LOCUMSMART, LLC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 13, 2021

2020000549 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 13, 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.
13/660,757 10/25/2012 Geoffrey Aaron Paul 10102.0002USU1 1259
44305 7590 01/13/2021
WITHERS & KEYS, LLC
P. O. BOX 2049
MCDONOUGH, GA 30253
EXAMINER
GO, JOHN P
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3686
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/13/2021 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GEOFFREY AARON PAUL and
ROBERT BAXTER SHUMARD
Appeal 2020-000549
Application 13/660,757
Technology Center 3600
Before JAMES B. ARPIN, ADAM J. PYONIN, and AMBER L. HAGY,
Administrative Patent Judges.
HAGY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 2, 4–8, 10–16, 19, and 20, all of the
pending claims. See Final Act. 1. 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 the real party in interest as LocumsMart, LLC.
Appeal Br. 4.
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SUMMARY OF CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
According to Appellant, the claims are directed to systems and
methods for managing billing between one or more healthcare providers or
their assignee and one or more payers for services provided by the one or
more providers within temporary arrangements. Spec., Abstract; see also
Appeal Br. 4. In particular, according to Appellant’s Specification:
The embodiments of the present invention address the
need for systems and methods for managing billing between
(i) one or more healthcare providers or their assignee and (ii) one
or more payers for the services provided by the one or more
providers within a temporary service arrangement, particularly a
non-replacement temporary service arrangement. The
embodiments of systems and methods of the present invention
enable efficient, cost-effective billing of at least
Medicare/Medicaid component Part B between (i) one or more
healthcare providers or their assignee and (ii) one or more payers
for the services provided by the one or more providers within a
temporary service arrangement, while providing a clear,
transparent record of the business relationships therebetween.
Spec. 4.
Claims 1, 7, and 16 are independent. Claim 1 illustrates the claimed
subject matter, and is reproduced below, with added identifiers (in bold) for
ease of discussion:
1. A method of billing for work done by non-replacement
temporary healthcare providers that have assigned their rights to
collect on the billing, comprising:
[a] receiving at a centralized computing system electronic
information about a healthcare group that utilizes the non-
replacement temporary healthcare providers, the information
about the healthcare group being for billing for work done on
behalf of the healthcare group with a payment authority, wherein
the healthcare group comprises a plurality of individual
healthcare organizations who have contracted for combined
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ownership of the healthcare group without fee splitting, where
each healthcare organization has at least one facility, and where
the non-replacement temporary healthcare providers have
assigned their right to bill for work done at the facilities of at
least one of the healthcare organizations of the healthcare group
to the at least one of the healthcare organizations having
ownership in the healthcare group;
[b] receiving at the centralized computing system
electronic information about a nonreplacement temporary
healthcare provider for enrollment to bill for work to be done by
the non-replacement temporary healthcare provider with the
payment authority, the computing system maintaining
information about the temporary healthcare provider where that
information is used to enroll for billing purposes each non-
replacement temporary healthcare provider for each facility of
the healthcare organizations having ownership in the healthcare
group;
[c] receiving at the centralized computing system
electronic information regarding the work done by the non-
replacement temporary healthcare provider; and
[d] generating at the centralized computing system
electronic billing information for submission to the payment
authority on behalf of the healthcare group with the electronic
billing information requesting payment to the healthcare group,
the electronic billing information comprising information related
to the work done including an amount owed for work done for a
plurality of the healthcare organizations where each instance of
work done by the non-replacement temporary healthcare
providers is a fee, at least some of the electronic information
received about the healthcare group and at least some of the
electronic information received about the non-replacement
temporary healthcare providers who have done the work for the
plurality of healthcare organizations; and
[e] allocating at the centralized computing system an
amount of payment to be made to each of the individual
healthcare organizations of the healthcare group where each of
the individual healthcare organizations corresponds to facilities
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where the non-replacement temporary healthcare providers
completed the work being billed, the amount of payment to each
healthcare organization being related to but different from the
amount billed by the healthcare group and being an amount that
avoids splitting of any fee that contributed to the amount billed
by the healthcare group and owed by the payment authority.
REJECTION2
Claims 1, 2, 4–8, 10–16, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 101 as directed to patent-ineligible subject matter without significantly
more.
OPINION
We review the appealed rejection for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellant, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced
thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential).
To the extent Appellant has not advanced separate, substantive arguments
for particular claims, or other issues, such arguments are forfeit.3 For
example, here Appellant argues all of the claims rejected under the § 101
rejection in general, as a group, without identifying any particular claim or

2 The Final Action also rejects all pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over various combinations of references. Final Act. 10–40.
The Examiner withdraws those rejections in the Answer. Ans. 3. We,
therefore, do not consider those rejections on appeal.
3 See In re Google Tech. Holdings LLC, 980 F.3d 858, 862 (Fed. Cir. 2020)
(“We interpret the Patent Office to be arguing that Google’s failure to raise
its lexicography arguments, inadvertent or not, compels a finding of
forfeiture.”); 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2020) (“Except as provided for in
§§ 41.41, 41.47 and 41.52, any arguments or authorities not included in the
appeal brief will be refused consideration by the Board for purposes of the
present appeal.”).
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subgroup of claims to which the arguments apply. Appeal Br. 10–14. We,
therefore, select claim 1 as representative and decide the appeal as to the
patent eligibility ground of rejection on the basis of claim 1 alone. See 37
C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2020) (“When multiple claims subject to the same
ground of rejection are argued as a group or subgroup by appellant, the
Board may select a single claim from the group or subgroup and may decide
the appeal as to the ground of rejection with respect to the group or subgroup
on the basis of the selected claim alone.”). We address the claims generally
where possible, but when it is helpful to refer to explicit claim language, we
refer to claim 1.
A. Principles of Law
An invention is patent-eligible if it claims a “new and useful process,
machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” 35 U.S.C. § 101. But the
U.S. Supreme Court has long interpreted 35 U.S.C. § 101 to include implicit
exceptions: “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas” are not
patentable. E.g., Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 216 (2014).
To determine whether a claim falls within an excluded category, the Court
has set out a two-part framework, described in Mayo and Alice. Id. at 217–
18 (citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66,
75–77 (2012)). That framework requires us to first consider what concept
the claim is “directed to.” See Alice, 573 U.S. at 219 (“On their face, the
claims before us are drawn to the concept of intermediated settlement, i.e.,
the use of a third party to mitigate settlement risk.”); see also Bilski v.
Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 611 (2010) (“Claims 1 and 4 in petitioners’
application explain the basic concept of hedging, or protecting against
risk.”). If the claim is “directed to” an abstract idea, we turn to the second
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step of the Alice and Mayo framework, where “we must examine the
elements of the claim to determine whether it contains an ‘inventive
concept’ sufficient to ‘transform’ the claimed abstract idea into a patent-
eligible application.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 221 (citation and quotation marks
omitted).
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the “Office”) has published
revised guidance on the application of 35 U.S.C. § 101. 2019 Revised
Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50–57 (Jan. 7,
2019) (“Guidance”). Under the Guidance, the Office first looks 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 commercial or legal interactions, including
advertising and marketing, or mental processes); and (2) additional elements
that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
See Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52, 54–55; see also MPEP § 2106.05(a)–(c),
(e)–(h).4
Only if a claim (1) recites a judicial exception, and (2) does not
integrate that exception into a practical application, does the Office then
look to whether the claim: (a) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial
exception that are not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in the field
(see MPEP § 2106.05(d)); or (b) simply appends well-understood, routine,
conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high

4 Unless otherwise specified herein, all references to the MPEP are to rev.
10.2019, Last Revised June 2020.
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level of generality, to the judicial exception. See Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at
56. We follow this guidance here.5
B. Application of Legal Principles
1. Statutory Category—Step 1 of the Guidance
The Examiner finds that independent claims 1 and 7, and the claims
that depend from them, are directed to methods for billing, which is one of
the four statutory categories: a process. Final Act. 3. The Examiner also
finds that independent claim 16 and the claims that depend from it are
directed to a system for billing, which is one of the four statutory categories:
a machine. Id. We agree that the claims are each directed to a process or to
a machine, and as such are in accordance with the statutory categories of
§ 101.
2. Judicial Exception—Step 2A, Prong 1, of the Guidance
The Guidance breaks the Alice/Mayo analysis for identifying claims
directed to judicial exceptions into two prongs. Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at
53. Step 2A, Prong 1, asks whether the claims recite a judicial exception.
Guidance at 52–54.
Appellant argues that the rejection fails to identify the category of
abstract idea presented by the claim rejected, as required by the Guidance.

5 “All USPTO personnel are, as a matter of internal agency management,
expected to follow the guidance.” Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 51; see also
October 2019 Update: Subject Matter Eligibility, 2 (Oct. 17, 2019)
(“October 2019 Update”) (“Note, the feedback received was primarily
directed to examination procedures and, accordingly, this update focuses on
clarifying practice for patent examiners. However, all USPTO personnel are
expected to follow the guidance.”), available at https://www.uspto.gov/sites/
default/files/documents/peg_oct_2019_update.pdf.
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Appeal Br. 10. We note, however, that the Final Office Action was issued in
June 2018, several months before the Guidance was released in 2019.
Following the issuance of the Guidance, the Examiner has identified, in the
Answer, the category of abstract idea presented by the claims—namely,
certain methods of organizing human activity, as discussed above. See Ans.
3–4. In particular, The Examiner finds that limitations of claim 1 recite
certain methods of organizing human activity because they “recite the
fundamental economic practice of compensating service providers for their
services, and/or the commercial interaction of creating a contractual
relationship between a healthcare group and its employees.” Ans. 4. For
instance, in the Final Office Action, the Examiner finds the claimed steps of
“receiving billing information for a healthcare group, receiving an
enrollment request to enroll a healthcare provider with a payment authority,
receiving information regarding the services performed by the healthcare
provider, generating a bill to be submitted to the payment authority, and
allocating payment” amount to
creating a contractual relationship (i.e. by allocating payment
from the payment authority to the healthcare organizations),
which is similar to the abstract idea identified in buySAFE v.
Google, and/or determining a price (i.e. the bill for submission to
the payment authority), using organizational (i.e. the fact that
healthcare providers are part of a healthcare organization and are
non-replacement temporary healthcare providers) and product
group (i.e. healthcare services) hierarchies, which is similar to
the abstract idea identified in Versata Development Group v. SAP
America . . . .
Final Act. 4–5 (citing buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350 (Fed.
Cir. 2014) and Versata Dev. Grp., Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306 (Fed.
Cir. 2015)). We agree.
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The Guidance uses enumerated groupings of abstract ideas that are
rooted in U.S. Supreme Court precedent, as well as Federal Circuit decisions
interpreting that precedent. See Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 51–52. By
grouping the abstract ideas, the Guidance synthesizes the holdings of various
court decisions to facilitate examination. The Guidance describes one
category of abstract ideas as including “[c]ertain methods of organizing
human activity” such as “commercial or legal interactions” including
“advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors.” Id. at 52. Here,
each of the limitations of claim 1 is directed to receiving and processing
certain information relevant to generating billing information for work
performed and allocating payment for that work. In particular, claim 1
recites: in limitation 1[a], receiving information identifying the healthcare
group utilizing a healthcare provider; in limitation 1[b], receiving
information identifying the healthcare provider doing the work; in limitation
1[c], receiving information identifying the work done by the healthcare
provider; in limitation 1[d], generating billing for submission to the
healthcare group for the work performed by the healthcare provider; and in
limitation 1[e], allocating payment to be made by the healthcare group to the
healthcare provider for the work done. As the Examiner finds, these steps
are similar to those found by the Federal Circuit to amount to abstract ideas;
again, we agree. See, e.g., buySAFE, 765 F.3d at 1355 (finding claims
directed to certain arrangements involving contractual relations are directed
to abstract ideas); Versata, 793 F.3d at 1333 (finding the claims were
directed to “the abstract idea of determining a price, using organizational
and product group hierarchies”).
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Further, these steps describe a method for processing healthcare
billing data that can be used for calculating payment for healthcare services,
and which reasonably can be characterized as reciting “agreements in the
form of contracts,” “legal obligations,” “business relations,” and “following
rules or instructions.” Guidance, 84 Fed Reg. at 52; see also Spec. 10–11
(describing invention as “managing billing” between “healthcare providers”
and “payers for the services”). Claim 1, thus, recites “fundamental
economic principles or practices,” “managing personal behavior or
relationships or interactions between people,” and “commercial or legal
interactions,” which are “[c]ertain methods of organizing human activity.”
Guidance, 84 Fed Reg. at 52.
Thus, claim 1 recites certain methods of organizing human activity
(that is, generating billing information for work performed and allocating
payment of the bills), which constitute a sub-category of abstract ideas in the
realm of a fundamental economic practice or principle. We, therefore, agree
with the Examiner’s conclusion that claim 1 recites an abstract idea.
3. Integration into a Practical Application—
Step 2A, Prong 2, of the Guidance
Step 2A, Prong 2, asks whether the claims are “directed to” a judicial
exception or whether the claims integrate the judicial exception into a
practical application. Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 53 (explaining the practical
application test responds to “a growing body of decisions . . .
distinguish[ing] between claims that are ‘directed to’ a judicial exception . . .
and those that are not”). A practical application is one where the claim “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
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drafting effort designed to monopolize the judicial exception.” Id. at 54.
For example, limitations that are indicative of “integration into a practical
application” can include:
1) Improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other
technology or technical field—see MPEP § 2106.05(a);
2) Applying the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular
machine—see MPEP § 2106.05(b);
3) Effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to
a different state or thing—see MPEP § 2106.05(c); and
4) Applying or using the judicial exception in some other
meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to
a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is
more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception—see
MPEP § 2106.05(e).
In contrast, limitations that are not indicative of “integration into a
practical application” may merely include:
1) Adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial
exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer,
or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea—see MPEP
§ 2106.05(f);
2) Adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial
exception—see MPEP § 2106.05(g); and
3) Generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a
particular technological environment or field of use—see MPEP
§ 2106.05(h).
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Beyond the judicial exception discussed above, claim 1 also recites a
“centralized computing system.” The Examiner, however, finds “the present
invention is not patent eligible merely because it recites ‘a centralized
computer system.’” Ans. 5. In particular, the Examiner finds the additional
elements described in the claims
are not integrated into a practical application because the
additional elements (i.e. the limitations not identified as part of
the abstract idea) amount to no more than limitations which:
• amount to mere instructions to apply an exception - for
example, the recitation of performing the claimed
limitations at a centralized computing system, which
amounts to merely invoking a computer as a tool to
perform the abstract idea, e.g. see pgs. 17-18 of the present
Specification, see MPEP 2106.05(f)[;]
• add insignificant extra-solution activity to the abstract idea
- for example, the recitation of receiving
billing/employment data, which amounts to mere data
gathering, and/or recitation of billing/employment data,
which amounts to selecting a particular type of data to be
manipulated, see MPEP 2106.05(g)[; and]
• generally link the abstract idea to a particular
technological environment or field of use - for example,
limiting the abstract idea to the field of healthcare
billing/the environment of computers, see MPEP
2106.05(h))[.]
Ans. 4–5.
Appellant challenges the Examiner’s finding, and argues that the
claims “recite specific operations that take place” and
[t]hose specific operations utilize a centralized computing
system and the operations bring about technical benefits that
have been established at least by the declaration of Mr. Paul
relative to conventional configurations for establishing billing in
this context of disparate systems between payment authority,
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healthcare organizations, and vendors offering the services of
healthcare providers to those healthcare organizations. That
alone should end the inquiry, as a system that provides technical
improvements to the underlying system are not abstract per
Enfish and establish that any alleged abstract idea has been
integrated into a practical application.
Appeal Br. 11–12 (citing Enfish LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327
(Fed. Cir. 2016)).
We are not persuaded of Examiner error. We conclude that the
additional recited elements (that is, elements of the recited “centralized
computing system”), considered individually or in combination, do not
integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application. The
additional elements are recited without sufficient detail or specific
implementation structure so as to limit the abstract idea to a specific
technical solution. Indeed, Appellant’s Specification never specifically
mentions a “centralized computing system,” and, thus, provides no details as
to what may, from a technological standpoint, differentiate such a system
from an ordinary computer system. To the contrary, Appellant’s
Specification describes the “devices” appropriate for implementing the
claimed methods “for managing billing” as including but not limited to
ordinary and well-known “personal computers, server computers, hand-held
or laptop devices (e.g., computers, smart phones, notepads, or any other
device with Internet access), multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based
systems, set top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs,
minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environments
that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like.” Spec. 17–
18; see id. at 7 (“Typically, a given computing system comprises at least one
application module usable on the computing system . . . .”).
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In short, nothing in Appellant’s claims or Specification indicates any
elements that represent a technological improvement. Rather, at best, the
recitations of a “centralized computing system” limit the invention to a
technological environment in which the underlying abstract concept
(receiving and manipulating the claimed information regarding healthcare
providers, and those using their services, to generate and pay invoices) is
applied. But, as our reviewing court has recognized, such technological
environment limitations do not make an abstract concept any less abstract.
Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363,
1367 (Fed. Cir. 2015). Here, the claims do not sufficiently recite how
receiving information (regarding the healthcare providers, the users of their
services, information for work done, and billing for services rendered)
through a “centralized computing system” leads to an improvement in the
underlying technology. Rather, such limitations recite routine computer
functions, such as receiving and manipulating information. In other words,
these additional elements in the claim do “no more than generally link the
use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field
of use.” See Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 55. The mere application of an
abstract method of organizing human activity in a computer environment is
not sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
See id.
Appellant’s reliance on the declaration of the inventor, Aaron Paul,
which was submitted under 37 C.F.R. § 1.132 (“Paul Dec.”), does not
persuade us otherwise. See Appeal Br. 11–12; Reply Br. 2–3. Mr. Paul’s
statements consist only of assertions that the “centralized computing
system/database . . . provides the benefit of more efficient use of data
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storage by allowing for the elimination of redundant database information in
individual computing systems/databases that each healthcare organization
would conventionally be required to separately maintain.” Paul Dec. ¶ 5.
But such statements describe no technological improvement; at best, they
describe merely avoiding storage of duplicative data. Notably, neither
Appellant nor Mr. Paul points to particular claim limitations as
implementing this improvement—beyond referring simply to the
“centralized computing system” itself. In particular, Appellant points to
nothing in the record (either in the Specification or the Paul Declaration)
describing the operations recited in claim 1 as invoking any assertedly
inventive programming, or requiring any specialized computer hardware or
other inventive computer components, i.e., a particular machine, or that the
claimed invention is implemented using other than generic computer
components to perform generic computer functions. See DDR Holdings,
LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (“[A]fter
Alice, there can remain no doubt: recitation of generic computer limitations
does not make an otherwise ineligible claim patent-eligible.”).
Simply put, Appellant’s invention is directed to solving the business
problem of “managing billing between (i) one or more healthcare providers
or their assignee and (ii) one or more payers for the services provided by the
one or more providers within a temporary service arrangement, particularly a
non-replacement temporary service arrangement.” Spec. 4. And
Appellant’s claims recite the business solution of receiving information
identifying a healthcare group and healthcare providers, and coordinating
billing and payment for services rendered by the healthcare providers to the
healthcare group. As noted above, these are processes in which standard
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computer technology is used as a tool in its ordinary capacity to automate a
financial transaction. In that regard, Appellant’s contention that the
Examiner focuses on “commercial benefits” to the exclusion of technical
improvements (Reply Br. 3–4) is not persuasive, at least because Appellant
does not persuasively point to anything in the record supporting the
contention that Appellant’s invention represents a technological
improvement.
We conclude, for the reasons stated above, that claim 1 recites a
method of organizing human activity under the Guidance, i.e., an abstract
idea, and that the additional elements recited in the claim (“centralized
computing system”) are no more than generic components used as tools to
perform the recited abstract idea. As such, they do not integrate the abstract
idea into a practical application. See Alice, 573 U.S. at 223–24 (“[W]holly
generic computer implementation is not generally the sort of ‘additional
featur[e]’ that provides any ‘practical assurance that the process is more than
a drafting effort designed to monopolize the [abstract idea] itself.”’) (quoting
Mayo, 566 U.S. at 77). Accordingly, in the first part of the Alice/Mayo
analysis, we conclude the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
4. Inventive Concept—Step 2B of the Guidance
Because we agree with the Examiner that claim 1 is “directed to” a
judicial exception, we consider whether an additional element (or
combination of elements) adds a limitation that is not well-understood,
routine, conventional (“WURC”) activity in the field or whether the
additional elements simply append WURC activities, specified at a high
level of generality, to the judicial exception. Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 56.
The Examiner’s finding that an additional element (or combination of
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elements) is a WURC activity must be supported with a factual
determination. Id. (citing MPEP § 2106.05(d), as clarified by the
Berkheimer Memorandum6).
The Examiner finds that the additional elements beyond the recited
judicial exception (the “centralized computing system”) do not amount to
significantly more than the recited judicial exception. Ans. 6–8. In
particular, the Examiner finds:
The centralized computing system merely receives data (i.e. The
healthcare group data, the billing data, and the data regarding the
work performed) and processes the data (i.e. by generating
billing data for submission to a payment authority and allocating
an amount of payment to be made) - these functions are functions
that any generic computer are expected to be capable of
performing.
Id. at 7. The Examiner supports this finding by reference to the
Specification, which as noted above, describes the computing devices
suitable for carrying out the claimed invention broadly in terms of generic
computing devices. Id. (citing Spec. 17–18). The Examiner, therefore, finds
“the present invention is executed by any generic computer system, wherein
the generic computer systems merely perform functions (i.e. receiving and
processing data) that any generic computer system is expected to be capable
of performing.” Id. The Examiner also finds that “[t]he type of data being
processed (i.e. billing/labor data from non-replacement temporary healthcare
providers) does not change the fact that the functions performed by the
generic computer structure (i.e. generating billing information for

6 “Changes in Examination Procedure Pertaining to Subject Matter
Eligibility, Recent Subject Matter Eligibility Decision (Berkheimer v. HP,
Inc.),” April 19, 2018 (hereinafter “the Berkheimer Memorandum”).
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submission and allocating payment amounts) are well-understood, routine,
and conventional functions.” Id. at 7–8. We agree.
As also noted above, the claim elements beyond the abstract idea
recite only generic computer functions and components that are well-
understood, routine, and conventional—that is, receiving and manipulating
data; such generic computer functions and components do not convey an
inventive concept. See Alice, 573 U.S. at 217. There is nothing in the
Specification to indicate that the activities recited in claim 1 require any
specialized hardware or inventive computer components or that the claimed
invention is implemented using other than generic computer components to
perform generic computer functions, e.g., receiving and manipulating
information. The Federal Circuit, in accordance with Alice, has “repeatedly
recognized the absence of a genuine dispute as to eligibility” where claims
have been defended as involving an inventive concept based “merely on the
idea of using existing computers or the Internet to carry out conventional
processes, with no alteration of computer functionality.” Berkheimer v. HP
Inc., 890 F.3d 1369, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (Moore, J., concurring) (citations
omitted); see also BSG Tech LLC v. Buyseasons, Inc., 899 F.3d 1281, 1291
(Fed. Cir. 2018) (“BSG Tech does not argue that other, non-abstract
features of the claimed inventions, alone or in combination, are not well-
understood, routine and conventional database structures and activities.
Accordingly, the district court did not err in determining that the asserted
claims lack an inventive concept.”) (emphasis added).
Appellant’s arguments to the contrary do not persuade us of Examiner
error. In particular, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s contention that the
claims provide an “inventive concept that offers significantly more” than a
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mere abstract idea, because the “functions of disparate computers have been
moved to a centralized computing system,” which allows “centralization” of
functions including “allocation of payments among [the] relevant parties.”
Reply Br. 5. As noted above, Appellant does not point to any hardware
aspect or technological innovation that purportedly provides this benefit.
Rather, Appellant’s argument relies on the notion that centralizing functions
into a computing system (such as by using a common database, as stated in
the Paul Declaration) provides an inventive concept. We disagree.
To the extent such centralization of functionality is even recited in the
claims (which, as we note supra, has not been supported by Appellant), it is
at best part of the recited abstract idea. We remind Appellant that “the
‘inventive concept’ [under the second part of the Mayo/Alice test] cannot be
the abstract idea itself” and “Berkheimer . . . leave[s] untouched the
numerous cases from this court which have held claims ineligible because
the only alleged ‘inventive concept’ is the abstract idea.” Berkheimer, 890
F.3d at 1374 (Moore, J., concurring). “It has been clear since Alice that a
claimed invention’s use of the ineligible concept to which it is directed
cannot supply the inventive concept that renders the invention ‘significantly
more’ than that ineligible concept.” BSG Tech LLC, 899 F.3d at 1290.
We also disagree with Appellant’s argument that the claims “are
directly comparable” to those determined to be patent-eligible in BASCOM.
Reply Br. 5. Again, Appellant does not point to any evidence of hardware or
software that improves the performance of the computer system itself. Thus,
this case is unlike BASCOM, in which an inventive concept was found in the
ordered combination of limitations providing for “the installation of a
filtering tool at a specific location, remote from the end users, with
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customizable filtering features specific to each end user.” BASCOM Global
Internet Services, Inc. v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341, 1350 (Fed.
Cir. 2016). Here, as we discuss above, the claim elements beyond the
abstract idea recite only generic computer functions and components that are
well-understood, routine, and conventional—that is, receiving and
manipulating data; such generic computer functions and components do not
convey an inventive concept. See Alice, 573 U.S. at 217. We again remind
Appellant that in most cases, “relying on a computer to perform routine tasks
more quickly or more accurately is insufficient to render a claim patent
eligible.” OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed.
Cir. 2015) (citing Alice, 573 U.S. at 224 (holding that “use of a computer to
create electronic records, track multiple transactions, and issue simultaneous
instructions” is not an inventive concept)); Intellectual Ventures I LLC, 792
F.3d at 1370 (“[M]erely adding computer functionality to increase the speed
or efficiency of the process does not confer patent eligibility on an otherwise
abstract idea.”).
For the reasons discussed above, we determine that the functions
recited in Appellant’s claims do not add any meaningful limitations beyond
generally linking the abstract idea to the particular technological
environment.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 under 35
U.S.C. § 101 as patent-ineligible. We also sustain the rejection of claims 2,
4–8, 10–16, 19, and 20, which are not separately argued (see Appeal Br. 10–
14), as patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
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CONCLUSION
We sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection of all pending
claims.
DECISION SUMMARY
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 2, 4–8,
10–16, 19,
20
101 1, 2, 4–8,
10–16, 19,
20

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
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