Schultz, R. Steven. et al.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardOct 18, 201914072200 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Oct. 18, 2019) Copy Citation 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. 14/072,200 11/05/2013 R. Steven Schultz CHPTH.1136.1001.US13 3918 143183 7590 10/18/2019 Michael L. Wach 4425 Mariners Ridge Alpharetta, GA 30005 EXAMINER SUBRAMANIAN, NARAYANSWAMY ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3695 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/18/2019 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@pacificpatentgroup.com eofficeaction@appcoll.com mikewachsr@gmail.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte R. STEVEN SCHULTZ, PETER GALANIS, JAMES G. NADLER, JAMES D. GREENE, and DUANE A. HYLTON ________________ Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 Technology Center 3600 _________________ Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JAMES B. ARPIN, and ROBERT J. WEINSCHENK, Administrative Patent Judges. ARPIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 6–24, all of the pending claims. Final Act. 2.2 Claims 1–5 are cancelled. App. Br. 21 (Claims App’x). 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 Chaperhouse LLC. App. Br. 2. 2 In this Decision, we refer to Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed April 19, 2018); the Final Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed March 22, 2017); the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed May 31, 2018; and the originally-filed Specification (“Spec.,” filed November 5, 2013)). Rather than repeat the Examiner’s findings and determinations and Appellant’s contentions in their entirety, we refer to these documents. Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant’s claimed methods and systems “relate[] generally to electronically performed steps of sales and other transactions in which a receipt is issued and, more specifically, to the issuance of electronic transaction receipts having links to related information useful to the holder of the receipt.” Spec., 1:15–17 (emphasis added). As noted above, claims 6–24 are pending. Claims 6 and 18 are independent. App. Br. 21 (claim 6), 24 (claim 18) (Claims App’x). Claims 7–17 depend directly or indirectly from claim 6, and claims 19–24 depend directly or indirectly from claim 18. Id. at 21–26. Claim 6 recites systems performing methods recited in claim 18. Id. at 16–17, 21–22. Therefore, we focus our analysis on claim 18. See Accenture Global Servs. GmbH v. Guidewire Software, Inc., 728 F.3d 1336, 1341 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (“Although [CLS Bank Int’l v. Alice Corp., 717 F.3d 1269 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (en banc)] issued as a plurality opinion, in that case a majority of the court held that system claims that closely track method claims and are grounded by the same meaningful limitations will generally rise and fall together.” Id. at 1274 n.1 (parenthetical omitted)); Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 226–227 (2014) (“Put another way, the system claims are no different from the method claims in substance.”). Claim 18, reproduced below, is representative. 18. A computer implemented method of storing electronic transaction receipts, comprising: a. receiving a plurality of electronic transaction receipts, each of the electronic transaction receipts associated with a transaction that has occurred between a particular buyer of a plurality of buyers and a particular seller of a plurality of sellers; Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 3 b. storing the plurality of electronic transaction receipts in the database; c. receiving at least one request from at least one of the plurality of buyers to transmit at least a portion of the plurality of electronic transaction receipts associated with the at least one of the plurality of buyers; and d. transmitting the portion of the plurality of electronic transaction receipts associated with the at least one of the plurality of buyers to the at least one of the plurality of buyers. Id. at 24. REJECTION The Examiner rejects claims 6–24 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to patent ineligible subject matter. Final Act. 3–18. We review the appealed rejection for error based upon the issues identified by Appellant, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). Arguments not made are waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). For the reasons given below, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection. ANALYSIS Patent Ineligible Claims 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, 573 U.S. at 216. Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 4 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 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.”). According to the Court, 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)). In Diamond v. 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.” Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 187 (1981). 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 formula to a particular technological environment.” Id. at 191 (citing Benson and Flook). Nevertheless, the Court noted that “[i]t is now commonplace that an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 5 deserving of patent protection.” Id. at 187; see also BASCOM Global Internet Services, Inc. v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (Even if the individual components were known, “an inventive concept can be found in the ordered combination of claim limitations that transform the abstract idea of filtering content into a particular, practical application of that abstract idea” (emphasis added).). If the claim is “directed to” an abstract idea, we next “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. Office Patent Eligibility Guidance In an effort to achieve clarity and consistency in how the Office applies the Court’s two part test, the Office published revised guidance on the application of § 101. 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019).3 In Step One of our analysis, we look to see whether the claims, as written, fall within one of the four statutory categories identified in § 101. Id. at 53 (“Examiners should 3 “All USPTO personnel are, as a matter of internal agency management, expected to follow the guidance.” 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 51. Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 6 determine whether a claim satisfies the criteria for subject matter eligibility by evaluating the claim in accordance with the criteria discussed in MPEP4 2106, i.e., whether the claim is to a statutory category (Step 1) and the Alice/Mayo test for judicial exceptions (Steps 2A and 2B)”). Under the guidance, we then look to whether the claim recites: (1) Step 2A – Prong One: 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) Step 2A – Prong Two: additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application (see MPEP § 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h)). See 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 54–55 (“Revised Step 2A”). 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 id. at 56 (“Step 2B: If the Claim Is Directed to a Judicial Exception, Evaluate Whether the Claim Provides an Inventive Concept.”). 4 All Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (“MPEP”) citations herein are to MPEP, Rev. 08.2017, January 2018. Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 7 C. Step One – Claims Directed to Statutory Categories Appellant’s independent claim 6 and its associated dependent claims are directed to systems (i.e., a “machine”), and claim 18 and its associated dependent claims are directed to methods (i.e., a “process”). App. Br. 21–26 (Claims App’x). Thus, the pending claims are directed to recognized statutory categories. Final Act. 3. D. Two-Part Alice/Mayo Test 1. Independent Claims 6 and 18 a. Step 2A, Prong One – Claims Recite an Abstract Idea Applying the first part of the Alice/Mayo analysis (Step 2A), “the Examiner determines claim 18 “is directed to storing electronic transaction receipts which is considered to be an abstract idea similar to the concepts that have been identified by the courts such as classifying and storing digital images in an organized manner.” Id. (citation omitted); Ans. 3. In particular, the Examiner finds: The specific details of storing and transmitting electronic transaction receipts recited in the claim do not change the fact that the claim is drawn to an abstract idea. The abstract idea of the challenged claims is not only “storing and transmitting electronic transaction receipts” in general, but also the specific types of “storing and transmitting electronic transaction receipts”. The details recited in the claim are only further refinements of the abstract idea. That does not change the fact that the claim is drawn to abstract ideas. Ans. 4. Claim 18 broadly recites the limitations of (1) receiving receipts from transactions between buyers and sellers (“receiving a plurality of electronic transaction receipts, each electronic transaction receipt associated with a Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 8 transaction that has occurred between a particular buyer of a plurality of buyers and a particular seller of a plurality of sellers”); (2) storing the receipts (“storing the plurality of electronic transaction receipts in the database”); (3) receiving a request to transmit for a portion of the stored receipts (“receiving at least one request from at least one of the plurality of buyers to transmit at least a portion of the plurality of electronic transaction receipts associated with the at least one of the plurality of buyers”); and (4) transmitting the requested portion of the receipts (“transmitting the portion of the plurality of electronic transaction receipts associated with the at least one of the plurality of buyers to the at least one of the plurality of buyers.”). App. Br. 24 (Claims App’x); see Final Act. 3–4. The Examiner concludes: All the steps of the claim, collectively as an ordered combination, are directed to storing and transmitting electronic transaction receipts which is considered to be an abstract idea similar to the concepts that have been identified by the courts such as classifying and storing digital images in an organized manner (See [TLI Communications LLC v. AV Automotive, LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 611 (Fed. Cir. 2016)]). The abstract idea of storing electronic transaction receipts is a combination of the abstract- idea processes identified above (See [Electric Power Grp., LLC v. Alstrom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis”)]). Hence the steps of the claim, taken individually or as an ordered combination, are directed to abstract idea. Final Act. 4; see also Cellspin Soft, Inc. v. Fitbit, Inc., 927 F.3d 1306, 1319 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (citing Electric Power Grp. with approval). As evidenced by the analysis above, claim 18 is broad in its scope and does not meaningfully limit the abstract idea, particularly, how the receipts are received, stored, requested, selected for transmission, or transmitted. See Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 9 Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v. Amazon.com Inc., 838 F.3d 1266, 1272 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“[The patent] claims the general concept of streaming user- selected content to a portable device. The addition of basic user customization features to the interface does not alter the abstract nature of the claims and does not add an inventive component that renders the claims patentable.”); Electric Power Grp., 830 F.3d at 1353. Claim 18’s limitations, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, recite collecting receipts, storing them, and disseminating requested portions of the stored receipts, which receipts result from transactions between buyers and sellers, which are “commercial . . . interactions (including . . . sales activities or behaviors; business relations); [and] manag[e] personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people[, e.g., buyers and sellers,] (including . . . following rules or instructions),” and which fall within the broader category of “[c]ertain methods of organizing human activity.” Final Act. 3–4; App. Br. 24 (Claims App’x); see 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52; see also Spec., 1:15–17 (The recited methods relate “to electronically performed steps of sales and other transactions in which a receipt is issued.”). Thus, we determine that the rejected claims recite an abstract idea, namely “[c]ertain methods of organizing human activity.” b. Step 2A, Prong Two – Abstract Idea Not Integrated Into Practical Application The Examiner finds: The claims merely amount to the application or instructions to apply the abstract idea (i.e. storing electronic transaction receipts) on one or more computers, and are considered to amount to nothing more than requiring a generic computer system (e.g. a database and a device suitably Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 10 programmed) to merely carry out the abstract idea itself. As such, the claims, when considered as a whole, are nothing more than the instructions to implement the abstract idea (i.e. storing electronic transaction receipts) in a particular, albeit well- understood, routine and conventional technological environment. Accordingly, the Examiner concludes that there are no meaningful limitations in the claims that transform the judicial exception into a patent eligible application such that the claims amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.5 Final Act. 13 (emphasis added). Appellant contends that the claims certainly affect an improvement to a technology or technical field. It is well known and accepted that electronic commerce entails execution of transactions in quantity and at high rate, each producing an electronic transaction receipt. Storing the resulting volume of receipts in a manner that a particular buyer can request and be practicably transmitted specific receipts on demand represents a technical problem. App. Br. 7 (emphases added). However, the claims do not recite that the receipts must be received in a high volume or at a high rate. E.g., id. at 24 (Claims App’x). The claims simply recite that “a plurality of electronic transaction receipts,” i.e., two or more electronic transaction receipts, are received. Id. Appellant may not read teachings from the Specification into the claims to show that the claims do not recite an abstract idea. See id. at 10–13. Moreover, even if the claims recited the ability to handle large 5 We acknowledge that some of the considerations at Step 2A, Prong Two, properly may be evaluated under Step 2 of Alice (Step 2B of the Office guidance). For purposes of maintaining consistent treatment within the Office, we evaluate those considerations under first part of the Alice/Mayo analysis (Step 2A of the Office guidance). See 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 55 n.25, 27–32. Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 11 volumes of receipts at a high rate, this ability would be due to the capabilities of a “conventional personal computer.” Spec. 7:26–27, 8:23–27, 10:26–27; see FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., 839 F.3d 1089, 1095 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Appellant further asserts: For perspective on the [technical] problem, consider the receipt management struggles of a single household where finding a receipt to return a recently-purchased item may entail searching with great frustration through drawers looking for a receipt printout, through electronic records, and so forth. Then, scale the household’s receipt-management problem up to an online retailer. The inventors recognized that the technical field of transaction data management needed improvement and invented a technical solution-the claimed invention. App. Br. 7. However, we are not persuaded that this suggests a technical problem or its solution. Instead, we determine that Appellant’s example shows a problem in a particular technological environment, namely, buyer- seller transactions involving electronic receipts, the solution of which is facilitated by the use of a conventional personal computer, having access to a database. See id. at 21 (Claims App’x) (Claim 6 reciting a system including a device for interfacing with a database and a database for storing electronic receipts.); see also Spec., 9:1–5 (“Although in the illustrated embodiment of the invention the computing device on which the buyer receives receipts is described as a conventional personal computer such as a desktop or laptop computer, in other embodiments of the invention the device can be any suitable type of device that has a hypermedia user interface, i.e., that allows a user to interact with documents through the use of hyperlinks.”), 19:25–27 (“To facilitate receipt data transfer, such as Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 12 exporting the receipt data to finance and spreadsheet programs and the like, the receipt data is stored in database 89 in a standard or uniform format.”). Moreover, the Specification discloses: As illustrated in Fig. 4, the client computer operated by buyer 20 can be a conventional personal computer on which a Web browser 40 operates. As well-known in the art, a browser is a software program that allows a user to receive and view hypertext documents from a server. Received documents are displayed on the video monitor 42 of the computer or other suitable display. Common commercially available browsers such as NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR and MICROSOFT EXPLORER typically display a hyperlink in some distinguishing way, e.g. in a different color, font or style. Browsers associate hyperlinks with Internet target documents and, when the user activates a hyperlink, the computer transmits a request for that document. As is conventional, the computer includes a mouse 44 with which the user can activate displayed hyperlinks. The computer also include other hardware and software elements conventionally included in personal computers, such as a keyboard 46, a processor 48, disk storage device 50 such as a hard disk drive, input/output interfaces 52, a network interface 54, and a removable read/write storage device 56 such as a drive that uses a CD-ROM 58 or floppy disk. The software elements of the programmed computer, such as browser 40, are illustrated for purposes of clarity as executable in a main memory 60, but as persons skilled in the art will understand they may not in actuality reside simultaneously or in their entireties in memory 60. The computer has other hardware and software elements of the types conventionally included in personal computers, such as an operating system, but are not shown for purposes of clarity. Note that software elements can be loaded into the computer via read/write storage device 56 or network 22. Spec., 7:26–8:16; see id. at 5:16–17 (“The term ‘document’ includes files and other items of any suitable medium, including graphical imagery, still and moving images, and sound.”), 7:16–25 (“As well-known in the art, a hyperlink is a reference or link from some point in one hypermedia Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 13 document to another document or point in a document.”), 10:26–11:2 (“As in the above-described system, it includes similar conventional computer elements along the lines of a memory 94, network interface 96, processor 98, disk storage device 100, and a removable-medium read/write storage device 102 for reading from and writing to a disk 104.”). The methods of claim 18 merely invoke (and the systems of claim 6 merely recite) generic hardware and known data storage, retrieval, and transmission techniques, and the recited methods are not linked to any particular machine (MPEP § 2106.05(b)) and merely apply generic computer hardware and software to facilitate the solution to an electronic transaction-related problem (MPEP § 2106.05(f)). Ans. 9; see 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 55 n.27, 30. Appellant contends that, like the claims at issue in McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games America Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2016), “the present improvement in the highly technical field of managing electronic transaction receipts certainly qualifies as an eligible improvement.” App. Br. 17. In McRO, our reviewing court determined, The prior art “animator would decide what the animated face should look like at key points in time between the start and end times, and then ‘draw’ the face at those times.” The computer here is employed to perform a distinct process to automate a task previously performed by humans. . . . It is the incorporation of the claimed rules, not the use of the computer, that “improved [the] existing technological process” by allowing the automation of further tasks. This is unlike Flook, Bilski, and Alice, where the claimed computer-automated process and the prior method were carried out in the same way. McRO, 837 F.3d at 1314–15 (citations omitted). As our reviewing court concluded in McRO, however, Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 14 the automation goes beyond merely “organizing [existing] information into a new form” or carrying out a fundamental economic practice. The claimed process uses a combined order of specific rules that renders information into a specific format that is then used and applied to create desired results . . . . While the result may not be tangible, there is nothing that requires a method “be tied to a machine or transform an article” to be patentable. McRO, 837 F.3d at 1315 (citations omitted). That is not the case here. Ans. 7. The claims recite automation that does not go beyond merely receiving and storing information in a conventional database and retrieving and transmitting the stored information pursuant to a request. See App. Br. 7. Consequently, we are persuaded that the instant claims are not directed to improvements in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field. See App. Br. 8–14. In view of Appellant’s claim recitations and Specification and consistent with the Examiner’s determinations, we are persuaded the rejected claims do not recite: (i) an improvement to the functioning of a computer; (ii) an improvement to another technology or technical field; (iii) an application of the abstract idea with, or by use of, a particular machine; (iv) a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; or (v) other meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment. See MPEP § 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h); see Final Act. 13, 18; Ans. 9. Thus, we conclude that the rejected claims do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application and that the claims are directed to an abstract idea. Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 15 c. Step 2B – Not Significantly More Than the Abstract Idea Because we find that the claims are recite an abstract idea and do not integrate that abstract idea into a practical application, we now consider whether the claims include additional limitations, such that the claims amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Applying second part of the Alice/Mayo test, the Examiner concludes: That is, the elements involved in the recited process undertake their roles in performance of their activities according to their generic functionalities which are well-understood, routine and conventional. The elements together execute in routinely and conventionally accepted coordinated manners and interact with their partner elements to achieve an overall outcome which, similarly, is merely the combined and coordinated execution of generic computer functionalities which are well-understood, routine and conventional activities previously known to the industry. Final Act. 5; see id. at 15; Ans. 5–6. We agree. Appellant contends that the Examiner fails to make necessary findings of fact to support the determination that the rejected claims are patent ineligible, citing Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (cert. petition pending). App. Br. 18–19. The Examiner finds, however, that the Specification describes the systems and components invoked by the rejected claims are well-known, routine, and conventional. Final Act. 5; Ans. 5. The Specification does not assert that any of the recited components, alone or in combination, are novel. On the contrary, the Specification makes clear that the components and techniques recited in the rejected claims are well-understood, routine, and conventional. See, e.g., Spec., 7:16–8:16, 10:26–11:2. Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 16 On this record, we agree with the Examiner that independent claim 18, as well as independent claim 6 (see Final Act. 5), is directed to an abstract idea and fails to recite significantly more than the identified abstract idea. Thus, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in determining that these claims are patent ineligible, and we sustain that rejection. 2. Dependent Claims 7–17 and 19–24 The Examiner determines that dependent claims 7–17 and 19–24 also are directed to an abstract idea and fails to recite significantly more than the identified abstract idea. Final Act. 6–12. Appellant contends that the dependent claims further differentiate over the identified abstract idea, but Appellants contentions amount to little more than unsupported and conclusory assertions, and are not sufficient to overcome the Examiner’s case for patent ineligibility. App. Br. 14–17; see Ans. 6–7. Therefore, we also sustain the patent ineligibility rejection of the dependent claims. DECISION 1. The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 6–24 under 35 U.S.C. § 101, as directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. 2. Thus, on this record, claims 6–24 are not patentable. Appeal 2018-008266 Application 14/072,200 17 CONCLUSION We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 6–24. Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. Basis Affirmed Reversed 6–24 § 101 Eligibility 6–24 No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation