Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 1, 2021

2021000177 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 1, 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.
15/333,168 10/24/2016 Shawn J. Tabrizi 400103-US-NP 1587
69316 7590 04/01/2021
MICROSOFT CORPORATION
ONE MICROSOFT WAY
REDMOND, WA 98052
EXAMINER
FLETCHER, TIERA J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3623
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/01/2021 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):
chriochs@microsoft.com
jkarr@microsoft.com
usdocket@microsoft.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte SHAWN J. TABRIZI
and SHIV D. BIJLANI

Appeal 2021-000177
Application 15/333,168
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before HUBERT C. LORIN, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
MATTHEW S. MEYERS, Administrative Patent Judges.

MEYERS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), the Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s non-final decision to reject claims 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15,
17, and 20, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Microsoft
Technology Licensing, LLC. Appeal Br. 2.
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CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellant’s claimed invention generally relates to an automatic time
blocking system and method for calendar applications. Spec. ¶ 2.
Claims 1, 8, and 15 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below, with modified formatting and bracketed notations, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter.
1. A system for automatic time blocking for calendar
applications, comprising:
[a] a processing system;
[b] a storage system;
[c] instructions for automatic time blocking for calendar
applications stored on the storage system, the instructions
directing the processing system to at least:
[d] receive information identifying a user calendar and a
desired amount of time for a block of contiguous time without a
meeting item;
[e] set a threshold of a minimum contiguous block of
time without a meeting item based on the desired amount of
time;
[f] monitor the user calendar, via communication with a
calendar service, to determine whether, for a time period, there
only remains one contiguous block of time of the desired
amount of time without the meeting item; and
[g] upon determining that the time period in the user
calendar has only one remaining contiguous block of time of
the desired amount of time without the meeting item,
automatically, without user interaction, cause the user calendar
to add an appointment event blocking the amount of contiguous
time without the meeting item by requesting the calendar
service to modify the user calendar with the appointment event
blocking the amount of contiguous time.
Appeal Br. 26 (Claim App.).
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REJECTION
Claims 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, and 20 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to a judicial exception without
significantly more.

ANALYSIS
Appellant argues claims 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, and 20 as a
group. Appeal Br. 11–25. We select independent claim 1 as representative.
The remaining claims stand or fall with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
35 U.S.C. § 101 Framework
Section 101
An invention is patent eligible if it claims a “new and useful process,
machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” 35 U.S.C. § 101.
However, 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).
In determining whether a claim falls within an excluded category, we
are guided by the Court’s two-part framework, described in Mayo and Alice.
Alice, 573 U.S. at 217–18 (citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus
Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 75–77 (2012)). In accordance with that framework,
we first determine 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)
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(“Claims 1 and 4 in petitioners’ application explain the basic concept of
hedging, or protecting against risk.”).
Concepts determined to be abstract ideas, and thus patent ineligible,
include certain methods of organizing human activity, such as fundamental
economic practices (Alice, 573 U.S. at 219–20; Bilski, 561 U.S. at 611);
mathematical formulas (Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 594–95 (1978)); and
mental processes (Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972)). Concepts
determined to be patent eligible include physical and chemical processes,
such as “molding rubber products” (Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 191
(1981)); “tanning, dyeing, making water-proof cloth, vulcanizing India
rubber, smelting ores” (id. at 182 n.7 (quoting Corning v. Burden, 56 U.S.
252, 267–68 (1853))); and manufacturing flour (Benson, 409 U.S. at 69
(citing Cochrane v. Deener, 94 U.S. 780, 785 (1876))).
In Diehr, the claim at issue recited a mathematical formula, but the
Court held that “a claim drawn to subject matter otherwise statutory does not
become nonstatutory simply because it uses a mathematical formula.”
Diehr, 450 U.S. at 187; see also id. at 191 (“We view respondents’ claims as
nothing more than a process for molding rubber products and not as an
attempt to patent a mathematical formula.”). Having said that, the Court
also indicated that a claim “seeking patent protection for that formula in the
abstract . . . is not accorded the protection of our patent laws, and this
principle cannot be circumvented by attempting to limit the use of the
formula to a particular technological environment.” Id. (citation omitted)
(citing Benson and Flook); see, e.g., id. at 187 (“It is now commonplace that
an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known
structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection.”).
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If the claim is “directed to” an abstract idea, we turn to the second
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 (quotation marks omitted).
“A claim that recites an abstract idea must include ‘additional features’ to
ensure ‘that the [claim] is more than a drafting effort designed to
monopolize the [abstract idea].’” Id. (alterations in original) (quoting Mayo,
566 U.S. at 77). “[M]erely requir[ing] generic computer implementation[]
fail[s] to transform that abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.” Id.
USPTO Section 101 Guidance
We are also guided by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”)
Guidance, as set forth in the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility
Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019) (“Guidance”), incorporated into
the MANUAL OF PATENT EXAMINING PROCEDURE §§ 2104–06, Rev. 10.2019
(“MPEP”) in June 2020. “The guidance sets out agency policy with respect
to the USPTO’s interpretation of the subject matter eligibility requirements
of 35 U.S.C. [§] 101 in view of decisions by the Supreme Court and the
Federal Circuit.” Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 51. Although “[a]ll USPTO
personnel are, as a matter of internal agency management, expected to
follow the guidance,” the Guidance “does not create any right or benefit,
substantive or procedural, enforceable by any party against the USPTO.” Id.
The Guidance, by its terms, applies to all applications, and to all patents
resulting from applications, filed before, on, or after January 7, 2019. Id.
at 50.
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Under USPTO Guidance, we first look to whether the claim recites:
(1) any judicial exceptions, including laws of nature, natural phenomena,
and products of nature (see MPEP §§ 2106.04(II)(A)(1), 2106.04(b))
(“Step 2A, Prong One”); and (2) additional elements that integrate the
judicial exception into a practical application (see id. §§ 2106.04(II)(A)(2),
2106.04(d)) (“Step 2A, Prong Two”).2
Only if a claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not
integrate that exception into a practical application, do we then look, under
Step 2B, to whether the additional elements, individually or in combination,
provide an inventive concept. See MPEP §§ 2106(III), 2106.05. “An
inventive concept ‘cannot be furnished by the unpatentable law of nature (or
natural phenomenon or abstract idea) itself.’” Id. § 2106.05 (quoting
Genetic Techs. v. Merial LLC, 818 F.3d 1369, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2016)).
Among the considerations in determining whether the additional elements,
individually or in combination, amount to significantly more than the
exception itself, we look to whether they add a specific limitation beyond the
judicial exception that is not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in the
field or simply append well-understood, routine, conventional activities
previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to
the judicial exception. MPEP § 2106.05(II); Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 56.

2 This evaluation is performed by (a) identifying whether there are any
additional elements recited in the claim beyond the judicial exception, and
(b) evaluating those additional elements individually and in combination to
determine whether the claim as a whole integrates the exception into a
practical application. See Guidance - Section III(A)(2), 84 Fed. Reg.
at 54–55; MPEP § 2106.04(d).
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Step One of the Mayo/Alice Framework
Under the first step of the Mayo/Alice framework and Step 2A, Prong
One of USPTO Guidance, the Examiner determines that independent claim 1
recites broadly
a system for executing a series of steps of automatic time
blocking for calendar applications comprising receiving data,
set[ting] a threshold, monitor[ing] data relative to threshold, and
request[ing] modification. These steps include managing
personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people
(including social activities, teaching, and following rules or
instructions), which is a certain method of organizing human
activity and thus an abstract idea.
Non-Final Act. 3. Under Prong Two of USPTO Guidance, the Examiner
determines that the identified judicial exception is not integrated into a
practical application because “mere instructions to implement an abstract
idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an
abstract idea is not indicative of integration into a practical application.” Id.
(citing MPEP § 2106.05(f)).
In response, Appellant asserts that the Examiner improperly
characterizes the claims as being “directed to organizing human activity.”
Appeal Br. 13. Instead, Appellant argues
the claims are directed to automatic modification of a user’s
electronic calendar to insert an event in response to a set of rules
regarding a block of contiguous time without a meeting item that
creates an indicator that there is already an activity during that
time so that the calendar displays a block of time as being taken.
Id.
Under the first step of the Mayo/Alice framework and Step 2A of the
USPTO Guidance, we first determine to what claim 1 is directed, i.e.,
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whether claim 1 recites an abstract idea and if so, whether claim 1 is directed
to that abstract idea. The Federal Circuit has explained that “the ‘directed
to’ inquiry applies a stage-one filter to claims, considered in light of the
specification, based on whether ‘their character as a whole is directed to
excluded subject matter.’” Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327,
1335 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (quoting Internet Patents Corp. v. Active Network,
Inc., 790 F.3d 1343, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015)). It asks whether the focus of the
claim is on a specific improvement in relevant technology or on a process
that itself qualifies as an “abstract idea” for which computers are invoked
merely as a tool. See Enfish, LLC, 822 F.3d at 1335–36. Here, it is clear
from the Specification, including the claim language, that claim 1 focuses on
an abstract idea, and not on any improvement to technology and/or a
technical field.
Reciting a Judicial Exception
In making this determination, we note that the Specification is titled
“AUTOMATIC TIME BLOCKING FOR CALENDAR APPLICATIONS,”
and is related generally to an “automatic time blocking service.” Spec. ¶ 2.
According to the Specification, “individuals may prefer to keep long chunks
of time available to work and to minimize the number of short periods of
dead space within their calendar.” Id. ¶ 1. However, individuals often
“have so many meetings on their calendar that they are unable to get
productive work done.” Id. The Specification also identifies that “when a
time period is blocked out as busy on a user’s calendar, other users can have
difficulty finding available time to schedule a meeting without specifically
requesting the user with the blocked out time whether they can meet at a
time indicated as busy.” Id. ¶ 13. To address this problem, the present
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invention provides an “automatic time blocking service” that “support[s]
user productivity by communicating with a calendar application and a
calendar service to monitor and change calendar information for users.” Id.
¶ 2. According to the Specification, the present invention “allow[s] a user’s
calendar to remain open for scheduling on a particular day until a threshold
is met, which gives a user the time – without distractions of a meeting or
other event – that the user wants for themselves to accomplish their own
tasks.” Id. ¶ 13.
Consistent with this disclosure, independent claim 1 recites “[a]
system for automatic time blocking for calendar applications” comprising “a
processing system,” “storage system,” and “instructions for automatic time
blocking for calendar applications” (limitations [a]–[c]). The system
includes processes to receive information, i.e., “receive information
identifying a user calendar and a desired amount of time for a block of
contiguous time without a meeting item” (limitation [d]), input information,
i.e., “set a threshold of a minimum contiguous block of time” (limitation
[e]), monitor information, i.e., “monitor the user calendar . . . to determine
whether . . . there only remains one contiguous block of time . . . without the
meeting item” that meets the set threshold (limitation [f]), and perform an
action, i.e., “upon determining . . . only one remaining contiguous block of
time . . . . , automatically . . . blocking the amount of contiguous time”
(limitation [g]). Appeal Br. 26 (Claim App.).
When considered collectively and under the broadest reasonable
interpretation, independent claim 1, as summarized above, recites a series of
steps for receiving information, inputting information, monitoring
information, and modifying information in order to provide an automatic
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time blocking service for calendar applications.3 This is an abstract idea
which may be characterized as a “[c]ertain method[] of organizing human
activity— . . . managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions
between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or
instructions).” Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52; MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(II).
This is consistent with the Examiner’s characterization. Non-Final Act. 3;
Ans. 3–4.
The courts have held similar concepts to be abstract. For example, the
Federal Circuit has held abstract the concepts of “personal management,
resource planning, or forecasting” in In re Downing, 754 F. App’x 988, 993
(Fed. Cir. 2018), “keeping track of deadlines for clients and carrying out
two-way communications with clients relevant to meeting those deadlines”
in WhitServe LLC v. Donuts Inc., 809 F. App’x 929, 933 (Fed. Cir. 2020),
tailoring content based on user information in Intellectual Ventures I LLC v.
Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2015),
dynamically selecting and sorting information by user interest or subject
matter in Evolutionary Intelligence LLC v. Sprint Nextel Corp.,
677 F. App’x 679, 680 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 521 (2017), and
“scheduling business activities using a computer and computer network” in
P & RO Sols. Grp., Inc. v. CiM Maint., Inc., 273 F. Supp. 3d 699, 708 (E.D.
Tex. 2017). As such, we disagree with the Appellant’s assertion that the

3 We note that “[a]n abstract idea can generally be described at different
levels of abstraction.” Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d 1229, 1240
(Fed. Cir. 2016). The Board’s “slight revision of its abstract idea analysis
does not impact the patentability analysis.” Id. at 1241.
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Examiner improperly characterizes independent claim 1 as being “directed
to organizing human activity.” Appeal Br. 13.
Having concluded that claim 1 recites a judicial exception, i.e., an
abstract idea, in determining whether the claim is directed to this abstract
idea, we next consider whether the claim recites additional elements that
integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Integration into a Practical Application
We look to whether the claim “appl[ies], rel[ies] on, or use[s] the
judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the
judicial exception, such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed
to monopolize the judicial exception,” i.e., “integrates a judicial exception
into a practical application.” Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 54; MPEP
§ 2106.04(d). Here, the Examiner identifies the “processing system” and
“storage system” as the only additional elements recited in claim 1. Non-
Final Act. 3–4. The Examiner notes that these additional elements are
insufficient to integrate the judicial exception identified in claim 1 into a
practical application because they simply “limit[] the claims to the computer
field, i.e., to execution on a generic computer: (processing system, storage
system).” Id. at 5 (citing FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Systems, Inc.,
839 F.3d 1089, 1094–95 (Fed. Cir. 2016)). We agree with the Examiner.
As is clear from the Specification, there is no indication that the
processes recited in claim 1 require any specialized computer hardware or
other inventive computer components, i.e., a particular machine, invoke any
asserted inventive programming, 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.,
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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.”); see also Spec. ¶ 41 (“[S]ystem 600 may
represent a computing device such as, but not limited to, a personal
computer, a tablet computer, a reader, a mobile device.”).
Independent claim 1, unlike the claims found non-abstract in prior
cases, uses generic computer technology to receive information, input
information (i.e., set a threshold), monitor/analyze information, and modify
information for the purpose of automatically blocking off a particular
amount of time on an electronic calendar. Cf. McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco
Games Am. Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1314–15 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (finding claims
not abstract because they “focused on a specific asserted improvement in
computer animation”).
Appellant argues that claim 1 also includes “the additional elements of
automatically, without user interaction, blocking off a minimum contiguous
amount of time upon the determination that the time period in the user
calendar has only one remaining contiguous block of time of the desired
amount of time without the meeting item.” Appeal Br. 18. According to
Appellant, this identified feature is an improvement “to electronic calendar
applications that have been used to automatically block off minimum
amounts of time on a calendar as soon as a user indicates the desire for a
minimum amount of time be blocked off for themselves on their calendar.”
Id. at 17.
However, we agree with the Examiner that the “claimed invention is
directed to a business improvement in scheduling, by managing a calendar
and effecting certain preservation and allocation of time, rather than an
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improvement in a technology or technological field.” Ans. 5; cf. OIP Techs.,
Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (holding that
claims are directed to “the abstract idea of offer-based price optimization”);
Enfish, 822 F.3d at 1336 (focusing on whether the claim is “an improvement
to [the] computer functionality itself, not on economic or other tasks for
which a computer is used in its ordinary capacity”). See also Bridge & Post,
Inc. v. Verizon Commc’ns, Inc., 778 F. App’x 882, 893 (Fed. Cir. 2019)
(“The ability to run a more efficient advertising campaign, even if novel, and
even if aided by conventional computers, is an advance ‘entirely in the realm
of abstract ideas,’ which we have repeatedly held to be ineligible.”). The
“focus” of claim 1 is not “on the specific asserted improvement in computer
capabilities” (Enfish, 822 F.3d at 1336), but rather on using the components
as tools to implement the abstract idea in the particular field of electronic
calendars. See Affinity Labs of Tex., LLC v. DIRECTV, LLC, 838 F.3d 1253,
1259 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“The Supreme Court and [the Federal Circuit] have
repeatedly made clear that merely limiting the field of use of the abstract
idea to a particular existing technological environment does not render the
claims any less abstract.”).
Appellant argues that claim 1 “effect[s] an improvement in electronic
calendaring technology.” Appeal Br. 24. However, there is no such
improvement to technology or a technological process. Appellant does not
assert an improvement in the technical or technological aspects of receiving,
inputting, monitoring/analyzing, and modifying information, which are all
claimed without specific details on how they are performed. Rather, any
alleged improvement in instructing the calendar applications to perform
certain operations lies in the process itself, i.e., in the abstract idea itself, not
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in any technological improvement. See BSG Tech LLC v. Buyseasons, Inc.,
899 F.3d 1281, 1287–88 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
We note that Appellant does not direct our attention to anything in the
Specification to indicate that the invention provides a technical improvement
in the receiving, inputting, monitoring/analyzing, or modifying information
that incorporates rules to automate a subjective task of humans, similar to
those in McRO. We also note that Appellant does not provide reasoning or
evidence, and we do not see from the claim, how the limitations claim a
solution “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. And, to the extent Appellant argues that
claim 1 is similar to the claims in BASCOM Global Internet Services v.
AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341 (Fed Cir. 2016) (see Appeal Br. 23–24),
Appellant does not show how the claim here is similar to BASCOM’s
“particular arrangement of elements [that] is a technical improvement over
prior art ways of filtering such content.” 827 F.3d at 1350. Instead, any
improvement to calendaring lies in the abstract idea itself, not in any
technological improvement. The claim’s focus is “not a physical-realm
improvement but an improvement in [a] wholly abstract idea.” SAP Am.,
Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1168 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
Thus, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s determination
that the additional elements of claim 1 do not integrate the judicial exception
into a practical application, as the term is used in USPTO Guidance, and we
are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s determination that claim 1 is
directed to an abstract idea.
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Step Two of the Mayo/Alice Framework
Under the second step in the Alice framework and USTPO Guidance
Step 2B, we “[e]valuat[e] additional elements to determine whether they
amount to an inventive concept [which] requires considering them both
individually and in combination to ensure that they amount to significantly
more than the judicial exception itself.” MPEP § 2106.05(I).
Here, we agree with the Examiner that
[a]lthough the additional elements do limit the use of the abstract
idea, this type of limitation merely confines the use of the
abstract idea to a particular technological environment,
“processing system, storage system”, and thus fails to add an
inventive concept to the claims. The elements in combination do
not amount to significantly more because indicating a field of use
or technological environment in which to apply a judicial
exception does not amount to significantly more than the
exception itself. The claim does not recite additional elements
that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Thus, the additional elements of the claim do not amount to
significantly more.
Non-Final Act. 5.
Taking the claimed elements separately, the functions performed by
the “processing system” and “storage system” are purely conventional. See,
e.g., Spec. ¶¶ 41–43. A generic processing device and the storage media
implement “instructions for automatic time blocking for calendar
applications” operate in their ordinary and conventional capacities to
perform the well-understood, routine, and conventional functions of
receiving, inputting, monitoring, and modifying data. See Intellectual
Ventures I LLC, 792 F.3d at 1369–71 (holding that “the entry of data into a
computer database, the breakdown and organization of that entered data
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according to some criteria, . . . and the transmission of information derived
from that entered data to a computer user, all through the use of
conventional computer components, such as a database and processors,
operation in a conventional manner” did not transform a patent-ineligible
process into something more); Elec. Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830
F.3d 1350, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (gathering, sending, monitoring, analyzing,
selecting, and presenting information does not transform the abstract process
into a patent-eligible invention); Content Extraction & Trans. LLC v. Wells
Fargo Bank, Nat’l Ass’n, 776 F.3d 1343, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (collecting
data, recognizing data, and storing recognized data was well-known); SAP
Am., 898 F.3d at 1167–68 (“[S]electing certain information, analyzing it
using mathematical techniques, and reporting or displaying the results of the
analysis” were “basic functions” of a computer.); Alice, 573 U.S. at 226
(“Nearly every computer will include a ‘communications controller’ and
‘data storage unit’ capable of performing the basic calculation, storage, and
transmission functions required by the method claims.”).
Considered as an ordered combination, the elements of independent
claim 1 add nothing that is not already present when the processes are
considered separately. The sequence of receiving information, inputting
information, monitoring/analyzing information, and modifying information
in order to provide an automatic time blocking service for calendar
applications is equally generic and conventional or otherwise held to be
abstract. See Elec. Power, 830 F.3d at 1354–56 (holding that the sequence
of gathering, analyzing, and displaying in real-time was abstract); see also
SAP Am., 898 F.3d at 1170 (holding that selecting information, analyzing it,
and displaying the results of the analysis was abstract).
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Appellant argues that independent claim 1 recites “unconventional
activity that is different from the normal way an electronic calendar
application would be used to automatically block off minimum amounts of
time on a calendar.” Appeal Br. 23. However, claim 1 simply recites the
functional results to be achieved by the processes of independent claim 1. In
this regard, the claim “provides only a result-oriented solution[] with
insufficient detail for how a computer accomplishes it. Our law demands
more.” Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Fin. Corp., 850 F.3d
1332, 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2017). Claim 1’s recitations of computer-
implemented instructions for receiving information, inputting information
(i.e., setting a threshold), monitoring/analyzing information, and modifying
information based on the analysis do not include elements other than the
abstract idea itself to transform it into a patent-eligible invention. See, e.g.,
Spec. ¶¶ 41–43 (describing generic computing elements); see also Smart
Sys. Innovations, LLC v. Chicago Transit Authority, 873 F.3d 1364, 1374–
75 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (storing, receiving, and updating data was a patent-
ineligible abstract idea); ChargePoint, Inc. v. SemaConnect, Inc., 920 F.3d
759, 769–70 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (communicating information and causing an
action based on the communication did not transform the abstract idea into a
patentable invention). Thus, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s
determination that the limitations of claim 1 do not transform the claim into
significantly more than the abstract idea.
We are not persuaded, on the present record, that the Examiner erred
in rejecting independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Therefore, we
sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1, and claims 3, 4, 7,
8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, and 20, which fall with independent claim 1.
Appeal 2021-000177
Application 15/333,168

18

CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 3, 4, 7, 8,
10, 11, 14,
15, 17, 20
101 Eligibility 1, 3, 4, 7, 8,
10, 11, 14,
15, 17, 20

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).

AFFIRMED