Ex Parte Loveland

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 27, 2018

13395658 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 27, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/395,658 03/13/2012
138325 7590 07/31/2018
PHILIPS LIGHTING HOLDING B.V.
465 Columbus A venue
Suite 330
Valhalla, NY 10595
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Damien Loveland
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
2009P01293WOUS 8703
EXAMINER
HAQ,NAEEMU
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3625
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/31/2018 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):
kim. larocca@signify.com
jo.cangelosi@signify.com
Gigi.Miller© signify. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DAMIEN LOVELAND
Appeal2017-004587
Application 13/395,658
Technology Center 3600
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and
ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1, 3-16, and 23, which constitute are all the claims
pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellant identifies Koninklijke Philips Electronics N. V. as the real party
in interest (App. Br. 3).
Appeal2017-004587
Application 13/395,658
THE INVENTION
Appellant's claimed invention is directed to "creating a marketplace
of lighting atmosphere settings related to at least one controllable lighting
network" (Abstract).
Independent claims 1 and 12, reproduced below, are representative of
the subject matter on appeal:
1. A system for creating a marketplace of lighting
atmosphere settings related to at least one controllable
lighting network, the system comprising:
at least one processor configured to execute an
awareness module and an executive module,
wherein the awareness module detects a user
identifier and a user input associated with a set of lighting
atmosphere settings, and detects at least one
environmental condition at a venue in which a lighting
system implementing said lighting atmosphere settings is
disposed, said condition being independent of said lighting
system; and
wherein the executive module transmits the
user identifier and the user input from the awareness
module to a schematizer;
the schematizer configured to upload the set of
lighting atmosphere settings, a setting identifier associated
with the set of lighting atmosphere settings, and said
environmental condition to the marketplace; and
the marketplace configured to store the setting
identifier and to enable retrieval of the set of lighting
atmosphere settings on the basis of said environmental
condition in exchange for a payment.
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Application 13/395,658
12. A method for modifying lighting atmosphere
settings in a controllable lighting network comprising at
least one memory for storing data and instructions, a user
interface, a lighting source, and at least one processor
configured to access the at least one memory and to
execute a plurality of software modules, comprising an
awareness module and an executive module, to perform
computer-implemented steps comprising:
detecting, by the awareness module, a vote from a
user, the vote associated with a first set of lighting
atmosphere settings of a first venue;
receiving from the user, by the awareness module,
an input associated with a second set of lighting
atmosphere settings of a second venue having a value;
retrieving, by the schematizer, a setting identifier
associated with the second set of lighting atmosphere
settings from a preference database based on said vote;
transferring, by a marketplace, a payment of the
value from the first venue to the second venue;
retrieving, by the schematizer, the second set of
lighting atmosphere settings using the setting identifier
from the marketplace; and
modifying, by the executive module, the first set of
lighting atmosphere settings based on the second set of
lighting atmosphere settings.
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Appeal2017-004587
Application 13/395,658
REJECTION
The Examiner made the following rejection:
Claims 1, 3-16, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being
directed to non-statutory subject matter. Final Act. 2.
ISSUE
The pivotal issue is whether the Examiner erred in finding claims 1,
3-16, and 23 are directed to non-statutory subject matter.
ANALYSIS
Regarding claim 1, Appellant argues the Examiner erred because "the
detection of environmental conditions together with retrieving and selling
the lighting settings in an electronic marketplace based on the detected
conditions is unconventional" (Reply Br. 4--5 ( emphasis in original), citing
Bascom Global Internet Services, Inc. v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d
1341 (Fed. Cir. 2016); see also App. Br. 9-11, citing DDR Holdings, LLC v.
Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245 (Fed. Cir. 2014)). Appellant similarly
argues with respect to claim 12 that "in the context of lighting settings,
retrieving an identifier of lighting settings on the basis of a user's vote
associated with lighting settings is an unconventional technical feature that
renders the claims patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. 101" (Reply Br. 5).
We are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments. According
to Alice step one, "[ w ]e must first determine whether the claims at issue are
directed to a patent-ineligible concept," such as an abstract idea. Alice Corp.
Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bankint'l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2355 (2014). Fundamental
economic and business practices are often held to be abstract. See,
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Application 13/395,658
e.g., Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2356 (holding the concept of intennediated
settlement is an abstract idea directed to a "fundamental economic
practice long prevalent in our system of commerce") ( citation omitted); see
also buySAFE Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1353-54 (Fed. Cir.
2014) (citing cases where contractual relations at issue constituted
fundamental economic practices, and noting that forming or manipulating
economic relations may involve an abstract idea); Content Extraction &
Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, Nat 'l Ass 'n, 776 F.3d 1343, 1347
(Fed. Cir. 2014) (explaining that claims directed to "the mere formation and
manipulation of economic relations" and "the performance of certain
financial transactions" have been held to involve abstract ideas).
The Examiner finds that claim 1 is "directed to making a payment for
a product, which is an abstract idea because it is similar to the fundamental
economic practice at issue in Bilski [Bilski v. Kappas, 561 U.S. 593 (2010)]
and Alice Corp." (Final Act. 2), and claim 12 is "directed to receiving a vote
from a user, which is an abstract idea because voting is a method of
organizing a human activity" and is "also directed to transferring a payment
from a first venue to a second venue which is abstract idea" (Final Act. 2-3).
We find that both claim 1 and claim 12 are directed to abstract ideas,
as both claims are directed to the fundamental business practice of creating a
marketplace in which payments are exchanged, indistinguishable from the
methods found abstract by our reviewing court and described above. We
further note that Appellant does not address and challenge the Examiner's
findings regarding Alice step one.
According to Alice step two, the Examiner also finds, and we agree,
claim 1 does not include limitations that are "significantly more" than the
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abstract idea because the "limitations of detecting an environmental
condition and retrieving a lighting setting on the basis of the condition" is "a
step of receiving data and retrieving data, which is routine and conventional"
(Final Act. 3; see also Ans. 3, citing Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584 (1978)).
Similarly the Examiner finds, and we agree, the voting steps in claim 12
amount to "an input by a user" (Ans. 4, citing Spec. ,r,r 46, 67) and further
that "[ r ]etrieving a product on the basis of a user input is routine and
conventional" (Ans. 4).
We are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments. Unlike the claims in
DDR Holdings, in which the court held "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, 773 F.3d at
1257), Appellant's detection of "at least one environmental condition"
appearing in claim 1 and Appellant's "retrieving ... a setting identifier ...
based on said vote" appearing in claim 12 both solve no computer
technology problems, but instead each claim is used to facilitate a sale. See
Bilski, 561 U.S. at 643 ("neither the Patent Clause, nor early patent law, nor
the current § 101 contemplated or was publicly understood to mean that
[better ways to conduct business] are patentable.").
And unlike Bascom, in which the inventive concept included "the
installation of a filtering tool at a specific location, remote from the end-
users, with customizable filtering features specific to each end user"
(Bascom, 827 F.3d at 1350), we agree with the Examiner that "[t]aking the
additional limitations individually and as an ordered combination, the claims
do not recite significantly more than the abstract idea itself' (Ans. 4),
because Appellant's inventive concept is not "found in the non-conventional
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and non-generic arrangement of known, conventional pieces" (Bascom, 827
F.3d at 1350), but rather in the conventional and generic arrangement of
known and conventional hardware and software used to facilitate a sale.
Further, while Appellant establishes the Specification discloses a
physical structure that (1) "would enable the awareness module to detect an
environmental condition" (Reply Br. 3, citing Spec. ,r,r 67, 46) and (2) "can
detect the intensity of natural light" (Reply Br. 3--4, citing Spec. ,r,r 42, 63,
67), Appellant points to no portion of the disclosure to support the argument
that the detection of environmental condition or a setting made based on a
vote are "unconventional technical feature[ s ]" when considered "in the
context of lighting settings." See Reply Br. 3-5.
Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 1, 3-16,
and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to an abstract idea, and the
detection of environmental conditions and the setting made based on a vote
do not transform the claims to patent-eligible subject matter.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in finding claims 1, 3-16, and 23 are
directed to non-statutory subject matter.
DECISION
The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1, 3-16, and 23 as directed
to non-statutory subject matter is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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