Elemica, Inc.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardNov 30, 20202020003325 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 30, 2020) 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. 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. Appeal 2020-003325 Application 13/676,661 2 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 Appeal 2020-003325 Application 13/676,661 3 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. Appeal 2020-003325 Application 13/676,661 4 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. Appeal 2020-003325 Application 13/676,661 5 (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. Appeal 2020-003325 Application 13/676,661 6 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 Appeal 2020-003325 Application 13/676,661 7 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. Appeal 2020-003325 Application 13/676,661 8 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, Appeal 2020-003325 Application 13/676,661 9 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 Appeal 2020-003325 Application 13/676,661 10 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 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation