Richard Just

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 24, 2019

14132995 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 24, 2019)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
14/132,995 12/18/2013 Richard Just 05793.3302-00000 1037
121629 7590 09/24/2019
Finnegan/Capital One
901 New York Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20001
EXAMINER
DELICH, STEPHANIE ZAGARELLA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3623
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/24/2019 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):
CapOne_USPTO@finnegan.com
regional-desk@finnegan.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte RICHARD JUST
____________

Appeal 2017-0095591
Application 14/132,9952
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before BRUCE T. WIEDER, TARA L. HUTCHINGS, and
ROBERT J. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

HUTCHINGS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1, 4–11, 14–17, 20, and 22–25. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 Our decision references Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed Jan. 5,
2017) and Reply Br. (“Reply Br.,” filed July 5, 2017), and the Examiner’s
Answer (“Ans.,” mailed May 5, 2017) and Final Office Action (“Final Act.,”
mailed July 6, 2016).
2 Appellant identifies Capital One Financial Corporation as the real party in
interest. App. Br. 5.
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CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellant’s claimed invention general relates to “using financial
transaction data and, more particularly, to determining consumer shopping
corridors based on financial transaction data.” Spec. ¶ 2.
Claims 1, 11, and 17 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below with bracketed notations added, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. A system for generating a consumer shopping
corridor comprising:
[(a)] one or more processors; and
[(b)] one or more memory devices storing instructions
that, when executed by the one or more processors, performs
the operations of:
[(c)] periodically receiving financial transaction
information from at least one client device, the financial
transaction information including:
a plurality of financial transactions
performed using a financial service account
associated with a customer, and
location information corresponding to the
plurality of financial transactions and indicating a
geographic location of the customer for each of the
plurality of financial transactions when each of the
plurality of financial transactions occurred;
[(d)] grouping the financial transactions into a
plurality of clusters based on the geographic locations by
determining a geographic area that includes a number of
financial transactions exceeding a threshold number of
financial transactions;
[(e)] generating a shopping corridor associated
with the customer and the periodically received financial
transaction information based on at least the plurality of
clusters, including:
[(f)] determining, based at least on time and
date information corresponding to the plurality of
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financial transactions, a pathway connecting the
plurality of clusters; and
[(g)] generating a map of the pathway; and
[(h)] providing a financial service using the map.

App. Br. 47–48 (Claims Appendix).

REJECTION3
Claims 1, 4–11, 14–17, 20, and 22–25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 101 as judicially excepted from statutory subject matter.

ANALYSIS
Appellant argues independent claims 1, 11, and 17 together. App.
Br. 5–20. We select claim 1 as representative. Claims 11 and 17 stand or
fall with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. §41.37(c)(1)(iv).
Under 35 U.S.C. § 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. The Supreme Court, however, has long interpreted § 101
to include an implicit exception: “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and
abstract ideas” are not patentable. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S.
208, 216 (2014).
The Supreme Court, in Alice, reiterated the two-step framework
previously set forth in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus
Laboratories, Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012), “for distinguishing patents that claim
laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those that claim
patent-eligible applications of those concepts.” Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 217.

3 The Examiner has withdrawn the rejection of claims 1, 11, 17, and 24
under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a). Ans. 2.
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The first step in that analysis is to “determine whether the claims at issue are
directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts.” Id. If the claims are not
directed to a patent-ineligible concept, e.g., an abstract idea, the inquiry
ends. Otherwise, the inquiry proceeds to the second step where the elements
of the claims are considered “individually and ‘as an ordered combination’”
to determine whether there are additional elements that “‘transform the
nature of the claim’ into a patent-eligible application.” Id. (quoting Mayo,
566 U.S. at 79, 78). This is “a search for an ‘inventive concept’ — i.e., an
element or combination of elements that is ‘sufficient to ensure that the
patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the
[ineligible concept] itself.’” Id. at 217–18 (alteration in original).
The Court acknowledged in Mayo, that “all inventions at some level
embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of nature, natural phenomena,
or abstract ideas.” Mayo, 566 U.S. at 71. Therefore, the Federal Circuit has
instructed that claims are to be considered in their entirety to determine
“whether their character as a whole is directed to excluded subject matter.”
McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am., Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1312
(Fed. Cir. 2016) (quoting Internet Patents Corp. v. Active Network, Inc.,
790 F.3d 1343, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015)).
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) published
revised guidance on January 7, 2019 for use by USPTO personnel in
evaluating subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. That guidance
“extracts and synthesizes key concepts identified by the courts as abstract
ideas to explain that the abstract idea exception includes” the following three
groupings: (1) mathematical concepts; (2) certain methods of organizing
human activity, e.g., fundamental economic principles or practices,
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commercial or legal interactions; and (3) mental processes. 2019 REVISED
PATENT SUBJECT MATTER ELIGIBILITY GUIDANCE, 84 Fed. Reg. 50, 52
(Jan. 7, 2019) (the “2019 Revised Guidance”).4
Under the 2019 Revised Guidance, in determining whether a claim is
patent-eligible, we first look to whether the claim recites a judicial
exception, including one of the enumerated groupings of abstract ideas
(“Step 2A, Prong One”). Id. at 54. If so, we next consider whether the
claim includes additional elements, beyond the judicial exception, “that
integrate the [judicial] exception into a practical application,” i.e., 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 drafting effort
designed to monopolize the judicial exception. (“Step 2A, Prong Two”). Id.
at 54–55.
Only if the 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 “[a]dds a specific limitation or combination of
limitations” that is not “well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the
field” or simply “appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities
previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to
the judicial exception” (“Step 2B”). Id. at 56.
With the legal principles outlined above, and the 2019 Revised
Guidance in mind, we turn to the Examiner’s § 101 rejection. In rejecting
the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the Examiner notified Appellant

