Payam Zamani

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jul 21, 2021

2021000363 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 21, 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.
13/037,177 02/28/2011 Payam Zamani 353952-991004 6374
26379 7590 07/21/2021
DLA PIPER LLP (US )
2000 UNIVERSITY AVENUE
EAST PALO ALTO, CA 94303-2248
EXAMINER
DESAI, RESHA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3625
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/21/2021 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):
PatentDocketingUS-PaloAlto@dlapiper.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte PAYAM ZAMANI
____________

Appeal 2021-000363
Application 13/037,177
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before ERIC B. CHEN, MONICA S. ULLAGADDI, and SCOTT E. BAIN,
Administrative Patent Judges.

CHEN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to the auctioning of “leads” (Abstract),
or customer contact and transactional information (Spec. 1:19–22).
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter, with bracketing added:
1. A lead marketplace system, comprising:
[i] a storage system that stores a plurality of leads
wherein each lead is an electronic contact and transactional
information that provides an opportunity to sell a good or
service to a prospective customer;
[ii] a Lead Seller unit that stores one or more selling
campaigns for one or more Lead Sellers, each selling campaign
enabling the association of one or more leads to be sold in the
lead marketplace system;
[iii] a Lead Buyer unit that stores one or more buying
campaigns for one or more Lead Buyers, each buying campaign
including one or more parameters specifying the characteristics
of leads to be bought by the Lead Buyer associated with the
buying campaign, at least one buying campaign further
comprises one of a fixed buying campaign that specifies a price
and budget for buying a lead and a ping campaign including
one or more parameters specifying the characteristics of leads
to be bought by the Lead Buyer associated with the ping buying

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37
C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Planet One
Ops. (Appeal Br. 1.)
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campaign when a lead matches the one or more parameters of
the ping buying campaign so that the Lead Buyer has the ability
to bid on the first lead; and
[iv] a ping campaign server computer that performs a
server to server request for a price that the Lead Buyer is
willing to pay for each lead and provides a notification to the
Lead Buyer that the first lead matches the one or more
parameters of the ping buying campaign wherein the
notification includes one of consumer and transaction
information associated with the first lead and that allows the
Lead Buyer to bid on the first Lead that matches the ping
buying campaign.

REJECTIONS
Claims 1–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to
non-statutory subject matter.

ANALYSIS
We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s arguments (App. Br. 6–8; see also
Reply Br. 6–8) that independent claims 1 and 13 are directed to patent-
eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
The Examiner determined that claims 1 and 13 are “directed to
‘selling information’ (i.e. a lead), which is an abstract idea because it is a
method of organizing human activity” and “a method of organizing human
activity because it is a fundamental economic practice . . . [that] provides an
opportunity for parties to enter into a contractual relationship, and it is a
sales activity between a buyer and a seller.” (Final Act. 4; see also Ans. 5.)
The Examiner further determined that “[c]laims 1 and 13 do not include
additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than
the judicial exception.” (Final Act. 4.) In particular, the Examiner
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determined that “the additional elements individually and in combination
recite well-understood, routine, and conventional activity” because “[t]he
Lead Seller unit/seller campaign table storage unit; and Lead Buyer
unit/buyer campaign table storage unit merely stores data in a generic
fashion” and “the specification demonstrates that performing a server to
server request is considered to be well-understood, routine and conventional
activity because it is described in a high level of generality in a manner that
indicates that a server to server request is sufficiently well-known.” (Id.)
We agree with the Examiner’s findings and ultimate conclusion that the
claims are directed to non-statutory subject matter.
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 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 Supreme Court’s two-step 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)). 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) (“Claims 1 and 4
in petitioners’ application explain the basic concept of hedging, or protecting
against risk.”).
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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 (1854))); 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
Supreme 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 176; 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 Supreme 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. at 191 (citing Benson and Flook); see also, 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 (citation 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. (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.
The PTO published revised guidance on the application of § 101.
USPTO’s 2019 REVISED PATENT SUBJECT MATTER ELIGIBILITY GUIDANCE,
84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019) (“Guidance”); see also USPTO, October
2019 Update: Subject Matter Eligibility, 84 Fed. Reg. 55942 (Oct. 17,
2019). Under that guidance, we first look to whether the claim recites:
(1) any judicial exceptions, including certain groupings of
abstract ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of
organizing human activity such as a fundamental economic
practice, or mental processes); and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into
a practical application (see MPEP § 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h) (9th
ed. 2019)).
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:
(3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that
are not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in the field
(see MPEP § 2106.05(d)); or
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(4) simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional
activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high
level of generality, to the judicial exception.
See Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 56.
Alice Step one: Are the claims at issue
directed to a patent-ineligible concept?
Step One
Claim 1 is a system claim, which falls within the “manufacture”
category of 35 U.S.C. § 101. Claim 13 is a method claim, which falls within
the “process” category of 35 U.S.C. § 101. Therefore, each of claims 1 and
13 fall within one of the four statutory categories of patentable subject
matter identified by 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Although claims 1 and 13 fall within the statutory categories, we must
still determine whether the claims are directed to a judicial exception,
namely an abstract idea. See Alice, 573 U.S. at 216. Thus, we must
determine whether the claims recite a judicial exception and whether the
exception is integrated into a practical application. See Guidance, 84 Fed.
Reg. at 52–55. If a claim recites a judicial exception without integrating the
judicial exception into a practical application, the claim is directed to a
judicial exception under the first step of the Alice/Mayo test. See id.

Step 2A, Prong One
Independent claim 1 recites the following limitations: “[i] . . . a
plurality of leads wherein each lead is an electronic contact and transactional
information that provides an opportunity to sell a good or service to a
prospective customer,” “[ii] . . . selling campaigns for one or more Lead
Sellers, each selling campaign enabling the association of one or more leads
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to be sold,” “[iii] . . . one or more buying campaigns for one or more Lead
Buyers, each buying campaign including one or more parameters specifying
the characteristics of leads to be bought by the Lead Buyer associated with
the buying campaign,” and “[iv] . . . a price that the Lead Buyer is willing to
pay for each lead and provides a notification to the Lead Buyer that the first
lead matches the one or more parameters of the ping buying campaign.”
Such limitations of claim 25 are directed to a patent-ineligible abstract
idea of certain methods of organizing human activity, for example, the
fundamental economic practice of conduction an auction for “leads.” See
Alice, 573 U.S. at 220 (“fundamental economic practice” is an abstract idea).
Moreover, as further evidence that the claims are directed to a fundamental
business practice, in the “Background” section, Appellant’s Specification
states the following:
A Lead consists of contact information and other information
about a transaction that a customer is interested in, collected
from a customer who has requested information about a
possible transaction or has asked to be put in touch with a
Service Provider. Leads are fungible products that are sold to
one or more Service Providers (“Lead Buyers”).
(Spec. 1:19–23.)
In one market for Leads, there may be 100,000 Lead Buyers
spread across the country. If a company that captures, or
“Generates” Leads sets prices for the Leads, either on a per-lead
basis or through a subscription, this pricing will not reflect the
value of each individual Lead to the buyer. The impact of this
disparity between price and value to the buyer results in two
things: 1) Leads that are overpriced that do not sell; and 2)
Leads that are underpriced that sell at less than the optimal
price. So, Lead Generators are faced with a situation where
they generate no revenue from overpriced Leads while not
generating as much money as they could from underpriced
Leads.
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(Spec. 2:2–9.)
Accordingly, claim 1 recites a judicial exception. Claim 13 recites
limitations similar to those discussed with respect to claim 1. Thus, claim 13
also recites a judicial exception.

Step 2A, Prong Two
Because claims 1 and 13 recite a judicial exception, we next
determine if the claims recite additional elements that integrate the judicial
exception into a practical application.
Independent claim 1 recites the following: “[i] a storage system that
stores a plurality of leads wherein each lead is an electronic contact and
transactional information,” “[ii] a Lead Seller unit that stores one or more
selling campaigns for one or more Lead Sellers,” “[iii] a Lead Buyer unit
that stores one or more buying campaigns for one or more Lead Buyers,”
and “[iv] a ping campaign server computer that performs a server to server
request for a price that the Lead Buyer is willing to pay for each lead and
provides a notification to the Lead Buyer that the first lead matches the one
or more parameters of the ping buying campaign” (emphases added).
The recited additional elements, including “storage system,” “Lead
Seller unit,” “Lead Buyer unit,” and “server computer” are merely tools for
performing the recited abstract idea. See Affinity Labs of Tex., LLC v.
DIRECTV, LLC, 838 F.3d 1253, 1262 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“[T]he claims are
directed not to an improvement in cellular telephones but simply to the use
of cellular telephones as tools in the aid of a process focused on an abstract
idea.”).
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Accordingly, claim 1 does not recite additional elements that integrate
the judicial exception into a practical application. Claim 13 recites
limitations similar to those discussed with respect to claim 1. Thus, claim 13
does not recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a
practical application.

Is there something else in the claims
that ensures that they are directed to significantly
more than a patent ineligible concept?
Step 2B
Because claims 1 and 13 are directed to a judicial exception, we next
determine, according to Alice, whether these claims recite an additional
element, or combination of elements, that is enough to ensure that the claim
is directed to significantly more than a judicial exception.
Claim 1 is a system claim, which includes the following additional
elements: “storage system,” “Lead Seller unit,” “Lead Buyer unit,” and
“server computer.” Likewise, method claim 13 recites “seller campaign
table storage unit,” “buyer campaign table storage unit,” “third party buyer
ping computer.”
With respect to the claimed additional elements, Appellant’s
Specification discloses the following:
Each computing device may be a processing unit based device
with sufficient processing power, memory and connectivity to
interact with the LMP system as described below wherein each
computing device may be, for example, a personal computer, a
laptop computer, a smart telephone, a terminal, a mobile phone,
a wireless email device, etc.
(Spec. 4:11–15.)
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The LMP system 20 may further comprise an LMP lead
unit 30, such as one or more server computers that execute
computer code in one implementation, that accepts and stores
new leads, an LMP auction manager 36 such as one or more
server computers that execute computer code in one
implementation, that perform the auctioning process of the
LMP system.
(Spec. 5:5–8 (emphasis added).)
The LMP system 20 may further include one or more
storage units, such as database tables in one implementation of
the system that store data and are accessed by the various units
of the system as described above. The system 20 may thus
comprise a seller lead database 50 that stores third party seller
leads and interacts with the lead unit 30, a seller campaign
table 52 that stores a plurality of Lead Seller campaigns for a
plurality of Lead Sellers in the LMP system.
(Spec. 5:18–22 (emphasis added).)
The LMP system may further comprise a buyer
campaign table 56 that stores a plurality of Lead Buyer
campaigns for a plurality of Lead Buyers in the LMP system.
(Spec. 6:1–2 (emphasis added).)
The generalized functional terms by which the additional elements are
described reasonably indicate that Appellant’s Specification discloses:
(i) conventional “storage system” (e.g., LMP lead unit 30 that accepts and
stores new leads); (ii) conventional “Lead Buyer unit” (e.g., buyer campaign
table 56); (iii) conventional “Lead Seller unit” (e.g., seller campaign table
52); and (iv) conventional “server computer” (e.g., LMP auction manager 36
that performs the auctioning process). Moreover, Appellant’s Specification
provides examples of “each computing device” as a personal computer, a
laptop computer, a smart telephone, a terminal, a mobile phone, or a wireless
email device, which are generic computers. (Spec. 4:9–13.)
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Moreover, Appellant’s Figure 1 illustrates a block diagram of lead
marketplace (LMP) system 20, including LMP lead unit 30 that accepts and
stores new leads, buyer campaign table 56, seller campaign table 52, and
LMP auction manager 36 that performs the auctioning process.
Accordingly, Appellant’s Specification, including Figure 1, discloses that:
(i) LMP lead unit 30; (ii) buyer campaign table 56; (iii) seller campaign table
52; and (iv) LMP auction manager 36 function cooperatively as an ordered
combination.
In view of Appellant’s Specification, the claimed “storage system,”
“Lead Seller unit,” “Lead Buyer unit,” and “server computer” reasonably
may be determined to be generic, purely conventional additional elements.
Thus, claims 1 and 13 do no more than require generic additional
elements to perform generic computer functions, rather than improve
computer capabilities.
First, Appellant argues the following:
Specifically, the examiner has set forth a very broad alleged
abstract idea (selling information) while the claims (and the
claim language) show that the claims are directed to more than
the abstract idea. Specifically, the claim language recites at
least the ping campaign unit that provides a notification to the
Lead Buyer that the first lead matches the one or more
parameters of the ping buying campaign wherein the
notification includes one of consumer and transaction
information associated with the first lead and that allows the
Lead Buyer to bid on the first Lead that matches the ping
buying campaign.
(Appeal Br. 6; see also Reply Br. 6.) However, the Examiner determined
that the claims are directed to “a method of organizing human activity
because it is a fundamental economic practice . . . [that] provides an
opportunity for parties to enter into a contractual relationship, and it is a
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sales activity between a buyer and a seller,” rather than broadly “selling
information,” as argued by Appellant. (Final Act. 4.)
Second, Appellant argues that “the claims are not directed to the
alleged abstract idea of selling information that is a fundamental economic
principle because it provides an opportunity for parties to enter into a
contractual relationship.” (Appeal Br. 6; see also Reply Br. 6.) However,
even if Appellant is correct, the creation of contractual relationship is an
abstract idea. See buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355 (Fed.
Cir. 2014) (creating a suretyship is an abstract idea).
Last, Appellant argues that
The technical field improvement is provided by “a ping
campaign server computer that performs a server to server
request for a price that the Lead Buyer is willing to pay for each
lead and provides a notification to the Lead Buyer that the first
lead matches the one or more parameters of the ping buying
campaign wherein the notification includes one of consumer
and transaction information associated with the first lead and
that allows the Lead Buyer to bid on the first Lead that matches
the ping buying campaign” that improves the lead generation
technical field.
(Appeal Br. 7; see also Reply Br. 7.) Similarly, Appellant argues the
following:
Specifically, this ping campaign unit recites providing a
notification to the Lead Buyer that the first lead matches the
one or more parameters of the ping buying campaign wherein
the notification includes one of consumer and transaction
information associated with the first lead and allowing the Lead
Buyer to bid on the first Lead that matches the ping buying
campaign which is more than generally linking to the particular
technology environment.
(Appeal Br. 7–8; see also Reply Br. 7–8.) However, Appellant has not
adequately explained why the claim “purport[s] to improve the functioning
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of the computer itself” or “any other technology or technical field.” Alice,
573 U.S. at 225. In particular, Appellant has not explained why conducting
an auction for “leads,” which is fundamental economic practice, improves
the function of a computer or other technology.
Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of independent claims 1 and 13
under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Claims 2–12 and 14–20 depend from claims 1 and
13, and Appellant has not presented any additional substantive arguments
with respect to these claims. Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claims 2–
12 and 14–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 101, for the same reasons discussed with
respect to independent claims 1 and 13.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–20 is affirmed.

DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–20 101 Eligibility 1–20

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)(1)(iv). See 37
C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED