Elemica, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Nov 30, 2020

2020003325 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 30, 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.
13/676,661 11/14/2012 Blake SCHNORF 688196-44U1 5846
570 7590 11/30/2020
PANITCH SCHWARZE BELISARIO & NADEL LLP
TWO COMMERCE SQUARE
2001 MARKET STREET, SUITE 2800
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19103
EXAMINER
VETTER, DANIEL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3628
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/30/2020 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):
usptomail@panitchlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
_____________

Ex parte BLAKE SCHNORF, ARMAND CASTRO, NEIL SHANNON,
and MICHAEL SENGBUSCH1
_____________

Appeal 2020-003325
Application 13/676,661
Technology Center 3600
______________

Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, ERIC S. FRAHM, and MICHAEL T. CYGAN,
Administrative Patent Judges.

NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the final
rejection of claims 1 through 16. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
INVENTION
The invention is directed to a system for managing logistics sourcing
decisions including shipping rates. Abstract. Claim 1 is illustrative of the
invention and is reproduced below:
1. A method of managing logistics sourcing decisions
including shipping rates in a logistics management network

1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Elemica, Inc. Appeal
Br. 1.
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having a consignee, a shipper and a plurality of carriers for
shipping freight from the shipper to the consignee, the method
comprising:
a) transmitting, by a central server, a shipping bid to the
plurality of carriers, the shipping bid comprising a request to
submit at least carrier shipping rates and carrier shipping
capacities, including shipping lanes for each of the plurality of
carriers;
b) receiving, at the central server, a plurality of bid
responses from the plurality of carriers in response to the
shipping bid, the plurality of bid responses including carrier
information comprising at least a first bid having a first
shipping rate, a first shipping capacity, first shipping lanes and
a first expiration date from a first carrier and a second bid
having a second shipping rate, a second shipping capacity,
second shipping lanes and a second expiration date from a
second carrier;
c) receiving, at the central server, a shipping constraint
from the shipper including at least an origin, a destination, a
description of goods and a business constraint from the shipper
including a favor constraint to favor the first carrier over the
second carrier of the plurality of carriers by weighting the first
shipping rate of the first carrier relative to the second shipping
rate of the second carrier;
d) determining, by the central server, whether the
plurality of bid responses meet the shipping constraint to
identify a plurality of accepted bids of the plurality of bid
responses, the central server determining the plurality of
accepted bids utilizing an optimizer, the optimizer determining
a lowest integer solution to identify the plurality of accepted
bids, the optimizer determining the lowest integer solution to
award a full load to the first carrier for the goods and associated
with the first shipping lanes;
e) storing, at the central server, the plurality of accepted
bids from step ( d) as a plurality of stored accepted bids;
f) receiving, by the central server, a selected bid of the
plurality of accepted bids of step-( e );
g) determining, by the central server, a booking request
by mining the accepted bids, the determining including
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identifying the first carrier associated with the selected bid and
considering the favor constraint;
h) transmitting, by the central server, the booking request
to the first carrier of the plurality of carriers;
i) receiving, at the central server, tracking information
related to the freight being shipped by the first carrier on at least
one of the first shipping lanes to the consignee including a ship
date when the freight is received by the first carrier and a
receipt date when the freight is delivered to the consignee; and
j) displaying, on a graphical user interface, the tracking
information related to the freight being shipped by the first
carrier on at least one of the first shipping lanes to the
consignee including a ship date when the freight is received by
the first carrier and a receipt date when the freight is delivered
to the consignee.
REJECTION AT ISSUE
The Examiner rejected claims 1 through 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for
being directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. Final Act. 3–8.2
PRINCIPLES OF LAW
In January 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
published revised guidance on the application of § 101.3 We note the

2 Throughout this Opinion, we refer to the Appeal Brief, filed November 1,
2019 (“Appeal Br.”), the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”), filed March 24, 2020,
the Examiner’s Answer, mailed January 31, 2020 (“Ans.”), and the Final
Office Action, mailed June 11, 2020 (“Final Act.”).
3 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50
(Jan. 7, 2019) (“2019 Revised Guidance”). In response to received public
comments, the Office issued further guidance on October 17, 2019,
clarifying the 2019 Revised Guidance. USPTO, October 2019 Update:
Subject Matter Eligibility (the “October 2019 Update”). “All USPTO
personnel are, as a matter of internal agency management, expected to
follow the guidance.” 84 Fed. Reg. at 51; see also October 2019 Update at
1.
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USPTO current eligibility guidance is found in the Ninth Edition, Revision
10.2019 (revised June 2020) of the Manual of Patent Examination Procedure
(MPEP), and particularly within Sections 2103 through 2106.07(c).
“Because the MPEP now incorporates the 2019 Revised Patent Subject
Matter Eligibility Guidance (2019 PEG), October 2019 Patent Eligibility
Guidance Update (October 2019 Update), and the Berkheimer Memo,4 all
references to those materials should now be directed to the MPEP.” See
https://www.uspto.gov/patent/laws-and-regulations/examination-
policy/subject-matter-eligibility (emphasis added).
We note that all references to the MPEP throughout this Decision are
to the Ninth Edition, Revision 10.2019 (Last Revised June 2020), unless
otherwise indicated.
Under MPEP § 2106, we first look to whether the claim recites:
(1) any judicial exceptions, including certain groupings of abstract
ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing
human activity such as a fundamental economic practice, or
mental processes) (“Step 2A, Prong One”); and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a
practical application (“Step 2A, Prong Two”).5
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:

4 Referring to Berkheimer v. HP, Inc., 881 F.3d. 1360, 1369 (Fed. Cir.
2018).

5 “Examiners evaluate integration into a practical application by (1)
identifying whether there are any additional elements recited in the claim
beyond the judicial exception(s); and (2) evaluating those additional
elements individually and in combination to determine whether [the claim as
a whole] integrate[s] the exception into a practical application.”
MPEP § 2106.04(d)II.
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(3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that are 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 MPEP § 2106.05(d)).
ANALYSIS
Initially, we note that this is the second appeal in this application
which involves a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101. In that prior decision, Ex
parte Schnorf we applied the 2019 guidelines and determined the claims
recite an abstract idea, do not recite additional elements that integrate the
judicial exception into a practical application, and does not include a specific
limitation beyond the judicial exception that are not “well-understood,
routine, conventional.” Ex parte Schnorf, Appeal 2018–002746 at 15
(PTAB April 5, 2019). We reconfirm those determinations for the instant
claims under current guidance, for the reasons expressed in the prior
decision. The representative claim at issue in Ex parte Schnorf, claim 1, has
been amended to include limitation j) and is otherwise the same as
representative claim 1 currently on appeal. Appeal Br. 3–4, Ans. 3.
Limitation j) of claim 1 recites:
j) displaying, on a graphical user interface, the tracking
information related to the freight being shipped by the first
carrier on at least one of the first shipping lanes to the
consignee including a ship date when the freight is received by
the first carrier and a receipt date when the freight is delivered
to the consignee.
Claim 1, Appeal Br. Claim App.
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Appellant argues that the Examiner’s rejection of representative claim
1 because error as the claim is patent eligible as it recites displaying a
limited set of information to the user rather than using conventional user
interface methods. Appeal Br. 4 (citing Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. v.
LG Electronics Inc., 880 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2018)). Appellant asserts that:
Even accepting for the sake of argument the Examiner's
position that the portions of the claims related to “optimizing
logistics sourcing transactions decisions” are ineligibly abstract,
the remaining portions of claims 1 and 12 disclose a specific
manner of displaying a limited set of information to the user -
namely, displaying the tracking information related to the
freight being shipped by the first carrier to the consignee,
including specific details of the shipment. The tracking
information and specific details of the shipment that are
displayed are developed through the additional nine method
steps of independent claims 1 and 12, including transmitting
shipping bids, receiving bid responses, receiving shipping
constraints, determining whether the bids meet the constraints,
storing accepted bids, receiving selected bids, determining a
booking request, transmitting the booking request and receiving
tracking information related to the freight being shipped. This is
more than displaying a generic index on a computer and more
than the generic idea of summarizing information.
Appeal Br. 4.
The Examiner responds to Appellant’s arguments identifying that the
amended limitation j) just recites a generic Graphical User Interface (GUI)
and merely “refines the commercial interaction between parties and the
already-present general link to a technological environment.” Ans. 3 (citing
Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), Mayo Collaborative
Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012), and Apple, Inc. v.
Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d 1229 (Fed. Cir. 2016); Intellectual Ventures ILLC
v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, (Fed. Cir. 2015); Mortgage
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Grader. Inc. v. First Choice Loan Servs., 811 F.3d. 1314, 1324, (Fed, Cir.
2015)). The Examiner identifies that merely displaying results of data
analysis is part of an abstract idea. Id at. 3 (citing Elec. Power Grp., LLC v.
Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2016)). Further, the Examiner states
that the claims are different from those at issue in Core Wireless, which
recite functional aspects that improved the use and navigation of a menu in
small screen devices. Id. at 4 (citing Core Wireless).
Appellant’s arguments have not persuaded us of error in the
Examiner’s rejection. As discussed above the only difference between the
representative claim 1 which we analyzed in Ex parte Schnorf and the
representative claim 1 on appeal is limitation (j) which recites displaying
information on a GUI. As Appellant’s arguments in the briefs are directed
to limitation (j), we build on the analysis in Ex parte Schnorf and do not
repeat the analysis as of the other elements of representative claim 1
addressed in Ex parte Schnorf. We concur with the Examiner that the step
of displaying data, that has been gathered and analyzed can be considered as
a mental process. See Elec. Power Grp., 830 F.3d at 1351–52 (where
several steps of receiving data from various sources, detecting and analyzing
the data, and displaying the data were considered an abstract idea).
Similarly in Trading Technologies International, Inc. v. IBG LLC, our
reviewing court found that the claims were directed to calculating and
displaying information such as profit and loss data as “is nothing more than
‘mere automation of manual processes using generic computers,’” Trading
Techs. Int’l v. IBG LLC, 921 F.3d 1378, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (quoting
Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Servs., 859 F.3d 1044, 1055 (Fed. Cir.
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2017)). Thus, we consider the limitation of displaying the information is
reciting a step of the abstract idea.
We do not consider that the use of a GUI to display this information,
be directed to a practical application of the abstract idea. Appellant’s
arguments in the Briefs which rely upon Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. v.
LG Electronics, Inc, have not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s
rejection. Appeal Br. 4, Reply Br. 2. In Core Wireless the court held that
claims which recited an interface were patent eligible as the claims recited
specific limitations of the interface such as: an application summary that
can be reached through a menu, the data being in a list and being selectable
to launch an application, and additional limitations directed to the actual user
interface displayed and how it functions. Core Wireless, 880 F.3d at 1363.
The court found that the claims were directed to an improved user interface
and not the abstract concept of an index as the claim “limitations disclose a
specific manner of displaying a limited set of information to the user, rather
than using conventional user interface methods to display a generic index on
a computer.” Id. See also Trading Techs. Int’l Inc. v. CQG, Inc., 675 F.
App’x 1001 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (non-precedential) (holding that a user
interface with a prescribed functionality directly related the interface’s
structure that is addressed to and resolves a problem in the art is patent
eligible).
Here the claim does not recite any specific manner of displaying the
data or functionality of the interface, rather the claim just recites displaying
information on a GUI. Neither Appellant’s claims nor Specification, recite
any prescribed functionally of the GUI other than to display information.
See for example (Specification ¶ 52 “GUI is not limited to the functionality,
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appearance or type and variety of information included and may be
modifiable and have an appearance different than that shown in Figs. 3 and
4.”). Rather, the claim recites that certain information is displayed in the
GUI which we do not consider to be a practical application of the abstract
idea as “merely selecting information, by content or source, for collection,
analysis, and display” has been found not to provide significantly more for
purposes of finding patent eligibility. Electric Power Group, 830 F.3d at
1355. Thus, we do not consider the claims to recite a practical application of
the abstract idea.
Further, Appellant’s argument that the Examiner has failed to
demonstrate that a GUI is well-understood, routine, and conventional, has
not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection. Reply Br. 3 (citing
Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881 F.3d 1360, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
As discussed in Ex parte Schnorf, limitations (a) through (g) of
representative claim 1 recite limitations directed to an abstract idea of a
certain method of organizing human activity and is not directed to
significantly more than the abstract idea. Representative claim 1 currently
on appeal also includes a limitation of displaying, on a GUI, information
related to the shipping of freight. The Examiner’s determination that the use
of a GUI is conventional is consistent with USPTO Guidance in the MPEP,
which permits showing an element to be well-understood, routine,
conventional through a citation to a court decision. See MPEP
§ 2106.05(d)(II). Our reviewing court has often considered a user interface
to be a generic computer element. See Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital
One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (discussing the
claimed interactive interface as a generic computer element) and
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FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Systems, Inc., 839 F.3d 1089, 1096 (Fed. Cir.
2016) (“As we have explained, the use of generic computer elements like a
microprocessor or user interface do not alone transform an otherwise
abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter.” Citing DDR Holdings,
LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 774 F.3d 1245, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2014)). Further,
Appellant’s Specification does not identify any particular functionality of the
GUI other than the display of information. Thus, Appellant’s Specification
does not demonstrate that the use of a GUI is for anything other than its
conventional use of displaying information. As such, we do not find that the
Examiner erred in finding the claimed use of a GUI is anything other than a
conventional use of displaying data and Appellant’s arguments have not
persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1 through 16 is
affirmed.
In summary:
Claim
Rejected
35
U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–16 101 Eligibility 1–16
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). See 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(f).
AFFIRMED