4 The Revised Guidance, by its terms, applies to all applications, and to all
patents resulting from applications, filed before, on, or after January 7, 2019.
84 Fed. Reg. 50.
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that the claims are directed to “generat[ing] a shopping corridor by receiving
data, grouping transaction data into clusters, identifying a central location
for each cluster, generating a corridor, determining a pathway, generating a
map and providing a service,” which the Examiner concluded is similar to
other concepts that the courts have held abstract, such as a mathematical
relationship. Final Act. 11–12. The Examiner also determined that the
claims do not include additional elements or a combination of elements
sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Id. at
12–13. Specifically, the Examiner determined that the additional elements
are generically-recited computer elements (e.g., processor, memory device),
that supply and store data, and execute instructions, which are well-
understood, routine, and conventional activities. Id.
The Examiner, in our view, set forth the statutory basis of the
rejection in a sufficiently articulate and informative manner as to meet the
notice requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 132. And we find that, in doing so, the
Examiner established a prima facie case of patent-ineligibility. See In re
Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (holding that the USPTO carries
its procedural burden of establishing a prima facie case when its rejection
satisfies the notice requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 132 by notifying the
applicant of the reasons for the rejection, “together with such information
and references as may be useful in judging the propriety of continuing []
prosecution”). Appellant’s arguments to the contrary are unpersuasive. See
App. Br. 13–14, 23–25, 35–39; see also Reply Br. 6–13, 17–18.
Step One of the Mayo/Alice Framework
We are not persuaded here by Appellant’s arguments that the
Examiner erred in determining that claim 1 directed to an abstract idea.
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App. Br. 11–33; see also Reply Br. 7–17, 19–23. The Federal Circuit has
explained that “the ‘directed to’ inquiry applies a stage-one filter to claims,
considered in light of the [S]pecification, 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., 790 F.3d at 1346). Here, the Specification, including the claim
language, makes clear that the claims focus on an abstract idea, and not on
any improvement to computer technology and/or functionality. The
Specification is entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR
DETERMINING CONSUMER SHOPPING CORRIDORS.” The
Specification describes, in the Background section, that “[c]urrent
technology provides financial service providers with an abundance of
information associated with transactions made by their customers.” Spec.
¶ 3. The customer’s financial service provider typically receives transaction
data describing the transaction each time the customer conducts a
transaction, such as a purchase at a retail merchant. Id. The transaction data
is compiled and provided to the customer through bank statements and
transaction histories. Id. However, storing and providing access to the
customer and/or financial service provider “remains tedious and inefficient.”
Id. ¶ 4. “[A] need exists for transaction data to be processed in a way that
allows customers and financial service providers to view and use transaction
data in a more convenient manner.” Id. The invention, according to
Appellant’s Specification “determine[s] where and when a customer makes
regular purchases from one or more merchant or otherwise performs
financial transactions using one or more financial service accounts provided
by a financial service provider.” Id. ¶ 18. In particular, a shopping corridor
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(or virtual map) organizes the customer’s financial transactions based on a
location and time associated with each transaction. Id. ¶ 33. This
organization enables the shopping corridor to indicate the geographic
locations in which a customer has made transactions and the pathways taken
by the customer that connect the geographic locations. Id. ¶ 44. The
geographic locations and pathways both indicate locations where future
transactions may be made. Id. The financial service provider uses the
shopping corridor to generate targeted advertisements or to prevent fraud.
Id.
Consistent with this disclosure, claim 1 recites a system for generating
a consumer shopping corridor that performs the operations comprising:
[(c)] periodically receiving financial transaction
information . . . , the financial transaction information
including:
a plurality of financial transactions
performed using a financial service account
associated with a customer, and
location information corresponding to the
plurality of financial transactions and indicating a
geographic location of the customer for each of the
plurality of financial transactions when each of the
plurality of financial transactions occurred;
[(d)] grouping the financial transactions into a
plurality of clusters based on the geographic locations by
determining a geographic area that includes a number of
financial transactions exceeding a threshold number of
financial transactions;
[(e)] generating a shopping corridor associated
with the customer and the periodically received financial
transaction information based on at least the plurality of
clusters, including:
[(f)] determining, based at least on time and
date information corresponding to the plurality of
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financial transactions, a pathway connecting the
plurality of clusters; and
[(g)] generating a map of the pathway; and
[(h)] providing a financial service using the map.
These limitations, when given their broadest reasonable interpretation, recite
collecting and processing data for use in providing a financial service, i.e., a
commercial interaction, which is a certain method of organizing human
activity, and, therefore, an abstract idea. See 2019 Revised Guidance 52.
The Federal Circuit has held similar concepts, such as tailoring information
presented to a user and targeting advertisements to certain customers, to be
abstract. See, e.g., Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA),
792 F.3d 1363, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (tailoring information presented to a
user based on particular information); Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v.
Amazon.com, Inc., 838 F.3d 1266, 1271 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (customizing a user
interface to have targeted advertising based on user information); Morsa v.
Facebook, Inc., 77 F. Supp. 3d 1007, 1013 (C.D. Cal. 2014) (concluding that
targeting advertisements to certain consumers is no more than an abstract
idea), aff’d, 622 F. App’x 915 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
Having concluded that claim 1 recites a judicial exception (Step 2A,
Prong 1), i.e., an abstract idea, we next consider whether the claim recites
additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical
application (step 2A, Prong 2). Here, the additional elements recited in
claim 1, beyond the abstract idea, include the claimed “one or more
processors” (limitation (a)), “one or more memory devices storing
instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, performs the
operations of [limitations (c)–(h)]” (limitation (b)), and “at least one client
device” (element (c)). These elements are described in the Specification at a
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high level of generality, i.e., as an assembly of generic computer
components. See, e.g., Spec. ¶¶ 21, 27, 28.
We find no indication in the Specification, nor does Appellant direct
us to any indication, that the operations recited in claim 1 require any
specialized computer hardware or other inventive computer components,
i.e., a particular machine, invoke any assertedly 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., 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.”).
We also find no indication in the Specification that the claimed
invention effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a
different state or thing. Nor do we find anything of record, short of attorney
argument, that attributes an improvement in technology and/or a technical
field to the claimed invention or that otherwise indicates that the claimed
invention integrates the abstract idea into a “practical application,” as that
phrase is used in the 2019 Revised Guidance.5
Appellant argues that claim 1 is patent-eligible because claim 1
allegedly avoids preemption. See App. Br. 16–18, 22–23. Appellant’s
argument is unpersuasive of Examiner error. Although preemption is the

5 The 2019 Revised Guidance references MPEP § 2106.05(a)–(c) and (e) in
describing the considerations that are indicative that an additional element or
combination of elements integrates the judicial exception, e.g., the abstract
idea, into a practical application. Id. at 55. If the recited judicial exception
is integrated into a practical application, as determined under one or more of
these MPEP sections, the claim is not “directed to” the judicial exception.
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concern that drives the exclusion of abstract ideas from patent eligible
subject matter (see Alice, 573 U.S. at 216), it is not a separate test for patent
eligibility. Instead, the proper test for determining whether a claim recites
patent eligible subject matter is to apply the two-step framework that the
Supreme Court delineated in Alice and Mayo. “Where a patent’s claims are
deemed only to disclose patent ineligible subject matter under the Mayo
framework . . . , preemption concerns are fully addressed and made moot.”
Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371, 1379 (Fed. Cir.
2015). “[P]reemption may signal patent ineligible subject matter, [but] the
absence of complete preemption does not demonstrate patent eligibility.” Id.
Appellant argues that, similar to the claims in McRO, Inc. v. Bandai
Namco Games America, Inc., 837 F.3d 1299 (Fed. Cir. 2016), claim 1
focuses on “specific steps” instead of a result (App. Br. 27), and uses a
process with “no conventional equivalent” (id. at 30). However, contrary to
Appellant’s suggestion, the claims at issue in McRO were not deemed
patent-eligible on account of their specificity or non-conventionality.
Instead, the Federal Circuit premised its determination that the claimed
invention was patent-eligible because it was directed to a “technological
improvement over the existing, manual 3-D animation techniques” through
the use of “limited rules in a process specifically designed to achieve an
improved technological result in conventional industry practice.” McRO,
837 F.3d at 1316. In McRO, an improvement in computer animation was
realized using rules to define an output morph weight set stream as a
function of phoneme sequence and time of said phoneme sequence,
obviating the need of human animators to make visual and subjective
determinations for the morph weight sets. Id. at 1306, 1313.
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Here, Appellant asserts that claim 1’s limitations (d) and (e) are
similar to “the ‘rules with certain common characteristics’ of McRO.” App.
Br. 30 (citing McRO, 837 F.3d at 1314). Yet, limitation (d) of claim 1
recites “grouping the financial transactions into a plurality of clusters based
on the geographic locations by determining a geographic area that includes a
number of financial transactions exceeding a threshold number of financial
transactions” and limitation (e) recites “generating a shopping corridor
associated with the customer and the periodically received financial
transaction information based on at least the plurality of clusters.” These
limitations (e.g., grouping financial transactions, generating a shopping
corridor) focus on the abstract idea itself, and do not recite additional
elements indicative of an improvement to technology.
For example, the limitations recite desired functionality (e.g., generate
a shopping corridor, group the financial transactions into a plurality of
clusters based on the geographic locations) without specifying any particular
technique for accomplishing the desired result. See Two-Way Media Ltd. v.
Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, 874 F.3d 1329, 1337 (2017) (holding
that a claim that recites the functional results of converting, routing,
controlling, monitoring and accumulating records, without sufficiently
describing how to achieve this result, is directed to an abstract idea).
Appellant cites the Specification at paragraph 46 and Figure 4, reference 420
as describing limitation (d), and paragraphs 33, 45, and 48, and Figures 3,
reference 340 and Figure 4, reference 440 as describing limitation (e). App.
Br. 7–8. But these portions of the Specification also fail to provide any
technological details for how to achieve the desired results. See Intellectual
Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Fin. Corp., 850 F.3d 1332, 1342 (Fed. Cir.
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2017) (explaining that “[o]ur law demands more” than claim language that
“provides only a result-oriented solution, with insufficient detail for how a
computer accomplishes it”).
Similarly, Figure 4 of Appellant’s Specification shows an exemplary
process for determining a shopping corridor. Spec. ¶ 45. After receiving
geo-coded transaction data for multiple transactions and for multiple
customers, a server at step 410 of the process shown in Figure 4 identifies
geo-coded transactions associated with the same customer. Id. ¶ 45, Fig. 4.
The server identifies each transaction associated with a particular account or
associated with a specific customer relating to a financial service account.
Id. Next, at step 420 of the process shown in Figure 4, the server groups the
geo-coded transactions using “a preferred clustering algorithm.” Id. ¶ 46.
The Specification does not provide details regarding the preferred clustering
algorithm. Instead, the Specification provides that the financial transactions
are clustered for a particular geographic region, such as a mile radius around
a customer’s home address, a half-mile radius around a customer’s place of
work, or a retailer location (e.g., a shopping mall, shopping plaza, or
merchant location). Id.
At step 440 of the process shown in Figure 4, the server maps one or
more pathways between each cluster, using the geo-coded transaction data to
identify movement among clusters. Id. ¶ 48. In this way, the shopping
corridor identifies the geographic locations in which customers commonly
make transactions, and the pathways through the identified locations.
Id. ¶ 33. The cited portions of the Specification describe a desired result
(i.e., generating a shopping corridor based on at least the plurality of
clusters), but do not describe a manner for accomplishing this goal that
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improves technology. We do not find, and Appellant does not identify, any
specific rules with specific characteristics that improve computer animation
techniques or some other technology analogous to the situation in McRO.
Considered in light of the Specification, Appellant’s claim 1 appears
to be focused on improving an abstract idea (i.e., a commercial interaction)
by generating and using a map to provide a financial service, not on any
improvement to computer functionality or technology. At best, the
additional elements in claim 1 recite generic computer components used in
their ordinary capacity to implement the abstract idea.
We find no indication in the record that attributes the additional
elements recited in claim 1 to an improvement in the functioning of a
computer or an improvement to other technology, to implementing the
abstract idea with a particular machine that is integral to the claim, that
effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state
or thing, that applies the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond
using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, or that otherwise
indicates that the claimed invention integrates the abstract idea into a
“practical application,” as that phrase is used in the 2019 Revised Guidance.
Inventive Concept: Step Two of the Mayo/Alice Framework; Step 2B of the
2019 Revised Guidance
Having determined under Step 2A that claim 1 is directed to an
abstract idea, we next consider under Step 2B, the second step of the
Mayo/Alice framework, whether claim 1 adds specific limitations beyond the
judicial exception that are not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in
the field, or simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities
previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to
the judicial exception.
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As described above, the only claim elements beyond the abstract idea
are the claimed generic computing components used to perform the recited
steps. Appellant cannot reasonably maintain, nor do they, that there is a
genuine issue of material fact regarding whether operation of any of these
components is well-understood, routine, or conventional, where, as here,
there is nothing in the Specification to indicate that the operations 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, grouping, and generating information.
Appellant argues that claim 1 recites significantly more than the
abstract idea because it “improves the performance of the system itself by
allowing customers and financial service providers to view and use
transaction data without tedious and inefficient repeated access to bank
statements and transaction histories.” App. Br. 40 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 3–4).
However, we are not persuaded that allowing customers to view and use
transaction data more efficiently and with less tedium reflects an
improvement in the functioning of a computer or an improvement to another
technology or field, instead of an improvement to the abstract idea itself.
We also are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that claim 1
recites and inventive concept because the prior art fails to teach or suggest
multiple elements of the claims, including limitations (c) and (d). Neither a
finding of novelty nor a non-obviousness determination automatically leads
to the conclusion that the claimed subject matter is patent-eligible. Although
the second step in the Mayo/Alice framework is termed a search for an
“inventive concept,” the analysis is not an evaluation of novelty or non-
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obviousness, but rather, a search for “an element or combination of elements
that is ‘sufficient to ensure that the patent in practice amounts to
significantly more than a patent upon the [ineligible concept] itself.’”
Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 217–18 (citation omitted). “Groundbreaking,
innovative, or even brilliant discovery does not by itself satisfy the § 101
inquiry.” Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S.
576, 591 (2013). A novel and non-obvious claim directed to a purely
abstract idea is, nonetheless, patent-ineligible. See Mayo, 566 U.S. at 90;
see also Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 188–89 (1981) (“The ‘novelty’ of
any element or steps in a process, or even of the process itself, is of no
relevance in determining whether the subject matter of a claim falls within
the § 101 categories of possibly patentable subject matter.”).
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 claim 1, and claims 11 and 17, which fall
with claim 1.
Dependent Claims 4–10, 14–16, 20, and 22–25
We decline Appellant’s invitation to find error in the Examiner’s
decision not to address the patent-eligibility of each of the dependent claims
separately. See App. Br. 43–46. There is no dispute that Examiners are
instructed to evaluate the patent-eligibility of each claim individually. But,
in this case, consideration of each claim individually does not require a
separate written analysis for each individual claim. Moreover, we agree
with the Examiner that the pending claims are all directed to the same
abstract idea, albeit at differing levels of specificity. Cf. Content Extraction
& Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 776 F.3d 1343, 1348 (Fed.
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Cir. 2014) (explaining that when all claims are directed to the same abstract
idea, “addressing each claim of the asserted patents [is] unnecessary.”).
Appellant additionally argues that claim 9 is not directed to an
abstract idea because it, like the claims in McRO, focuses on “specific means
or methods that improves “the relevant technology.” App. Br. 44. We find
these arguments unpersuasive for the same reasons discussed above with
respect to claim 1. Claim 9 recites that determining outlier purchases
includes “normalizing each of the transactions based on a corresponding
central geographic location;” and “determining outlier purchases based on
the normalized financial transactions.” However, each of these limitations is
recited as a result-based functional limitation without specifying any
particular manner for normalizing or determining outlier purchases that
improves the relevant technology. Likewise, the Specification describes at
paragraph 51 that the server “may normalize the transactions” and “use the
normalized transactions to determine outliers.” Paragraph 51 further
provides examples of outlier purchases. But it does provide any technical
details describing how to accomplish the claimed normalization or how to
use the normalized transactions. We are not persuaded that claim 9 provides
a technological improvement as opposed to merely narrowing the abstract
idea.
Appellant additionally argues that claim 9 recites significantly more
than the abstract idea. In this regard, Appellant asserts that the steps add
unconventional steps that confine the claim to a particular useful application.
App. Br. 44. Yet, the steps of normalizing the transactions and determining
outlier purchases are part of the abstract idea itself and, thus, cannot be an
inventive concept under step two of the Mayo/Alice test:
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It is clear from Mayo that the “inventive concept” cannot be the
abstract idea itself, and Berkheimer [v. HP, Inc., 881 F.3d 1360
(Fed. Cir. 2018)] . . . 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 v. HP Inc., 890 F.3d 1369, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (Moore, J.,
concurring in denial of petition for rehearing en banc). Moreover, as
described above, claim 9 does not recite any unconventional manner for
normalizing or determining that indicates an inventive concept that amounts
to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Claim 10 recites that “location information includes latitude and
longitude information corresponding to each of the plurality of financial
transactions.” Appellant provides the same additional arguments with
respect to claim 10 as provided with respect to claim 9. However, claim 10
further merely limits the content of the claimed location information. Yet,
information is itself abstract and further limiting the content of limitation
does not make claim 10 other than abstract. See, e.g., SAP Am. In. v.
InvestPic LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1168 (Fed. Cir. 2018) “even if a process of
collecting and analyzing information is ‘limited to particular content’ or a
particular ‘source,’ that limitation does not make the collection and analysis
other than abstract.”
We are not persuaded, on this record, that the Examiner erred in
rejecting dependent claims 4–10, 14–16, 20, and 22–25 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 101. Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of the dependent
claims.

Appeal 2017-009559
Application 14/132,995

19
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 4–11, 14–17, 20, and 22–25
under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED