PALO ALTO RESEARCH CENTER INCORPORATED

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Aug 11, 2020

13774873 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Aug. 11, 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.
13/774,873 02/22/2013 Ying Zhang PARC-20120526-US-NP 4996
35699 7590 08/11/2020
PVF -- PARC
c/o PARK, VAUGHAN, FLEMING & DOWLER LLP
2820 FIFTH STREET
DAVIS, CA 95618-7759
EXAMINER
SANTOS-DIAZ, MARIA C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3689
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/11/2020 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
jenny@parklegal.com
sy_incoming@parklegal.com
tia@parklegal.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte YING ZHANG, JUAN J. LIU, and HODA M. A. ELDARDIRY
____________

Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before ANTON W. FETTING, MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, and
AMEE A. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judges.

FETTING, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE1
Ying Zhang, Juan J. Liu, and Hoda M. A. Eldardiry (Appellant2)
seeks review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of a final rejection of claims 1–7 and

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“Appeal
Br.,” filed March 26, 2018) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed December 3,
2018), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed October 1, 2018), and
Final Action (“Final Act.,” mailed October 31, 2017).
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

2

11–24, the only claims pending in the application on appeal. We have
jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
The Appellant invented a way of generating fraud-detection score that
is weighed based on an inverse frequency for the fraud type. Specification
para. 1.
An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of
exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below (bracketed matter and some
paragraphing added).
1. A computer-implemented method for detecting fraudulent
entities, comprising:
[1] generating, by an organizational server associated with an
organization, a first fraud warning based on a first transaction
associated with the organization;
[2] obtaining, by a fraud-detection server, a plurality of fraud
warnings including the first fraud warning, across a population
of entities, and for a plurality of fraud types,
wherein a respective entity specifies a person or an
organization,
and
wherein a respective fraud warning is based on a
respective transaction, which is associated with a
respective fraud type;
[3] computing, by the fraud-detection server, for a first fraud
type, a fraud weight based on a number of entities having
transactions in the plurality of fraud warnings associated with
the first fraud type across the population of entities,
wherein the fraud weight increases with decreasing
number of entities across the population of entities

2 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 Palo Alto
Research Center Incorporated (Appeal Br. 4).
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

3

having fraud warnings associated with the first fraud
type;
[4] computing, for a respective entity, a fraud-detection score
based on a number or cost of fraudulent transactions from the
respective entity associated with the first fraud type and based
on the computed fraud weight;
and
[5] in response to the respective entity's computed fraud-
detection score not fitting within a normal decay pattern of
scores among the population of entities,
labeling the respective entity as anomalous
and
generating a fraudulent entity report for the respective
entity,
wherein the report instructs an investigating
organization to investigate the respective entity
Claims 1–7 and 11–24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as
directed to a judicial exception without significantly more.
ISSUES
The issues of eligible subject matter turn primarily on whether the
claims recite more than abstract conceptual advice of results desired.
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

4

ANALYSIS
STEP 13
Claim 1, as a method claim, nominally recites one of the enumerated
categories of eligible subject matter in 35 U.S.C. § 101. The issue before us
is whether it is directed to a judicial exception without significantly more.
STEP 2
The Supreme Court
set forth a framework for distinguishing patents that claim laws
of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those that
claim patent-eligible applications of those concepts. First, . . .
determine whether the claims at issue are directed to one of
those patent-ineligible concepts. If so, we then ask, “[w]hat
else is there in the claims before us? To answer that question, .
. . consider the elements of each claim both individually and “as
an ordered combination” to determine whether the additional
elements “transform the nature of the claim” into a patent-
eligible application. [The Court] described step two of this
analysis as a search for an “‘inventive concept’”—i.e., an
element or combination of elements that is “sufficient to ensure
that the patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a
patent upon the [ineligible concept] itself.”
Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 217–18 (2014) (citations
omitted) (citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs, Inc.,
566 U.S. 66 (2012)). To perform this test, we must first determine what the
claims are directed to. This begins by determining whether the claims recite
one of the judicial exceptions (a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an
abstract idea). Then, if the claims recite a judicial exception, determining

3 For continuity of analysis, we adopt the steps nomenclature from 2019
Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7,
2019) (“Revised Guidance”).
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

5

whether the claims at issue are directed to the recited judicial exception, or
whether the recited judicial exception is integrated into a practical
application of that exception, i.e., that 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.” Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg.
at 54. If the claims are directed to a judicial exception, then finally
determining whether the claims provide an inventive concept because the
additional elements recited in the claims provide significantly more than the
recited judicial exception.
STEP 2A Prong 1
At a high level, and for our preliminary analysis, we note that method
claim 1 recites generating and obtaining fraud warning data, computing
fraud weight data and fraud detection score data, and in response to the score
meeting criteria, labeling data and generating report data. Obtaining data is
data reception. Computing data is mathematical algorithmic analysis.
Determining each of a response and whether data meet criteria are data
analysis. Thus, claim 1 recites generating, receiving, and analyzing data.
None of the limitations recite technological implementation details for any
of these steps, but instead recite only results desired by any and all possible
means.
From this we see that claim 1 does not recite the judicial exceptions of
either natural phenomena or laws of nature.
Under Supreme Court precedent, claims directed purely to an abstract
idea are patent in-eligible. As set forth in the Revised Guidance, which
extracts and synthesizes key concepts identified by the courts, abstract ideas
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

6

include (1) mathematical concepts4, (2) certain methods of organizing
human activity5, and (3) mental processes6. Among those certain methods
of organizing human activity listed in the Revised Guidance are commercial
or legal interactions. Like those concepts, claim 1 recites the concept of
managing response to commercial fraud. Specifically, claim 1 recites
operations that would ordinarily take place in advising one to report entities
having anomalous scores based on fraudulent transactions flagged by fraud
warnings. The advice to report entities having anomalous scores based on
fraudulent transactions flagged by fraud warnings involves detecting
fraudulent entities, which is an economic act, and obtaining fraud warnings,
which is an act ordinarily performed in the stream of commerce. For
example, claim 1 recites “detecting fraudulent entities,” which is an activity
that would take place whenever one is protecting against commercial fraud.
Similarly, claim 1 recites “obtaining . . . a plurality of fraud warnings,”
which is also characteristic of commercial fraud prevention.

4 See, e.g., Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 71–72 (1972); Bilski v.
Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 611 (2010); Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co. v. Radio
Corp. of Am., 306 U.S. 86, 94 (1939); SAP America, Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC,
898 F.3d 1161, 1163 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
5 See, e.g., Bilski, 561 U.S. at 628; Alice, 573 U.S. at 219-20; Ultramercial,
Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709, 715 (Fed Cir. 2014); Smart Sys.
Innovations, LLC v. Chicago Transit Auth., 873 F.3d 1364, 1383 (Fed. Cir.
2017); In re Marco Guldenaar Holding B.V., 911 F.3d 1157, 1160–61 (Fed.
Cir. 2018).
6 See, e.g., Benson, 409 U.S. at 67; CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions,
Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1371–72 (Fed. Cir. 2011); Intellectual Ventures I LLC
v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1318 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

7

The Examiner determines the claims to be directed to calculating a
fraud detection score and reporting an abnormal or anomalous entity based
on the calculated fraud detection score. Final Act. 3.
The preamble to claim 1 recites that it is a method for detecting
fraudulent entities. The steps in claim 1 result in managing response to
commercial fraud by reporting entities having anomalous scores based on
fraudulent transactions flagged by fraud warnings absent any technological
mechanism other than a conventional computer for doing so.
As to the specific limitations, limitations 1–5 recite generic and
conventional generating, receiving, and analyzing of commercial transaction
data, which advise one to apply generic functions to get to these results. The
limitations thus recite advice for reporting entities having anomalous scores
based on fraudulent transactions flagged by fraud warnings. To advocate
reporting entities having anomalous scores based on fraudulent transactions
flagged by fraud warnings is conceptual advice for results desired and not
technological operations.
The Specification at paragraph 1 describes the invention as relating to
generating a fraud-detection score that is weighted7 based on an inverse
frequency for the fraud type. Thus, all this intrinsic evidence shows that
claim 1 recites managing response to commercial fraud. This is consistent
with the Examiner’s determination.
This in turn is an example of commercial or legal interactions as a
certain method of organizing human activity because managing response to

7 The Specification uses the word “weighed,” but this is an obvious
typographic error as the remainder of the Specification uses words with
“weight” as the root and “weighted” is more semantically correct in this
context.
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

8

commercial fraud is how commercial interactions protect against improper
transactions. The concept of managing response to commercial fraud by
reporting entities having anomalous scores based on fraudulent transactions
flagged by fraud warnings is one idea for such management. The steps
recited in claim 1 are part of how this might conceptually be premised.
Our reviewing court has found claims to be directed to abstract ideas
when they recited similar subject matter. FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric
Sys., Inc., 839 F.3d 1089, 1093 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (detecting fraud and
analyzing records of human activity to detect suspicious behavior);
Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363,
1367 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (tracking financial transactions); Dealertrack, Inc. v.
Huber, 674 F.3d 1315, 1333–34 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (processing financial
transactions through a clearing house); Content Extraction and Transmission
LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, 776 F.3d 1343, 1347 (2014) (recognizing data
within a collection); CyberSource, 654 F.3d at 1375 (claims linked only to a
general purpose computer of detecting fraud based on past transactions).
Alternately, this is an example of concepts performed in the human
mind as mental processes because the steps of generating, receiving, and
analyzing data mimic human thought processes of observation, evaluation,
judgment, and opinion, perhaps with paper and pencil, where the data
interpretation is perceptible only in the human mind. See In re TLI
Commc’ns LLC Patent Litig., 823 F.3d 607, 611 (Fed. Cir. 2016);
FairWarning, 839 F.3d at 1093–94. Claim 1, unlike the claims found non-
abstract in prior cases, uses generic computer technology to generate a
fraud-detection score that is weighted based on an inverse frequency for the
fraud type and does not recite an improvement to a particular computer
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

9

technology. See, e.g., McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am. Inc., 837
F.3d 1299, 1314–15 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (finding claims not abstract because
they “focused on a specific asserted improvement in computer animation”).
As such, claim 1 recites generating, receiving, and analyzing data, and not a
technological implementation or application of that idea.
From this we conclude that at least to this degree, claim 1 recites
managing responses to commercial fraud by reporting entities having
anomalous scores based on fraudulent transactions flagged by fraud
warnings, which is a commercial and legal interaction, one of certain
methods of organizing human activity identified in the Revised Guidance,
and, thus, an abstract idea.
STEP 2A Prong 2
The next issue is whether claim 1 not only recites, but is more
precisely directed to this concept itself or whether it is instead directed to
some technological implementation or application of, or improvement to,
this concept i.e. integrated into a practical application.8
At the same time, we tread carefully in construing this
exclusionary principle lest it swallow all of patent law. At
some level, “all inventions ... embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or
apply laws of nature, natural phenomena, or abstract ideas.”
Thus, an invention is not rendered ineligible for patent simply
because it involves an abstract concept. “[A]pplication[s]” of
such concepts “ ‘to a new and useful end,’ ” we have said,
remain eligible for patent protection. Accordingly, in applying
the § 101 exception, we must distinguish between patents that
claim the “ ‘buildin[g] block[s]’ ” of human ingenuity and those
that integrate the building blocks into something more.

8 See, e.g., Alice, 573 U.S. at 223, discussing Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S.
175 (1981).
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

10

Alice, 573 U.S. at 217 (citations omitted).
Taking the claim elements separately, the operation performed by the
computer at each step of the process is expressed purely in terms of results,
devoid of implementation details. Steps 1 and 2 are data gathering steps.
Limitations describing the nature of the data do not alter this. Step 5 is
insignificant post solution activity, such as storing, transmitting, or
displaying the results. Steps 3 and 4 recite generic computer processing
expressed in terms of mathematical algorithm results desired by any and all
possible means and so present no more than conceptual advice and abstract
mathematical algorithms. All purported inventive aspects reside in how the
data is interpreted and the results desired, and not in how the process
physically enforces such a data interpretation or in how the processing
technologically achieves those results.
Viewed as a whole, Appellant’s claim 1 simply recites the concept of
managing response to commercial fraud by reporting entities having
anomalous scores based on fraudulent transactions flagged by fraud
warnings as performed by a generic computer. This is no more than
conceptual advice on the parameters for this concept and the generic
computer processes necessary to process those parameters, and do not recite
any particular implementation.
Claim 1 does not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of
the computer itself. Nor does it effect an improvement in any other
technology or technical field. The 17+ pages of specification do not bulge
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

11

with disclosure, but only spell out different generic equipment9 and
parameters that might be applied using this concept and the particular steps
such conventional processing would entail based on the concept of
managing response to commercial fraud by reporting entities having
anomalous scores based on fraudulent transactions flagged by fraud
warnings under different scenarios. They do not describe any particular
improvement in the manner a computer functions. Instead, claim 1 at issue
amounts to nothing significantly more than an instruction to apply managing
response to commercial fraud by reporting entities having anomalous scores
based on fraudulent transactions flagged by fraud warnings using some
unspecified, generic computer. Under our precedents, that is not enough to
transform an abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention. See Alice, 573
U.S. at 225–26.
None of the limitations reflect an improvement in the functioning of a
computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, applies
or uses a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for
a disease or medical condition, implements a judicial exception with, or uses
a judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture
that is integral to the claim, effects a transformation or reduction of a
particular article to a different state or thing, or applies or uses the judicial
exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of
the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that
the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize
the exception.

9 The Specification describes using a computer with a processor, memory,
and a storage device. Spec. para. 52.
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

12

We conclude that claim 1 is directed to achieving the result of
managing response to commercial fraud by advising one to report entities
having anomalous scores based on fraudulent transactions flagged by fraud
warnings, as distinguished from a technological improvement for achieving
or applying that result. This amounts to commercial or legal interactions,
which fall within certain methods of organizing human activity that
constitute abstract ideas. The claim does not integrate the judicial exception
into a practical application.
STEP 2B
The next issue is whether claim 1 provides an inventive concept
because the additional elements recited in the claim provide significantly
more than the recited judicial exception.
The introduction of a computer into the claims does not generally alter
the analysis at Mayo step two.
the mere recitation of a generic computer cannot transform a
patent-ineligible abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.
Stating an abstract idea “while adding the words ‘apply it’” is
not enough for patent eligibility. Nor is limiting the use of an
abstract idea “‘to a particular technological environment.’”
Stating an abstract idea while adding the words “apply it with a
computer” simply combines those two steps, with the same
deficient result. Thus, if a patent’s recitation of a computer
amounts to a mere instruction to “implement[t]” an abstract
idea “on . . . a computer,” that addition cannot impart patent
eligibility. This conclusion accords with the preemption
concern that undergirds our § 101 jurisprudence. Given the
ubiquity of computers, wholly generic computer
implementation is not generally the sort of “additional
feature[e]” that provides any “practical assurance that the
process is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize
the [abstract idea] itself.”
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

13

Alice, 573 U.S. at 223–24 (citations omitted).
“[T]he relevant question is whether the claims here do more than
simply instruct the practitioner to implement the abstract idea [] on a generic
computer.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 225. They do not.
Taking the claim elements separately, the function performed by the
computer at each step of the process is purely conventional. Using a
computer for generating, receiving, and analyzing data amounts to electronic
data query and retrieval—one of the most basic functions of a computer. All
of these computer functions are generic, routine, conventional computer
activities that are performed only for their conventional uses. See Elec.
Power Grp. LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2016). See
also In re Katz Interactive Call Processing Patent Litig., 639 F.3d 1303,
1316 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“Absent a possible narrower construction of the terms
‘processing,’ ‘receiving,’ and ‘storing,’ . . . those functions can be achieved
by any general purpose computer without special programming”). None of
these activities is used in some unconventional manner nor does any produce
some unexpected result. Appellant does not contend it invented any of these
activities. In short, each step does no more than require a generic computer
to perform generic computer functions. As to the data operated upon, “even
if a process of collecting and analyzing information is ‘limited to particular
content’ or a particular ‘source,’ that limitation does not make the collection
and analysis other than abstract.” SAP America, 898 F.3d at 1168.
Considered as an ordered combination, the computer components of
Appellant’s claim 1 add nothing that is not already present when the steps
are considered separately. The sequence of data generation-reception-
analysis is equally generic and conventional. See Ultramercial, 772 F.3d
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

14

at 715 (sequence of receiving, selecting, offering for exchange, display,
allowing access, and receiving payment recited an abstraction), Inventor
Holdings, LLC v. Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc., 876 F.3d 1372, 1378 (Fed. Cir.
2017) (sequence of data retrieval, analysis, modification, generation, display,
and transmission), Two-Way Media Ltd. v. Comcast Cable Communications,
LLC, 874 F.3d 1329, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (sequence of processing, routing,
controlling, and monitoring). The ordering of the steps is therefore ordinary
and conventional.
We conclude that claim 1 does not provide an inventive concept
because the additional elements recited in the claim do not provide
significantly more than the recited judicial exception.
REMAINING CLAIMS
Claim 1 is representative. The remaining method claims merely
describe process parameters. We conclude that the method claims at issue
are directed to a patent-ineligible concept itself, and not to the practical
application of that concept.
As to the structural claims, they
are no different from the method claims in substance. The
method claims recite the abstract idea implemented on a generic
computer; the system claims recite a handful of generic
computer components configured to implement the same idea.
This Court has long “warn[ed] ... against” interpreting § 101“in
ways that make patent eligibility ‘depend simply on the
draftsman’s art.’
Alice, 573 U.S. at 226. As a corollary, the claims are not directed to any
particular machine.
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

15

LEGAL CONCLUSION
From these determinations we further determine that the claims do not
recite an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself or to any
other technology or technical field, a particular machine, a particular
transformation, or other meaningful limitations. From this we conclude the
claims are directed to the judicial exception of the abstract idea of certain
methods of organizing human activity as exemplified by the commercial and
legal interaction of managing response to commercial fraud by advising one
to report entities having anomalous scores based on fraudulent transactions
flagged by fraud warnings, without significantly more.
APPELLANT’S ARGUMENTS
As to Appellant’s Appeal Brief arguments, we adopt the Examiner’s
determinations and analysis from Final Action 2–7 and Answer 3–12 and
reach similar legal conclusions. We now turn to the Reply Brief.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the claims are
analogous to those in Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327 (Fed.
Cir. 2016). Reply Br. 9–11. The claims differ from those found patent
eligible in Enfish, where the claims were “specifically directed to a self-
referential table for a computer database.” 822 F.3d 1327, 1337 (Fed. Cir.
2016). The claims thus were “directed to a specific improvement to the
way computers operate” rather than an abstract idea implemented on a
computer. Id. at 1336. Here, by contrast, the claims are not directed to
an improvement in the way computers operate. Though the claims
purport to accelerate and improve the accuracy of the process of fraud
detection, our reviewing court has held that speed and accuracy increases
stemming from the ordinary capabilities of a general purpose computer
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

16

“do[] not materially alter the patent eligibility of the claimed subject
matter.” Bancorp Servs., L.L.C. v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Can. (U.S.),
687 F.3d 1266, 1278 (Fed. Cir. 2012). Instead, the claims are more
analogous to those in FairWarning, supra, wherein claims reciting “a few
possible rules to analyze audit log data” were found directed an abstract
idea because they asked “the same questions (though perhaps phrased
with different words) that humans in analogous situations detecting fraud
have asked for decades.” 839 F.3d at 1094, 1095.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the claims use
electronic rather than paper and pencil data. Reply Br. 9. This simply
argues context, which cannot confer eligibility. “The Supreme Court and
this court have repeatedly made clear that merely limiting the field of use of
the abstract idea to a particular existing technological environment does not
render the claims any less abstract.” Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v. DirecTV,
LLC, 838 F.3d 1253, 1259 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
Appellant also attempts to analogize the claims to those involved in
McRO. Reply Br. 12–13. In McRO, the court held that, although the
processes were previously performed by humans, “the traditional process
and newly claimed method . . . produced . . . results in fundamentally
different ways.” FairWarning, 839 F.3d at 1094 (differentiating the
claims at issue from those in McRO). In McRO, “it was the incorporation
of the claimed rules not the use of the computer, that improved the
existing technology process,” because the prior process performed by
humans “was driven by subjective determinations rather than specific,
limited mathematical rules.” 837 F.3d at 1314 (internal quotation marks,
citation, and alterations omitted). In contrast, the claims of the instant
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

17

application merely implement an old practice of using decision criteria in
making fraud detection decisions in a new environment. Appellant has not
argued that the claimed processes of selecting transactions apply rules of
selection in a manner technologically different from those which humans
used, albeit with less efficiency, before the invention was claimed. Merely
pigeon holing the objects of decision making in tiers to aid decision making
is both old and itself abstract.
The claims in McRO were not directed to an abstract idea, but
instead were directed to “a specific asserted improvement in
computer animation, i.e., the automatic use of rules of a
particular type.” We explained that “the claimed improvement
[was] allowing computers to produce ‘accurate and realistic lip
synchronization and facial expressions in animated characters’
that previously could only be produced by human animators.”
The claimed rules in McRO transformed a traditionally
subjective process performed by human artists into a
mathematically automated process executed on computers.
FairWarning, 839 F.3d at 1094 (differentiating the claims at issue from
those in McRO).
We are not persuaded by Appellant's argument that “[n]ot only does
the report instruct an investigating entity to investigate the respective entity,
but the report is only generated as a result of the significant, concrete, and
tangible steps of the instant claims.” Reply Br. 14. Instructing someone is
basic human communication, among the most abstract of operations. The
content of the instruction is non-functional information, and so no more than
conceptual ideas. The purported “significant, concrete, and tangible steps of
the instant claims” are data generation, reception, and analysis. These
operations are determined to be conventional and generic operations of any
conventional computer under Step 2B supra.
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

18

We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the claims contain
an inventive concept that is also found in the specific ordered combination
of the limitations, similar to the Federal Circuit's findings in BASCOM
(BASCOM Global Internet v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341 (Fed. Cir.
2016)). Reply Br. 14. Initially, we remind Appellant that BASCOM did not
find claims eligible on the substance, but rather that the Appellees did not
provide sufficient evidence to support a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss in which
facts are presumed in the non-movant’s favor.
The key fact in BASCOM was the presence of a structural change in
“installation of a filtering tool at a specific location, remote from the end-
users, with customizable filtering features specific to each end user. This
design gives the filtering tool both the benefits of a filter on a local computer
and the benefits of a filter on the ISP server.” BASCOM, 827 F.3d at 1350.
The instant claims have no analogous structural benefit.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that using a fraud
server reduces resources at the organizational server. Reply Br. 15. Merely
reciting a server does not confer eligibility.
The use and arrangement of conventional and generic computer
components recited in the claims—such as a database, user
terminal, and server— do not transform the claim, as a whole,
into “significantly more” than a claim to the abstract idea itself.
“We have repeatedly held that such invocations of computers
and networks that are not even arguably inventive are
‘insufficient to pass the test of an inventive concept in the
application’ of an abstract idea.”
Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Servs., 859 F.3d 1044, 1056 (Fed. Cir.
2017) (citations omitted). Beyond that, Appellant argues no more than the
benefits of the conceptual idea to use conventional distributed processing.
Appeal 2019-001527
Application 13/774,873

19

We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that “system can use
received fraud warnings to generate the fraud-detection scores and the
fraudulent entity report without having to process sensitive information
from the entities under investigation.” Reply Br. 15. This only argues
that the information is improved, not the technology. “The claims are
focused on providing information to traders in a way that helps them process
information more quickly, not on improving computers or technology. . . .
The “tool for presentation” here . . . is simply a generic computer.” Trading
Techs. Int’l, Inc. v. IBG LLC, 921 F.3d 1378, 1384–85 (Fed. Cir. 2019)
(citations omitted).
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
The rejection of claims 1–7 and 11–24 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as
directed to a judicial exception without significantly more is proper.
CONCLUSION
The rejection of claims 1–7 and 11–24 is affirmed.
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–7, 11–24 101 Eligibility 1–7, 11–24

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv) (2011).

AFFIRMED