
various schedule information, current location information and
traffic condition information from the schedule map.
(Kim, Abstract; see also id. at 1: 16–20 (Kim “relates to a mobile terminal
capable of managing schedule and a method of controlling the mobile
terminal, and more particularly, a mobile terminal capable of managing
schedule by using a map and a method of controlling the mobile terminal”);
see Ans. 19.)
FF 9. Kim discloses:
If the control unit . . . determines that the user cannot
arrive at ‘Yeoksam-dong’ in time for the predetermined
scheduled event, the control unit . . . may output schedule
adjustment information. The schedule adjustment information
may provide at least one of a plurality of scenarios for
postponing the predetermined scheduled event, changing the
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time of the predetermined scheduled event, changing the place
of the predetermined scheduled event, and canceling the
predetermined scheduled event, and information indicating
means of transportation available of recommended.
The schedule adjustment information may be displayed
in the display region using a map or text. For example, the
control unit . . . may display a popup window for postponing a
scheduled event (e.g., an event with a low priority level or
having a specific event type or having another characteristic),
changing the time or the place of the scheduled event or
canceling the scheduled event.
(Kim 10: 36–52; see also id. at 22: 24–34 (Kim discloses the performance of
schedule adjustments based on the priority level of scheduled events); see
Final Act. 6–7; Ans. 7 and 20–22.)
FF 10. Examiner finds that the combination of Johnson and Kim fails to
disclose “third party service event data [that] includes one or more of
weather event data and traffic event data” and relies on Aaron to make up
for this deficiency in the combination of Johnson and Kim (Final Act. 11
(citing Aaron ¶ 50)).
ANALYSIS
The rejection over the combination of Johnson and Kim:
Johnson discloses “[a] method to schedule resources in delivery of
healthcare to a series of patients” (FF 1; see Ans. 19). Johnson’s method can
operate to “adapt the scheduling of clinical activities and procedures in real
time” based on, inter alia, “asset readiness” and “biometrical changes in the
state of patient health” (FF 2; see also FF 3 (Johnson discloses a system and
method that can “generate a recommendation regarding one or more specific
decision(s) or action(s) that can be taken to add, drop or move specific cases
of patients . . ., or tasks of resources” and “track or monitor availability of
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the resources . . . and available blocks of time in the schedule of the
resources . . . associated with fluctuating demand and availability for the
resources”); FF 5; Ans. 19–20). Johnson exemplifies the modification of
scheduling to prioritize patient status, wherein a procedure for low risk or
less critical patients may be delayed (FF 6). Kim amplifies Johnson’s
disclosure of a scheduling method that priorities activities by disclosing a
scheduling method that provides for schedule adjustments based on event
priority level (see FF 8–9; Ans. 20). Thus, based on the combination of
Johnson and Kim, Examiner concludes that, at the time Appellant’s
invention was made, it would have been prima facie obvious to combine
Kim’s method of modifying scheduled events based on event priority with
Johnson’s scheduling system and method (see Final Act. 7; see also FF 1–9).
In this regard, Examiner finds that the combination of Johnson and Kim is
nothing more than the combination of familiar elements according to known
methods to attain a predictable result (see generally Final Act. 7; Ans. 8 and
17–20). See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007) (“The
combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be
obvious when it does not more than yield predictable results.”); see also id.
“[W]hen a patent claims a structure already known in the prior art that is
altered by the mere substitution of one element for another known in the
field, the combination must do more than yield a predictable result.”).
We find no error in Examiner’s conclusion of obviousness.
If a person of ordinary skill can implement a predictable
variation, § 103 likely bars its patentability. For the same
reason, if a technique has been used to improve one device, and
a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it
would improve similar devices in the same way, using the
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technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his
or her skill.
KSR, 550 U.S. at 417.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s
contention that Examiner failed to articulate a reason “why one of ordinary
skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Johnson and Kim, let
alone how the combination of these references was supposed to work to
teach the inventive concepts outlined in the currently claimed embodiments”
(Appeal Br. 28; see also Reply Br. 29–30).
Kim expressly discloses a schedule modification based on the priority
of an event (see FF 9; see also FF 6 (Johnson also suggests scheduling or
schedule modifications, i.e. prioritizing procedures, based patient status); FF
5 (Johnson discloses schedule modifications “to lower clinical risk as well as
schedule risk”); Ans. 20 (Examiner finds that Appellant’s claim 1 requires
that “the event type [is] one of a high priority event and a low priority event”
and, therefore, one type of event, i.e high or low priority, need “be found in
the art to render the claimed invention obvious”)). Therefore, we are not
persuaded by Appellant’s contention that the combination of Johnson and
Kim fails to “differentiate between . . . high or low priority events when
enacting changes to a user’s schedule” (Appeal Br. 30; see id. at 29
(“although an indication may be provided to a user [in Kim] regarding the
importance of a scheduled event, nowhere [does Kim] . . . disclose[] that the
determination of whether to initiate a proposed modification is based on this
importance factor”); Reply Br. 31–32; cf. FF 3, 5, 6, and 9).
As discussed above, Johnson discloses a method and system that
schedules activities, and modifies scheduled activities, to reduce clinical risk
(see FF 1–6). In doing so, Johnson discloses the use, inter alia, of an
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activity duration predictor module, wherein a proactive scheduling plan is
created that predicts or forecasts “procedure schedules and duration to avoid
delays” (FF 3; see also FF 5 (Johnson exemplifies that a schedule may be
modified based on “probabilities of completion of the start time and end
times of [a] schedule of resources . . . or protocol of tasks”)). Stated
differently, Johnson suggests a method wherein a schedule is modified if a
predicted delay is greater than a predetermined threshold amount.
Therefore, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s contention that the
combination of Johnson and Kim “most certainly does not disclose
implementing a modification based upon . . . [an] event having a predicted
delay greater than a predetermined threshold amount’” (Appeal Br. 30; see
Reply Br. 32; cf. Ans. 20–22).

The rejection over the combination of Johnson, Kim, and Aaron:
Based on the combination of Johnson, Kim, and Aaron, Examiner
concludes that, at the time Appellant’s invention was made, it would have
been prima facie obvious to include third party service event data, such as
weather event data, as disclosed by Aaron, to the method suggested by the
combination of Johnson and Kim (see Final Act. 11–12).
Appellant does not address this rejection. “If a ground of rejection
stated by the examiner is not addressed in the appellant’s brief, appellant has
waived any challenge to that ground of rejection and the Board may
summarily sustain it.” Manual of Patent Examining Procedure § 1205.02
(9th Ed., Rev. 08.2017 (Jan. 2018)). Because Appellant does not address this
rejection, it is summarily affirmed.

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CONCLUSION
The preponderance of evidence relied upon by Examiner supports a
conclusion of obviousness.
The rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over the combination of Johnson and Kim is affirmed. Claims 2, 3, 5–13,
and 15–20 are not separately argued and fall with claim 1.
The rejection of claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over the combination of Johnson, Kim, and Aaron. Claim 14 is not
separately argued and falls with claim 4.

Subject Matter Eligibility:
ISSUE
Does the preponderance of evidence of record support Examiner’s
finding that Appellant’s claimed invention is directed to patent-ineligible
subject matter?
PRINCIPLES OF LAW
A. Section 101
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 U.S. 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. E.g., Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. 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 Court’s two-part 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
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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
rubber, smelting ores” (id. at 182 n.7 (quoting Corning v. Burden, 56 U.S.
252, 267–68 (1854))); 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
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 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 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
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formula to a particular technological environment.” Id. (citation omitted)
(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. (alterations in original) (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.
B. USPTO Section 101 Guidance
In January 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
published revised guidance on the application of § 101. 2019 Revised Patent
Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019)
(“Guidance”).8 “All USPTO personnel are, as a matter of internal agency
management, expected to follow the guidance.” Id. at 51; see also October
2019 Update at 1.

8 In response to received public comments, the Office issued further
guidance on October 17, 2019, clarifying the 2019 Revised Guidance.
USPTO, October 2019 Update: Subject Matter Eligibility (the “October
2019 Update”) (available at
https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/peg_oct_2019_update.p
df).
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Under the Guidance and the October 2019 Update, 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) (“Step 2A, Prong One”); and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into
a practical application (see MPEP § 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h) (9th
ed. Rev. 08.2017, Jan. 2018)) (“Step 2A, Prong Two”).9
Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52–55.
Only if a claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not
integrate that exception into a practical application, do we then look, under
Step 2B, 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.
Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52–56.
ANALYSIS
Appellant’s claim 1 is representative.

9 This evaluation is performed by (a) identifying whether there are any
additional elements recited in the claim beyond the judicial exception, and
(b) evaluating those additional elements individually and in combination to
determine whether the claim as a whole integrates the exception into a
practical application. See Guidance — Section III(A)(2), 84 Fed. Reg. at
54–55.
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(Step 1)
We first consider whether the claimed subject matter falls within the
four statutory categories set forth in § 101, namely “[p]rocess, machine,
manufacture, or composition of matter.” Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 53–54;
see 35 U.S.C. § 101. Appellant’s claim 1 is directed to a method, which we
understand to be a “process,” and, therefore, squarely falls within the
statutory categories set forth in § 101. Therefore, we proceed to the next
steps of the analysis.
(Step 2A, Prong 1)
In the first prong of Step 2A, the Guidance instructs us to determine
whether any judicial exception to patent eligibility is recited in the claim. 84
Fed. Reg. at 54. In this regard, the Guidance identifies three judicially-
excepted groupings identified by the courts as abstract ideas: (1)
mathematical concepts, (2) certain methods of organizing human behavior,
and (3) mental processes. Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52–54.
On this record, Examiner finds that Appellant’s claim 1 is directed to
“modifying (i.e., organizing and (re)ordering) events (i.e. interpersonal and
intrapersonal activities) for a user based on the user’s current contextual data
(‘(e.g., user search history, user purchase history, calendar entries, current
and past location events, people (e.g. device contacts)’ (Ans. 10 (citing Spec.
¶ 16) and 10 (citing Spec. ¶ 16)). In this regard, Examiner finds that, “but
for the recitation of a processor,” the method of Appellant’s claim 1
comprises “steps that can be carried out in the human mind to organize
human activity” (Final Act. 3; see also Ans. 3 and 9–10). We agree.
Accessing an event list, i.e. a calendar, and identifying whether events
are high or low priority are activities that may be performed in the human
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mind, or by a human using a pen and paper (see Appeal Br. 32). See
CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1372–73 (Fed.
Cir. 2011) (determining that a claim whose “steps can be performed in the
human mind, or by a human using a pen and paper” is directed to an
unpatentable mental process). The same is true for the steps of predicting a
disruption, i.e. delay, to an event in the calendar due to a user’s current
context, determining whether a delay will be more than a predetermined
threshold amount, determining whether to initiate a proposed modification to
the scheduled event, and implementing a proposed modification, if it is
determined necessary, prior to a predicted disruption (see Appeal Br. 32).
As discussed above, the specific steps recited in the method of
Appellant’s claim 1 relate to the management, i.e. scheduling, of events.
The Guidance defines the management of personal behavior or relationships
or interactions between people, including social activities, as a method of
organizing human activity. See Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s
contention that its “claims are not directed to nor do the claim limitations
recite . . . certain methods of organizing human activity, or mental processes
as those groupings are delineated and provided with the . . . Guidance”
(Appeal Br. 22; Reply Br. 24).
(Step 2A, Prong 2)
Having determined that Appellant’s claim recites a judicial exception,
the Guidance requires an evaluation as to whether the claim as a whole
integrates the recited judicial exception into a practical application of the
exception. See 84 Fed. Reg. at 54.
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On this record, Examiner finds that the “judicial exception is not
integrated into a practical application because the modification to the event
list is simply the display of the results of the analysis” (Final Act. 3; Ans. 3).
Appellant contends, however, that the method of Appellant’s claim 1
is “directed to technological improvements to the field of scheduled event
disruption avoidance” (Appeal Br. 24 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 1, 2, and 15–17); see
also id. at 25; Reply Br. 26 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 1, 2, and 15–17)). In this regard,
Appellant contends that the method of its claim 1 is “directed to an
improvement in existing computer technology,” wherein “a technological
improvement over existing techniques for automatically adjusting one or
more aspects of an event list in order to ensure that a planned disruption to a
particular event is negated” (id. at 24). Appellant, therefore, contends that
the method of its claim 1 is similar to the claims in McRO, Inc. v. Bandai
Namco Games Am., 837 F.3d 1299 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (see Appeal Br. 24;
Reply Br. 26). We are not persuaded.
The claims in McRO focused on a specific improvement in computer
animation. McRO’s claimed process used a combined order of specific rules
that renders information into a specific format used and applied to create a
desired result-a sequence of synchronized, animated characters. McRO, 873
F .3d at 1314–15. The claims in McRO recited a process of automated lip-
synchronization of 3-D characters that resulted from a specific order of rules
as a relationship between sub-sequences of phonemes, timing, and weight of
visual expression at a particular timing by a morph weight set. Id. at 1315.
Thus, the rules in McRO improved the synchronization of 3-D characters on
computers. In contrast, although the method of Appellant’s claim 1 may
provide an improvement in the management of personal behavior or
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relationships or interactions between people, including social activities,
unlike McRO, Appellants’ alleged improvement is not to computer
technology implementing the method of organizing human activity, but
rather to the method of organizing human activity itself (see Appeal Br. 24
(citing Spec. ¶¶ 1–2 and 15–17) (Appellant contends that the method of its
claim 1 is “directed to technological improvements to the field of scheduled
event disruption avoidance); cf. Ans. 11–12).
In addition to this, unlike in McRO where the specific rules by which
the animation was accomplished were claimed, here, the claim does not
specify how the steps are carried out. For example, the claim states that the
event types are identified, that predictions of disruptions are made, and that
modifications are automatically implemented, but the claim does not recite
with any specificity the rules by which the steps are accomplished. As
explain in McRO, “abstract idea exception has been applied to prevent
patenting of claims that abstractly cover results where ‘it matters not by
what process or machinery the result is accomplished.’ [O’Reilly v. Morse,
56 U.S. (15 How.) 62, 113,]; see also Mayo, 132 S.Ct. at 1301.” McRO, 837
F.3d at 1314. McRO stated that therefore, a court must “look to whether the
claims in these patents focus on a specific means or method that improves
the relevant technology or are instead directed to a result or effect that itself
is the abstract idea and merely invoke generic processes and machinery.”
McRO, 837 F.3d at 1314. Here, the result is claimed, but not specifically the
means to accomplish it.

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Further, “[i]n cases involving software innovations, th[e] inquiry often
turns on whether the claims focus 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.” Finjan,
Inc. v. Blue Coat Sys., Inc., 879 F.3d 1299, 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (quoting
Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1335–36 (Fed. Cir. 2016))
(internal quotation marks omitted, alteration original). On this record, a
computer is used merely as a tool, which automates a method of organizing
human activity, i.e. a scheduling method.
As discussed above, the last step of the method of Appellant’s claim 1
can be performed in the human mind, wherein, if it is determined necessary,
a proposed modification is implemented prior to a predicted disruption (see
Appeal Br. 32). Although this step in the method of Appellant’s claim 1
requires the automatic implementation of a modification, we find that the
“mere automation of manual processes using generic computers does not
constitute a patentable improvement in computer technology.” Credit
Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Servs., 859 F.3d 1044, 1055 (Fed. Cir. 2017).
(Step 2B)
Having determined that Appellant’s claim 1: (1) recites a judicial
exception and (2) does not integrate that exception into a practical
application, the Guidance requires that we evaluate whether Appellant’s
claim 1: (a) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that is
not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in the field or (b) simply
appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known
to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial
exception. 84 Fed. Reg. at 52–56.
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On this record, Examiner finds that the method of Appellant’s claim 1
does “not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to
significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional
elements of the claim are found to be pre/post extra solution activity (i.e.
accessing data and displaying (implementing) modification to the event list)”
and the processor limitation recited in the claim is nothing more than a
“generic off-the-shelf” computing device (Final Act. 3; Ans. 3 and 12–14
(citing Spec. ¶ 5)). Appellant disagrees, contending instead that the method
of its “claim 1 requires something more than a generic computer by
predicting, based on user context data, a disruption to an event in a
scheduled event list and thereafter determin[ing] a proposed modification to
the event list that negates the predicted disruption to a particular event” and,
even “if the elements as claimed are considered known elements . . . [the
method of Appellant’s claim 1 combines the known elements] in a manner
that is unconventional and non-generic, and are, thus, directed to
substantially more than any abstract idea” (Appeal Br. 25–26; Reply Br. 27–
28; cf. Ans. 12–17). We are not persuaded.
As discussed above, the method of Appellant’s claim 1 relates to the
management, i.e. scheduling, of events. Thus, the method of Appellant’s
claim 1 is a method of organizing human activity. In addition, each step of
the method set forth in Appellant’s claim 1 can be performed in a human
mind and, thus, recites a mental process. “It has been clear since Alice that a
claimed invention’s use of the ineligible concept to which it is directed
cannot supply the inventive concept that renders the invention ‘significantly
more’ than that ineligible concept.” BSG Tech LLC v. BuySeasons, Inc., 899
F.3d 1281, 1290 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
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In addition, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s contention that a
person of ordinary skill in this art would not have found it routine,
convention, and well-known that a scheduled event may be modified if a
higher priority event or unplanned event overtakes the scheduled event. For
example, we find that those of ordinary skill in this art would have
reasonably found it routine, convention, and well-known that an upcoming
scheduled event may be postponed due to travel restrictions associated with
a global pandemic, i.e. user context data, and, thus, a schedule modification
may be made to negate the predicted disruption to the upcoming event.
We are also not persuaded by Appellant’s contention that just like the
discussion of the Guidance’s Example 34,10 which is based upon BASCOM
Global Internet Servs., Inc. v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341 (Fed. Cir.
2016), the method of its claim 1 includes “limitations [that] amount to
significantly more than any abstract idea that may be present in the claims”
(Appeal Br. 26; see also Reply Br. 28). In contrast to the method of
Appellant’s claim 1, in BASCOM the “specific method of filtering Internet
content cannot be said, as a matter of law, to have been conventional or
generic.” Id. at 1350; see id. (“Filtering content on the Internet was already
a known concept, and the patent describes how its particular arrangement of
elements is a technical improvement over prior art ways of filtering such
content”). In upholding the patent-eligibility of the claims, the BASCOM
court emphasized that, unlike the method of Appellant’s claim 1 on this
record, “[t]he claims [in BASCOM] do not merely recite the abstract idea of

10 Example 34 – System for Filtering Internet Content, Subject Matter
Eligibility Examples: Business Methods, available at:
https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/101examples1to36.pdf.
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filtering content along with the requirement to perform it on the Internet, or
to perform it on a set of generic computer components. Such claims would
not contain an inventive concept.” Id. at 1350. In addition, BASCOM
instructs that “[a]n inventive concept that transforms the abstract idea into a
patent-eligible invention must be significantly more than the abstract idea
itself, and cannot[, as on this record,] simply be an instruction to implement
or apply the abstract idea on a computer.” Id. at 1349. Here, Appellant
made the assertion that the recited steps are arranged in an unconventional
way to achieve the stated result of implementing the proposed modification
(Appeal Br. 25–26; Reply Br. 27–28), but did not explain why the
arrangement of the recited steps is not conventional, or specifically identify
an additional element, apart from the abstract idea, that is arranged
unconventionally, as found in BASCOM.
To be complete, we are not persuaded by Appellants’ contentions
regarding preemption (see App. Br. 24 (Appellant contends that it “does not
claim any or all types of event list modifications that might be applied;
rather, . . . limits the claims to a specific technique”); see also Reply Br. 26).
See Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371, 1379 (Fed.
Cir. 2015) (Although “preemption may signal patent ineligible subject
matter, the absence of complete preemption does not demonstrate patent
eligibility.”).

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CONCLUSION
The preponderance of evidence of record supports Examiner’s finding
that Appellant’s claimed invention is directed to patent ineligible subject
matter. The rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is affirmed.
Appellant’s claims 2–20 are not separately argued and fall with Appellant’s
claim 1.
DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–20 101 Eligibility 1−20
1–3,
5–13,
15–20
103 Johnson, Kim 1–3,
5–13,
15–20

4, 14 103 Johnson, Kim,
Aaron
4, 14
Overall
Outcome
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).

AFFIRMED