HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES, INC.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardNov 27, 20202020001265 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 27, 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. 14/781,423 09/30/2015 Burkay Donderici 164.2013-IP-080762 U1 US 5338 138627 7590 11/27/2020 Gilliam IP PLLC (Halliburton) 7200 N. Mopac Suite 440 Austin, TX 78731 EXAMINER CORDERO, LINA M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2857 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/27/2020 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): uspto@gilliamip.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte BURKAY DONDERICI, LUIS EMILIO SAN MARTIN, and JUNSHENG HOU ____________ Appeal 2020-001265 Application 14/781,423 Technology Center 2800 ____________ Before ROMULO H. DELMENDO, JEFFREY R. SNAY, and JANE E. INGLESE, Administrative Patent Judges. INGLESE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant1 requests review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1–41.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to the “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. as the real party in interest. Appeal Brief filed April 22, 2019 (“Appeal Br.”) at 3. 2 Final Office Action entered November 28, 2018 (“Final Act.”) at 1. Appeal 2020-001265 Application 14/781,423 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Independent claim 1 illustrates the subject matter on appeal, and reads as follows: 1. A method for obtaining information indicative of casing- corrected formation properties, comprising: positioning a well logging tool within a borehole in a subterranean geologic formation; inducing via an electrode array of the well logging tool at least one of a voltage and a current in the formation using the well logging tool; receiving a raw measurement at one or more monitor electrodes of the well logging tool corresponding to the at least one induced voltage and current; and calculating the casing-corrected formation properties with casing interference removed using the received raw measurement and an inversion process; wherein inversion process includes measuring a difference between the received raw measurement and modeled measurements, wherein a weighting is associated with the received raw measurement, the weighting being based on a depth of the well logging tool at which the received raw measurement is measured with respect to a casing termination point, and wherein the weighting indicates a level by which the received raw measurement affects inversion results of the inversion process; and determining a model indicative of the casing- corrected formation properties based on the difference. Appeal Br. 15, 18–19 (Claims Appendix) (emphasis and spacing added). The remaining independent claims on appeal—claims 19, 23, 28, 32, and 33—recite subject matter similar to claim 1, including calculating or obtaining casing-corrected formation properties with Appeal 2020-001265 Application 14/781,423 3 casing interference removed using received raw measurement and an inversion process. Appeal Br. 5–9. REJECTION The Examiner maintains the rejection of claims 1–41 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to a judicial exception without significantly more in the Examiner’s Answer entered October 3, 2019 (“Ans.”). FACTUAL FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS Upon consideration of the evidence relied upon in this appeal and each of Appellant’s contentions, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–41 under 35 U.S.C. § 101, for the reasons set forth in the Appeal and Reply Briefs, and below. 35 U.S.C. § 101 states that “[w]hoever 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.” According to the Supreme Court, “[p]henomena of nature, though just discovered, mental processes, and abstract intellectual concepts are not patentable, as they are the basic tools of scientific and technological work.” Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 70–72 (2012) (quoting Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 185 (1981) (quoting Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972)). “And monopolization of those tools through the grant of a patent might tend to impede innovation more than it would tend to promote it.” Id. As stated in Alice: Accordingly, in applying the § 101 exception, we must distinguish between patents that claim the building blocks of Appeal 2020-001265 Application 14/781,423 4 human ingenuity and those that integrate the building blocks into something more, thereby transforming them into a patent- eligible invention. The former would risk disproportionately tying up the use of the underlying ideas, and are therefore ineligible for patent protection. The latter pose no comparable risk of pre-emption, and therefore remain eligible for the monopoly granted under our patent laws. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 217 (2014) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). In Alice, the Court extended a framework that had been used in Mayo for distinguishing claims pre-empting laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from claims amounting to patent- eligible applications of those concepts. As stated in Alice: First, we determine whether the claims at issue are directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts. If so, we then ask, what else is there in the claims before us? To answer that question, we consider the elements of each claim both individually and as an ordered combination to determine whether the additional elements transform the nature of the claim into a patent-eligible application. We have described step two of this analysis as a search for an “inventive concept”—i.e., an element or combination of elements that is sufficient to ensure that the patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the ineligible concept itself. Alice, 573 U.S. at 217–18 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The USPTO published revised guidance on the application of § 101. 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019) (“2019 Guidance”). Under Step 1 of the Guidance, as revised, we determine whether the claimed subject matter falls within the four statutory categories. Under the 2019 Guidance, as revised, we then look to whether a claim recites: (Step 2A, Prong 1) any judicial exceptions, including certain groupings of abstract ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, Appeal 2020-001265 Application 14/781,423 5 certain methods of organizing human activity such as a fundamental economic practice, or mental processes); and (Step 2A, Prong 2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application (see MPEP §§ 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h)). 2019 Guidance 54–55. 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: (Step 2B) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that is not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in the field (see MPEP § 2106.05(d)); or simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception. 2019 Guidance 56–57. The USPTO published an Update to the 2019 Guidance, October 2019 Update: Subject Matter Eligibility, available at https://www.uspto.gov/ sites/default/files/documents/peg_oct_2019_update.pdf (Oct. 17, 2019) (“Updated 2019 Guidance”), which emphasized that “the Prong Two analysis considers the claim as a whole. That is, the limitations containing the judicial exception as well as the additional elements in the claim besides the judicial exception need to be evaluated together to determine whether the claim integrates the judicial exception into a practical application. The additional limitations should not be evaluated in a vacuum, completely separate from the recited judicial exception. Instead, the analysis should Appeal 2020-001265 Application 14/781,423 6 take into consideration all the claim limitations and how those limitations interact and impact each other when evaluating whether the exception is integrated into a practical application.” Updated 2019 Guidance 12 (emphasis added). Under Step 1, we find that claim 1 recites a “method” comprising certain steps. Therefore, the claimed method falls within one of the statutory categories as a process. The Examiner determines that under Step 2A, Prong One of the 2019 Guidance, the following element of claim 1 recites an abstract idea in the form of a mathematical concept because it involves applying mathematical concepts to transform collected data into another type of data: calculating the casing-corrected formation properties with casing interference removed using the received raw measurement and an inversion process; wherein inversion process includes measuring a difference between the received raw measurement and modeled measurements, wherein a weighting is associated with the received raw measurement, the weighting being based on a depth of the well logging tool at which the received raw measurement is measured with respect to a casing termination point, and wherein the weighting indicates a level by which the received raw measurement affects inversion results of the inversion process; and determining a model indicative of the casing corrected formation properties based on the difference. Ans. 3–4. The Examiner determines that under Step 2A, Prong Two of the 2019 Guidance, the additional elements recited in claim 1 (“positioning a well logging tool within a borehole,” “inducing via an electrode array of the well Appeal 2020-001265 Application 14/781,423 7 logging tool at least one of a voltage and a current,” and “receiving a raw measurement at one or more monitor electrodes of the well logging tool”) do not integrate the recited abstract idea into a practical application, because the additional elements add extra-solution activities in the form of data gathering recited at a high level of generality, while generally linking use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. Ans. 4. The Examiner concludes that claim 1, therefore, is “directed to an abstract idea rather than to a particular practical application of the abstract idea.” Ans. 5. Appellant argues that even if claim 1 recites an abstract idea, which appellant does not concede, the recited abstract idea is integrated into a practical application because the claimed method improves the accuracy of formation property data generated from raw measurements obtained near a formation casing by removing casing interference effects, thus improving the technology for obtaining information on properties of geological formations. Appeal Br. 12, 14–15, 21–22 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 22, 23); Reply Br. 5–6 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 39, 40). Appellant’s arguments identify reversible error in the Examiner’s rejection, for reasons that follow. Applying Step 2A, Prong 1 of the 2019 Guidance, we determine, like the Examiner, that the following elements in claim 1 recite an abstract idea, consistent with the description of these elements in Appellant’s Specification, as discussed below: calculating the casing-corrected formation properties with casing interference removed using the received raw measurement and an inversion process; Appeal 2020-001265 Application 14/781,423 8 wherein inversion process includes measuring a difference between the received raw measurement and modeled measurements, wherein a weighting is associated with the received raw measurement, the weighting being based on a depth of the well logging tool at which the received raw measurement is measured with respect to a casing termination point, and wherein the weighting indicates a level by which the received raw measurement affects inversion results of the inversion process; and determining a model indicative of the casing corrected formation properties based on the difference. The Specification explains that a known technique used to evaluate geological formations involves determining an apparent resistivity of a formation by injecting a current from a location within a borehole into a portion of the formation, and conductively measuring a resulting voltage induced by the current. Spec. ¶ 1. The Specification indicates that such resistivity information may provide a general indication of formation composition or geometry. Spec.¶ 1. The Specification explains that boreholes include a cased section, but the casing “may cause spurious effects in raw acquired data[,] . . . mak[ing] obtaining measurements near-casing zones difficult.” Spec. ¶ 3; Fig. 4A. The Specification describes a method for correcting raw resistivity measurements obtained near a borehole casing. Spec. ¶ 22. The Specification explains that the method involves using a numerical inversion process to measure the difference between raw measurements received from monitor electrodes, and modeled measurements included in a signal library, and determining the model with the least difference between the raw measurements and modeled measurements. Spec. ¶ 63. Appeal 2020-001265 Application 14/781,423 9 The Specification indicates that the signal library includes modeled raw measurements as a function of all possible formation models and casing models. Spec. ¶¶ 41, 62. The Specification further indicates that the inversion process can be a least squares-type inversion, and explains that weighting coefficients may be utilized to give relative priority to raw measurements obtained at specific depth with respect to other depths. Spec. ¶¶ 63, 70. Consistent with these disclosures in the Specification, “calculating the casing-corrected formation properties with casing interference removed using the received raw measurement and an inversion process . . . and determining a model indicative of the casing-corrected formation properties based on the difference,” as recited in claim 1, involves one or more mathematical relationships and/or calculations, which are mathematical concepts. The “calculating” step recited in claim 1 thus constitutes an abstract idea. We determine under Step 2A, Prong 2 of the 2019 Guidance, however, that the limitations of claim 1 as a whole integrate the recited abstract idea (mathematical concept) into a practical application, as described in Appellant’s Specification. More specifically, the Specification explains that the method of claim 1 involves positioning a well logging tool within a borehole in a subterranean geologic formation, inducing via an electrode array of the well logging tool at least one of a voltage and a current in the formation, receiving raw resistivity measurements at monitor electrodes of the logging tool, and correcting raw measurements obtained near the borehole casing to eliminate distortions in the raw measurements caused by the casing, so as to calculate casing-corrected formation properties Appeal 2020-001265 Application 14/781,423 10 with casing interference removed. Spec. ¶¶ 57–67, 75–81. The Specification explains that removing the casing interference effects improves the accuracy of data generated from raw resistivity measurements obtained near a formation casing, thereby improving the technology of measuring formation resistivity to determine properties of a geologic formation. Spec. ¶¶ 22, 23, 39, 40; Figs. 3A and 3B. The “calculating” step recited in claim 1, in combination with the steps of “positioning a well logging tool within a borehole,” “inducing via an electrode array of the well logging tool at least one of a voltage and a current,” and “receiving a raw measurement at one or more monitor electrodes of the well logging tool” recited in the claim, thus integrate the recited mathematical concept into a practical application because the claimed method as a whole improves the technology of determining properties of a geological formation, as described in Appellant’s Specification. The Examiner’s analysis under Step 2A, Prong 2 does not consider all of the elements of claim 1 in combination. Ans. 4–5. Instead, the Examiner’s analysis under Step 2A, Prong 2 considers—in isolation—only those elements of claim 1 that do not include the judicial exception, without analyzing the judicial exception together with the additional elements; consequently, the Examiner does not appear to appreciate that “it is the combination of elements that provide the practical application” in the present case. 2019 Guidance 55. Because our analysis under Step 2A of the 2019 Guidance is dispositive, we need not consider Step 2B. And because our analysis for claim 1 also applies to the other independent claims due to their recitation of Appeal 2020-001265 Application 14/781,423 11 the same or similar limitations as claim 1, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–41 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. CONCLUSION Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–41 101 Eligibility 1–41 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation