eBay Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 15, 2021

2020006598 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 15, 2021)

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.
14/230,600 03/31/2014 Neelakantan Sundaresan 2043.G09US1 6731
49845 7590 04/15/2021
SCHWEGMAN LUNDBERG & WOESSNER/EBAY
P.O. BOX 2938
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402
EXAMINER
ANDERSON, SCOTT C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3694
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/15/2021 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):
SLW@blackhillsip.com
USPTO@SLWIP.COM
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte NEELAKANTAN SUNDARESAN
__________________

Appeal 2020-006598
Application 14/230,600
Technology Center 3600
____________________

Before MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, JAMES P. CALVE, and
AMEE A. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judges.

CALVE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the decision
of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 4, 8, 11, 18, and 21–30, which are all the
pending claims.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant
identifies eBay Inc. as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 2.
2 Claims 2, 3, 5–7, 9, 10, 12–17, 19, and 20 are cancelled. Final Act. 2.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Claims 1, 8, and 21 are independent. Representative claim 1 recites:
1. A method for responding to a query in a database system,
the method comprising:
storing, in the database system using one or more
hardware processors, recurring purchasing data of a plurality of
users;
receiving a search query from a purchaser in a transaction
with an electronic interface;
identifying, in response to receiving the search query,
one or more items purchased at a predetermined interval by at
least one of the plurality of users by collaboratively filtering the
recurring purchasing data based on buying patterns of the
purchaser and the plurality of users;
receiving, from the purchaser, data indicative of a
selection of an item from the one or more items on the
electronic interface;
determining, based on collaborative filtering, a suggested
subscription delivery interval for the item that has been
selected;
in response to receiving the data indicative of the
selection of the item, generating for display to the purchaser,
prior to the purchaser completing the transaction at the
electronic interface, an option to electronically purchase the
item repeatedly at the determined suggested subscription
delivery interval;
receiving data indicative of a selection, from the
purchaser, of the option to purchase the item repeatedly at the
determined suggested subscription delivery interval; and
updating a record associated with the item in the database
system based on the selection of the option and according to the
detem1ined suggested subscription delivery interval.

REJECTION
Claims 1, 4, 8, 11, 18, and 21–30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101
as directed to a judicial exception without significantly more.
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ANALYSIS
Appellant argues the claims as a group. Appeal Br. 7–17. We select
claim 1 as the representative claim. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2019).
Regarding claim 1, the Examiner determines that the steps of storing
purchasing data, receiving a search request, identifying items purchased at a
predetermined interval, determining a suggested delivery interval, showing
the interval to a purchaser, receiving a purchaser selection, and tracking the
selection recite certain methods of organizing human activity of advertising,
marketing, and sales activities or behaviors under the Revised Guidance.
Final Act. 2–3; Ans. 3.
The Examiner determines the judicial exception is not integrated into
a practical application because reciting a generic computer and claiming
collaborative filtering amount to mere instructions to perform the abstract
idea on a computer without improving computer functions or technology or
applying the abstract idea on a particular machine. Final Act. 3. Also, the
Examiner determines that the claims manipulate information but do not
transform or reduce a particular article to a different state or thing or apply
the abstract idea in some meaningful way beyond generally linking it to a
particular technological environment and using a generic computer to
perform a series of abstract steps. Id.
The Examiner also determines that the claims lack additional elements
that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception
because the claimed processor, database, and user interface are recited at a
high level of generality as performing generic computer functions of sharing
and manipulating information with persons and/or other devices using well-
understood, routine, and conventional components. Id. at 3–4.
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Principles of Law
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful
process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or
any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent
therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
35 U.S.C. § 101. Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are
not patentable. See Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 216 (2014).
To distinguish patents that claim laws of nature, natural phenomena,
and abstract ideas from those that claim patent-eligible applications, we first
determine whether the claims are directed to a patent-ineligible concept. Id.
at 217. If they are, we consider the claim elements, individually and as an
ordered combination, to determine if any additional elements provide an
inventive concept sufficient to ensure that the claims in practice amount to
significantly more than a patent on the ineligible concept. Id. at 217–18.
The USPTO has issued guidance about this framework. 2019 Revised
Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019)
(“Revised Guidance”). To determine if a claim is “directed to” an abstract
idea, we evaluate whether the claim recites: (1) any judicial exceptions,
including certain groupings of abstract ideas listed in the Revised Guidance
(i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human activities
such as a fundamental economic practice, or mental processes); and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical
application.3 Id. at 52–55.

3 “A claim that integrates a judicial exception into a practical application
will 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.
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If a claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not integrate
that exception into a practical application, we consider whether the claim
(3) amounts to an inventive concept such as by adding a limitation beyond a
judicial exception that is not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in the
field or (4) appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities
previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to
the judicial exception. Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 56.
Alice, Step One
Revised Guidance Step 2A, Prong One:
Does Claim 1 Recite a Judicial Exception?
We agree with the Examiner that claim 1 recites certain methods of
organizing human activity for commercial interactions such as advertising,
marketing, or sales activities and behaviors. Final Act. 2–3; Ans. 3–4.
Claim 1 also recites a fundamental economic practice of delivering targeted
advertising, marketing, or sales content to users based on information known
about a user and other data. See Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52.
The application is titled “RECURRING COMMERCE.” The method
stores recurring purchasing data of users and collaboratively filters the data
to identify items that were purchased repeatedly. When a purchaser selects
such an item for purchase, the method offers the purchaser the option to buy
the item on a repeated subscription basis at a suggested interval. Spec. ¶¶ 1,
10, 19–27, 45, Fig. 3. The method allows sellers to target subscription offers
to consumers to purchase items on a recurring basis at a suggested delivery
interval as indicated by filtering past recurring purchasing data to identify
such products and the intervals at which such products were purchased by
others in the past. Id. ¶¶ 10, 27, 45.
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Providing customized information, such as customized web content,
based on information known about a person, such as a profile or personal
characteristics, is a fundamental practice long prevalent in our commerce
system. Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d
1363, 1369–70 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (“Capital One Bank”). Tailored content
includes targeted adverting and marketing based on a person’s demographic
information. Affinity Labs of Tex., LLC v. Amazon.com Inc., 838 F.3d 1266,
1271 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (delivering targeted advertising to a user using a
customized user interface based on demographic information provided by a
user is similar to other fundamental economic concepts that are abstract
ideas) (“Amazon.com”); see Bridge & Post, Inc. v. Verizon Commc’ns, Inc.,
778 F. App’x 882, 887–88 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (providing tailored information
to a user based on information known about the user and other data is an
abstract idea, and such targeted marketing and market segmentation methods
are fundamental practices); In re Morsa, 809 F. App’x 913, 917 (Fed. Cir.
2020) (“Here, the claim recites both targeted advertising and bidding to
display the advertising, which are both abstract ideas relating to customizing
information based on the user and matching them to the advertiser.”).
The steps of storing recurring purchasing data of users and receiving a
search query from a purchaser recite extra-solution data gathering steps used
in the fundamental practice. See Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 55 n.31.
The steps of identifying items purchased at predetermined intervals
from plural users by collaboratively filtering recurring purchase data based
on buying patterns of a purchaser and other users and determining suggested
subscription delivery intervals recite the abstract idea identified above and
organize (filter) this activity data for use in targeted marketing/advertising.
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Locating information in a database using an index of tags or content
filtering to retrieve the content from an Internet computer network includes
longstanding conduct that existed well before computers and the Internet.
Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Erie Indem. Co., 850 F.3d 1315, 1327 (Fed.
Cir. 2017) (“Erie”); see BSG Tech LLC v. Buyseasons, Inc., 899 F.3d 1281,
1286 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (presenting historical database usage information
(summary comparison information) to users as they input data into a
database “amounts to having users consider previous item descriptions
before they describe items to achieve more consistent item descriptions”
which is “a fundamental, long-prevalent practice or a well-established
method of organizing activity [that] qualifies as an abstract idea.”).
Similarly, collaborative filtering is “a method of making automatic
predictions (filtering) about the interests of a user by collecting preferences
or taste information from many users (collaborating).” Spec. ¶ 24. It uses
data gleaned from many users to make predictions specific to a user. Id.
Here, claim 1 filters recurring purchasing data to identify items that
others have purchased on a recurring basis and uses that data to predict that a
purchaser of such item(s) may desire to purchase the item(s) on a recurring
basis at a subscription delivery interval filtered from the recurring purchase
data. Id. ¶¶ 19–27. The purchaser is targeted with the option to buy the item
on a recurring basis at a suggested interval filtered based on the recurring
purchasing data of others. The method thus targets marketing to a purchaser
based on information known about the purchaser (previous buying patterns
and items selected for purchase) and other data (recurring purchases of other
buyers). Id. Recited at this level of generality, without technical details, this
targeted marketing and advertising recites the abstract idea identified above.
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“[F]iltering content is an abstract idea because it is a longstanding,
well-known method of organizing human behavior, similar to concepts
previously found to be abstract.” BASCOM Global Internet Servs., Inc. v.
AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (filtering content
from an Internet computer network customized to a user is an abstract idea).
Suggesting a subscription delivery interval based on filtering the recurring
purchasing data of other users’ intervals (see Spec. ¶ 27) is abstract as well.
The Specification confirms that the method filters historical recurring
purchasing data to identify items purchased on a recurring basis so a current
purchaser of such items can be targeted with an option to buy the items via a
recurring subscription. Spec. ¶¶ 10, 19–22, 27, 45. A purchaser’s selection
of an item that others have bought repeatedly in the past determines whether
to offer a recurring subscription option to purchase that item. Id. ¶ 10.
Thus, we determine claim 1 recites the abstract idea identified above.
Revised Guidance Step 2A, Prong Two:
Integration into a Practical Application
We next consider whether claim 1 recites any additional elements that
integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Revised Guidance,
84 Fed. Reg. at 54. We determine that claim 1 lacks additional elements that
improve a computer or other technology or implement the abstract idea in
conjunction with a particular machine that is integral to the claim. Id. at 55.
Nor does it include additional elements that transform or reduce a particular
article to a different state or thing or apply the abstract idea in a meaningful
way beyond linking it to a particular technological environment. Id.
Appellant argues that the abstract idea is integrated into a practical
application because
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there is no prior art that teaches the specific claimed method or
system of prior to completing a transaction with an electronic
interface, displaying an option to electronically purchase an
item repeatedly at a suggested subscription delivery interval
determined based on collaborative filtering.
Appeal Br. 15. Appellant further argues that
the independent claims provide a solution that reduces burdens
placed on search engines that “neither capture user repetitive
intent, nor provide convenience or incentives to users making
repeat, i.e. recurring, purchases” and process orders as separate
transactions (see, paragraphs 2 and 10 of the Specification) by
offering a purchaser an option to electronically purchase an
item, being searched for, repeatedly at a suggested subscription
delivery interval based on collaborative filtering prior to the
purchaser completing a transaction with the electronic interface.
This further demonstrates that the claims recite a practical
application in that efficiencies of search engines are improved.
Id. at 16 (the claims allow a purchaser to purchase an item repeatedly
without performing multiple search queries to reduce the amount of system
resources consumed by multiple queries and improve system efficiency); see
Reply Br. 2 (e-commerce transactions require a user to repeatedly visit a
vendor to purchase goods taking time and resources, but repeated purchases
at suggested delivery intervals reduce such burdens on users and computers).
As claimed, the “electronic interface” receives a purchaser’s selection
of an item and displays an option to buy the item at a suggested delivery
interval. Appeal Br. 19 (Claims App.). No technical details are claimed.
The Specification describes the electronic interface as a generic component.
A purchaser places an item into an online shopping cart or online merchant
interface. Spec. ¶ 26. “Acceptance of the subscription offer may comprise
any modality of user interface selection.” Id. ¶ 27. Search results are given
in a search results page or using a similar user interface (“UI”). Id. ¶ 11.
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In Amazon.com, targeted marketing information was presented via a
“customized user interface.” Nonetheless, the court held, “neither the claim
nor the specification reveals any concrete way of employing a customized
user interface.” Amazon.com, 838 F.3d at 1271–72 (“The specification
simply states that a user interface can be customized ‘in a plurality of ways
by allowing users to select and receive ‘on-demand customized audio
information.’”); see Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d 1229, 1241 (Fed.
Cir. 2016) (“We affirm the Board’s conclusion that the claims in these
patents are directed to an abstract idea. The patents claim systems including
menus with particular features. They do not claim a particular way of
programming or designing the software to create menus that have these
features, but instead merely claim the resulting systems.”); Affinity Labs of
Texas, LLC v. DIRECTV, LLC, 838 F.3d 1253, 1263 (Fed. Cir. 2016)
(“DIRECTV”) (the advance was not a process of downloading an application
to present a graphical user interface on a cellular phone to list customized
content for streaming but only the content of a particular application, which
is a functionally described display of information in the abstract category).
The interface in BSG presented similar historical usage information to
guide users in inputting data into a database. BSG, 899 F.3d at 1286. The
court held that “the claim’s ‘focus’ is guiding database users by presenting
summary comparison information to users before they input data. . . . This
is not a method ‘necessarily rooted in computer technology in order to
overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm of’ wide access
databases.” Id. (quoting DDR, 773 F.3d at 1257). Here, claim 1 similarly
filters past recurring purchase data to identify items purchased repeatedly
and then targets recurring subscriptions to purchasers who buy such items.
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Similarly, in Capital One Bank, an “interactive interface” dynamically
presented customized web pages and advertisements to viewers based on
information known about the users and their category. Intellectual Ventures,
792 F.3d at 1370. The interactive interface was a generic component used to
provide tailored information based on a user profile. It “simply describe[d] a
generic web server with attendant software, tasked with providing web pages
to and communicating with the user’s computer.” Id. “Requiring the use of
a ‘software’ ‘brain’ ‘tasked with tailoring information and providing it to the
user’ provides no additional limitation beyond applying an abstract idea,
restricted to the Internet, on a generic computer.” Id. at 1371. Here, the
“electronic interface” is used as a mere tool to implement the abstract idea.
It receives a purchaser’s selection of an item and offers a subscription option
to buy the item. It receives user input and presents targeted marketing. See
Amazon.com, 838 F.3d at 1271 (a customized user interface used to deliver
targeted advertising was not limited to a particular form of customization but
covered the general idea of customizing a user interface without a concrete
embodiment or any technical improvement).
Receiving a purchaser’s selection and updating a record based on the
selection of an option to purchase an item repeatedly (Appeal Br. 19 (Claims
App.)) recite extra-solution activity and basic recordkeeping. See Alice, 573
U.S. at 225 (using a computer to create and maintain accounts is a form of
electronic recordkeeping, and it is a basic function of a computer as are the
steps of obtaining data, adjusting account balances, and issuing automated
instructions); Elec. Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1354
(Fed. Cir. 2016) (presenting the results of abstract collection and analysis of
information is abstract as an ancillary part of the collection and analysis).
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DDR Holdings illustrates why claim 1 here is not patent eligible. See
Appeal Br. 13–14; Ans. 4. In DDR Holdings, the court emphasized that:
these claims stand apart because they do not merely recite the
performance of some business practice known from the pre-
Internet world along with the requirement to perform it on the
Internet. Instead, the claimed solution is necessarily rooted in
computer technology in order to overcome a problem
specifically arising in the realm of computer networks.
DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1257 (Fed. Cir.
2014). DDR claimed a new web server configuration. If a website visitor
clicked on an advertisement for a third party’s product on a host’s website,
the visitor was directed to a hybrid web page that combined the look and feel
elements of the host website with the product information of the third party
merchant’s website on an outsource provider’s web server. Id.
Here, claim 1 recites a generic database, hardware processors, and an
electronic interface that perform generic functions of receiving, filtering, and
presenting data without any technical improvements. See Alice, 573 U.S. at
223 (“[M]ere recitation of a generic computer cannot transform a patent-
eligible abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.”); Bozeman Fin. LLC
v. Fed. Reserve Bank of Atl., 955 F.3d 971, 979 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (“[T]he use
of well-known computer components to collect, analyze, and present data, in
this case to verify financial transactions, does not render these claims any
less abstract.”); DDR, 773 F.3d at 1256 (“And after Alice, there can remain
no doubt: recitation of generic computer limitations does not make an
otherwise ineligible claim patent-eligible. . . . The bare fact that a computer
exists in the physical rather than purely conceptual realm ‘is beside the
point.’” (citations omitted)); Appeal Br. 13 (arguing the claims are machine-
implemented with a database, hardware processors, and electronic interface).
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Any convenience to a purchaser or reduced burden on search engines
results from the generic computer implementation. Appeal Br. 14. Merely
implementing a fundamental practice on generic computers to perform tasks
more quickly or accurately is not enough to make a claim non-abstract. See
OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1362–63 (Fed. Cir.
2015) (generating a product pricing model based on survey data of prices
and statistical analysis of the survey data to determine an estimated outcome
was similar to other fundamental economic practices using generic computer
activities). In OIP, the method tested prices for a product by sending offers
to potential customers at different prices and offer terms, gathering statistics
generated during testing of how potential customers responded to different
offers, using a computerized system to determine, based on the generated
statistics, an estimated outcome of using each price, selecting a price to sell a
product based on the estimated outcome, and sending offers at the selected
price to customers. Id. at 1361. Such computer automation to perform tasks
more quickly or accurately did not make the claims eligible. Id. at 1363.
Here, the Specification confirms that the database system, hardware
processors, and electronic interface are generic components that perform
generic functions. Application server 218 is coupled to a database server
224 that can access a database 226. Spec. ¶ 14. The processor is a central
processing unit, graphics processing unit, digital signal processor, or similar
component(s) that includes microcircuits configurable to execute software
modules and perform a recurring purchase method. Id. ¶ 30. The interface
is a user interface or online purchase interface that uses any modality of user
interface selection. Id. ¶¶ 11, 26, 27.
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Essentially, the database system, hardware processors, and electronic
interface perform functions that a seller otherwise would perform when a
purchaser selects an item for purchase that others buy on a recurring basis.
The electronic interface serves as an intermediary to the transaction between
the purchaser and seller to provide targeted marketing. As such:
The claims apply the abstract idea on a computer by replacing
the human intermediary with a GUI and API, but as the Board
concluded, representative claim 1 “merely recites generic and
conventional computer components (i.e., ‘processor,’ ‘GUI,’
and ‘API’) and functionality for carrying out” the abstract idea.
. . . And the “communication of information by GUIs and
APIs” was “well-known in the prior art.”
cxLoyalty, Inc. v. Maritz Holdings Inc., 986 F.3d 1367, 1377 (Fed. Cir.
2021) (citation omitted). In cxLoyalty, the system facilitated a transaction
between a purchaser using rewards points and a seller accepting currency by
using a GUI and API as an intermediary to collect and relay information. Id.
Here, the electronic interface serves as an intermediary between a seller and
purchaser. It displays targeted subscription options and suggested delivery
intervals to a purchaser who selects items identified as recurring purchase
items using the interface, and it receives a purchaser’s selection of an option.
Optimizing subscription sales via targeted marketing is a fundamental,
long prevalent practice. See OIP, 788 F.3d at 1363; RecogniCorp, LLC v.
Nintendo Co., 855 F.3d 1322, 1327 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (“Adding one abstract
idea (math) to another abstract idea (encoding and decoding) does not render
the claim non-abstract.”); Apple, 842 F.3d at 1240 (“An abstract idea can
generally be described at different levels of abstraction.”); Synopsys, Inc. v.
Mentor Graphics Corp., 839 F.3d 1138, 1151 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“[A] claim
for a new abstract idea is still an abstract idea.”).
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That a subscription automates what a purchaser otherwise would do
manually using individual searches is not sufficient. See Cellspin Soft, Inc.
v. Fitbit, Inc., 927 F.3d 1306, 1316 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (“[T]he need to perform
tasks automatically is not a unique technical problem.”); Credit Acceptance
Corp. v. Westlake Servs., 859 F.3d 1044, 1055 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (automation
of manual processes on generic computers is not a patentable improvement
to computer technology); OIP, 788 F.3d at 1363 (“At best, the claims
describe the automation of the fundamental economic concept of offer-based
price optimization through the use of generic computer functions.”);
Bancorp Servs., L.L.C. v. Sun Life Assur. Co. of Can. (U.S.), 687 F.3d 1266,
1278 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (to salvage a patent-ineligible process, a computer
must be integral to the claim in a way that a person making calculations and
computations could not do). A person can offer and receive subscriptions.
Accordingly, we determine that claim 1 does not recite any additional
elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Alice, Step Two and Revised Guidance Step 2B:
Do the Claims Include an Inventive Concept?
We next consider whether claim 1 recites any additional elements,
individually or as an ordered combination, to provide an inventive concept.
Alice, 573 U.S. at 217–18. This step is satisfied when the claim limitations
involve more than well-understood, routine, and conventional activities
known in the industry. See Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881 F.3d 1360, 1367
(Fed. Cir. 2018); Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 56 (the second step of
the Alice analysis considers if a claim adds a specific limitation beyond the
recited judicial exception that also is not “well-understood, routine,
conventional” activity in the field).
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Individually, the “database system,” “hardware processors,” and
“electronic interface” are generic computer components recited at a high
level of generality to perform well-understood, routine, and conventional
activities of receiving, analyzing (filtering), and transmitting data.
The recurring commerce process is performed on a database 226 and
database servers 224 described generically. Spec. ¶ 18, Figs. 1, 2. Database
servers 224 facilitate access to one or more databases 226, or the application
server 218 may access databases 226 directly without using database server
224. Id. ¶ 14. A processor or a group of processors may be configured by a
software application as a hardware module that operates to perform certain
operations. Id. ¶ 36. Machine-readable media store instructions 424 that are
executed by one or more processors of machine 400 (e.g., processor 402) to
cause the machine 400 to perform any of the methodologies described in the
Specification. Id. ¶ 34. As discussed under Prong Two above, the electronic
interface is described generically as performing generic functions.
“Nothing in the claims, understood in light of the specification,
requires anything other than off-the-shelf, conventional computer, network,
and display technology for gathering, sending, and presenting the desired
information.” Elec. Power, 830 F.3d at 1355 (“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.”).
Nor can an inventive concept comprise features of the abstract idea as
Appellant contends. See Appeal Br. 17; BSG, 899 F.3d at 1290 (“a claimed
invention’s use of the ineligible concept to which it is directed cannot supply
the inventive concept” that renders it significantly more than the concept).
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As an ordered combination, claim 1 recites no more than what the
limitations recite individually. BSG, 899 F.3d at 1290–91 (“If a claim’s only
‘inventive concept’ is the application of an abstract idea using conventional
and well-understood techniques, the claim has not been transformed into a
patent-eligible application of an abstract idea.”); SAP Am., Inc. v. InvestPic,
LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1170 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (“[T]his court has ruled many
times 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.’”) (citation omitted); DIRECTV, 838 F.3d
at 1263 (absent further specification of a particular technology for displaying
a defined content, a user-downloadable application that presents a GUI is not
an inventive concept).
Accordingly, we determine that claim 1 lacks an inventive concept to
transform the abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter. Claims 4, 8,
11, 18, and 21–30 fall with claim 1.
CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/
Basis
Affirmed Reversed
1, 4, 8, 11, 18,
21–30
101 Eligibility 1, 4, 8, 11,
18, 21–30

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).
AFFIRMED