Sachit Kamat

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 16, 2020

14586598 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Mar. 16, 2020)

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.
14/586,598 12/30/2014 Sachit Kamat 3080.B89US1 1096
45839 7590 03/16/2020
Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner / LinkedIn/Microsoft
PO BOX 2938
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402
EXAMINER
GLENNIE, DEBRA L
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3689
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/16/2020 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
USPTO@slwip.com
slw@blackhillsip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte SACHIT KAMAT
____________

Appeal 2018-006887
Application 14/586,598
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
AMEE A. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judges.

MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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

1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42. Our decision references Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.,”
filed April 12, 2018) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed June 25, 2018), and
the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed June 13, 2018), and Final Office
Action (“Final Act.,” mailed January 12, 2018). Appellant identifies
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC as the real party in interest (Appeal
Br. 2).
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CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellant’s claimed invention “generally relates to data processing
systems for hosting job postings” (Spec. ¶ 2).
Claims 1, 8, and 15 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 15,
reproduced below with bracketed notations added, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
15. A method comprising:
[(a)] receiving, via a job posting user interface, a job
profile for each of a plurality of job postings to an online social
network; and
for each job profile:
[(b)] based on determining that the job profile is
for an unpaid job posting to the online social network,
wherein the unpaid job posting was retrieved by a web
crawler, presenting the unpaid job posting to users of the
online social network only via a job search user interface;
and
[(c)] based on determining that the job profile is
for a paid job posting to the online social network,
presenting the paid job posting to users of the online social
network via the job search user interface and via at least
one other communication channel of the online social
network;
[(d)] wherein the paid job posting is a job posting
for which an entity, who is associated with the job profile,
paid a fee to the online social network; and
[(e)] wherein the unpaid job posting is a job
posting for which the entity, who is associated with the job
profile, has not paid a fee to the online social network.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to a
judicial exception without significantly more.
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Claims 1–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Ellis et al. (US 2011/0196802 A1, published Aug. 11, 2011) (“Ellis”)
and Wong (US 2008/0189123 A1, published Aug. 7, 2008).
ANALYSIS
Patent Ineligible Subject Matter
Appellant argues the pending claims as a group (Appeal Br. 9–12).
We select independent claim 15 as representative. The remaining claims
stand or fall with claim 15. 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.
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,
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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).
In rejecting the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the Examiner
determined that independent claims 1, 8, and 15 are directed to a “job
posting service, specifically, managing job posting profiles and presenting
the profiles to users of a social network and via other communications
depending on whether or not the job posting is . . . a paid or not-paid job
posting,” i.e., to an abstract idea similar to other concepts that the courts
have held abstract (Final Act. 4–9). The Examiner also determined that
these claims do not include additional elements sufficient to amount to
significantly more than the abstract idea itself (id. at 9–25). The Examiner
determined that dependent claims 2–7, 8–14, and 16–20 also are patent
ineligible because they merely add further details of the abstract
steps/elements recited in the independent claims, without providing an
improvement to another technology or technical field, an improvement to the
functioning of the computer itself, or meaningful limitations beyond
generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological
environment (id. at 25–28).
After Appellant’s briefs were filed and the Examiner’s Answer
mailed, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) published
revised guidance for use by USPTO personnel in evaluating subject matter
eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. 2019 REVISED PATENT SUBJECT MATTER
ELIGIBILITY GUIDANCE, 84 Fed. Reg. 50, 57 (Jan. 7, 2019) (the “2019
Revised Guidance”). That guidance revised the USPTO’s examination
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procedure with respect to the first step of the Mayo/Alice framework by
(1) “[p]roviding groupings of subject matter that [are] considered an abstract
idea”; and (2) clarifying that a claim is not “directed to” a judicial exception
if the judicial exception is integrated into a practical application of that
exception. Id. at 50. The 2019 Revised Guidance, by its terms, applies to all
applications, and to all patents resulting from applications, filed before, on,
or after January 7, 2019. Id.2
Step One of the Mayo/Alice Framework (2019 Revised Guidance, Step 2A)
The first step in the Mayo/Alice framework, as mentioned above, is to
determine whether the claims at issue are “directed to” a patent-ineligible
concept, e.g., an abstract idea. Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 217. This first step,
as set forth in the 2019 Revised Guidance (i.e., Step 2A), is a two-prong test;
in Step 2A, Prong One, we look to whether the claim recites a judicial
exception, e.g., one of the following three groupings of abstract ideas:
(1) mathematical concepts; (2) certain methods of organizing human
activity, e.g., fundamental economic principles or practices, commercial or
legal interactions; and (3) mental processes. 2019 Revised Guidance,
84 Fed. Reg. 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., that 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

2 The USPTO issued an update on October 17, 2019 (the “October 2019
Update: Subject Matter Eligibility,” available at https://www.uspto.gov/sites/
default/files/documents/peg_oct_2019_update.pdf) clarifying the
2019 Revised Guidance in response to comments solicited from the public.
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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 conclude that the claim is
“directed to” the judicial exception, e.g., an abstract idea. Id.
We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in determining that
claim 15 is directed to an 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 claims 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 id. at 1335–36. Here, it is clear from the
Specification (including the claim language) that claim 15 focuses on an
abstract idea, and not on any improvement to technology and/or a technical
field.
The Specification is titled “JOB HOSTING SERVICE FOR PAID
AND UNPAID JOB POSTINGS,” and describes, in the Background section,
that, with a typical job hosting service, a company will post a job listing to
the job hosting service so that users of the service may search for, browse,
and in some cases, apply for the job associated with the job listing (Spec.
¶ 3). The company typically pays a fee to the job hosting service in
exchange for making the job listing available to its users, with some job
hosting services providing, at different price points, different benefits in
terms of how the job listing is handled, e.g., the amount of the fee may be
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tied to the length of time that the job listing is active on the job hosting
service (id.).
The present disclosure describes a job hosting service, which hosts
both paid and unpaid job listings, i.e., job listings generated through a job
posting module for which a fee is paid, and unpaid job listings obtained from
a third party site, e.g., via a web crawler (id. ¶¶ 14, 15). The paid job
postings are eligible for presentation, via a job search interface, to members
of a social networking service with which the job hosting service is
integrated, and also presented to these members through various other
channels, e.g., a recommendation engine may compare user profiles with job
postings and present a member of the social networking service with job
postings that may be of interest to the user, based on the user’s profile data
(id. ¶¶ 14, 16). The unpaid job postings, on the other hand, are only eligible
for presentation to members of the social networking service through the job
search interface; therefore, these unpaid postings typically will be only
presented to members who are active job seekers (id. ¶ 16).
Consistent with this disclosure, claim 15 recites a computer-
implemented method comprising: “receiving, via a job posting user
interface, a job profile for each of a plurality of job postings to an online
social network, and for each job profile” (limitation (a)): (1) determining
whether the job profile is for an unpaid job posting — a posting for which
the entity associated with the posting has not paid a fee — and, if so,
presenting the posting to users of the social network only via a job search
user interface, i.e.,
based on determining that the job profile is for an
unpaid job posting to the online social network, wherein
the unpaid job posting was retrieved by a web crawler,
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presenting the unpaid job posting to users of the online
social network only via a job search user interface;
wherein the unpaid job posting is a job posting for
which the entity, who is associated with the job profile,
has not paid a fee to the online social network
(limitations (b) and (e)); and (2) determining whether the job profile is for
paid job posting — a posting for which the entity associated with the posting
has paid a fee — and, if so, presenting the posting to users of the social
network via both the job search user interface and at least one other
communication channel of the social network, i.e.,
based on determining that the job profile is for a
paid job posting to the online social network, presenting
the paid job posting to users of the online social network
via the job search user interface and via at least one other
communication channel of the online social network;
wherein the paid job posting is a job posting for
which an entity, who is associated with the job profile,
paid a fee to the online social network
(limitations (c) and (d)). These limitations, when given their broadest
reasonable interpretation, recite displaying job listings to members of an
online social network, i.e., advertising job openings, which is a method of
organizing human activity and, therefore, an abstract idea. See
2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52.
Having concluded that claim 15 recites a judicial exception, i.e., an
abstract idea (Step 2A, Prong One), we next consider whether the claim
recites additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a
practical application (Step 2A, Prong Two).
The only additional elements recited in claim 15, beyond the abstract
idea, are a “computer hardware memory device”; a “machine, including at
least one processor”; an “online social network”; a “job posting user
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interface”; a “web crawler”; and a “communication channel” — elements
that, as the Examiner observed, are described as generic computer
components (see, e.g., Final Act. 16–17 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 18, 19, 26–28, 31,
39, 68, 69, 73)); see also Spec. ¶¶ 74–81). We find no indication in the
Specification that the operations recited in claim 15 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 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.3

3 The 2019 Revised Guidance references MANUAL OF PATENT EXAMINING
PROCEDURE (“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. 2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 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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Appellant attempts to draw an analogy between the present claims and
the patent eligible claims at issue in DDR Holdings (Appeal Br. 9–11). But,
we can find no parallel between the present claims and those in DDR
Holdings.
There, the claims were directed to retaining website visitors, and in
particular to a system that modified the conventional web browsing
experience by directing a user of a host website, who clicks an
advertisement, to a “store within a store” on the host website, rather than to
the advertiser’s third-party website. DDR Holdings, 773 F.3d at 1257–1258.
The court determined that “the claims address a business challenge
(retaining website visitors) [that] is a challenge particular to the Internet.”
Id. at 1257. The court also determined that the invention was “necessarily
rooted in computer technology in order to overcome a problem specifically
arising in the realm of computer networks,” and that the claimed invention
did not simply use computers to serve a conventional business purpose. Id.
Rather, there was a change to the routine, conventional functioning of
Internet hyperlink protocol. Id.
Appellant asserts here that, in a manner “very similar” to that in DDR
Holdings, it “realized that a problem existed for online job posting sites”
(i.e., web crawlers could bring in job listings from third parties who did not
pay a fee to the job posting site, and these non-paid job listings would be
treated the same as paid job listings), and that its claimed invention “solves
this Internet-based problem by” presenting unpaid job posting to users of the
online social network only via a job search user interface while presenting
paid job postings to users of the social network via the job search user
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interface and via at least one other communication channel of the online
social network (id.).
Appellant maintains that the present claims are, thus, patent eligible
because the claims, like those in DDR Holdings, solve a challenge particular
to the Internet. Yet, unlike the situation in DDR Holdings, there is no
indication here that the claimed computer components are used other than in
their normal, expected, and routine manner for receiving, processing, and
displaying information. DDR Holdings, 773 F.3d at 1256.
The court also expressly cautioned in DDR Holdings that “not all
claims purporting to address Internet-centric challenges are eligible for
patent.” Id. at 1258. Thus, in Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709
(Fed. Cir. 2014), although the patentee argued that its claims were “directed
to a specific method of advertising and content distribution that was
previously unknown and never employed on the Internet before,”
Ultramercial, 772 F.3d at 714, the court found that this alone could not
render the claims patent eligible where the claims merely recited the abstract
idea of “offering media content in exchange for viewing an advertisement,”
along with “routine additional steps such as updating an activity log,
requiring a request from the consumer to view the ad, restrictions on public
access, and use of the Internet.” Id. at 715–716.
Similarly here, we find that the invocation of an online social network
is not sufficient to transform Appellant’s otherwise patent-ineligible abstract
idea into patent-eligible subject matter. We find, as did the Examiner, that
the claims are directed to the abstract idea of posting job listings. Narrowing
that abstract idea to posting listings online for presentation to users of an
online social network merely limits the use of the abstract idea to a particular
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technological environment, which the Court made clear in Alice is
insufficient to transform an otherwise patent-ineligible abstract idea into
patent-eligible subject matter. See Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 222.
Responding to the Examiner’s Answer, Appellant asserts in the Reply
Brief that Trading Technologies International v. CQG Inc., 675 F. App’x
1001 (Fed. Cir. 2017), like DDR Holdings, supports the subject matter
eligibility of Appellant’s claims (Reply Br. 1).4 We disagree.
In Trading Technologies, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district
court’s holding that the patented claims (which recited a method and system
for displaying market information on a graphical user interface) were not
directed to an abstract idea because the district court found, and the Federal
Circuit agreed, that the challenged patents did not simply claim displaying
information on a graphical user interface; instead, the claims required “a
specific, structured graphical user interface paired with a prescribed
functionality directly related to the graphical user interface’s structure that is
addressed to and resolves a specifically identified problem in the prior state
of the art.” Id. at 1004.5 The Federal Circuit, thus, found that the district

4 This argument appears on the page following the title page, which
Appellant has designated “Page 1.”
5 Specifically, the district court found that with prior art GUIs, the best bid
and best ask prices changed based on updates received from the market;
therefore, there was a risk with these GUIs that a trader would miss her
intended price as a result of prices changing from under her pointer at the
time she clicked on the price cell on the GUI. The patents-in-suit provided a
system and method whereby traders could place orders at a particular,
identified price level, not necessarily the highest bid or the lowest ask price
by keeping the prices static in position, and allowing the quantities at each
price to change. Trading Techs. Int’l, Inc. v. CQG, Inc., No. 05-cv-4811,
2015 WL 774655 *4 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 24, 2015).
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court’s ruling was in accord with precedent that has recognized that “specific
technologic modifications to solve a problem or improve the functioning of a
known system generally produce patent-eligible subject matter.” Id.
at 1004–05.
Appellant asserts here that “displaying unpaid job postings only in a
job search user interface, but displaying paid job postings in both the job
search user interface and in another communication channel” is “analogous
to the display of bid and ask prices in distinct manners as in Trading
Technologies” (Reply Br. 1). But, Appellant does not identify any problem
with prior user interfaces, as in Trading Technologies, that the claimed
invention was specifically designed to resolve.
Claim 15, in our view, is like the claims that the courts in Trading
Technologies distinguished as patent ineligible. Rather than solving a
technological problem, claim 15 simply calls for displaying certain
information in a user interface. See Trading Techs., 2015 WL 774655, at *4
(“If the claims simply provided for ‘setting, displaying, and selecting’ data
information, CQG would be correct in its assessment that the claims are
directed to an abstract idea”); Trading Techs., 675 F. App’x at 1005
(“ineligible claims generally lack steps or limitations specific to a solution of
a problem, or improvement in the functioning of technology”).
We conclude, for the reasons outlined above, that claim 15 recites a
method of organizing human activity, i.e., an abstract idea, and that the
additional elements recited in the claim are no more than generic computer
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
Corp., 573 U.S. at 223–24 (“[W]holly generic computer implementation is
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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, we agree with the Examiner that claim 15 is directed to an
abstract idea.
Step Two of the Mayo/Alice Framework (2019 Revised Guidance, Step 2B)
Having determined under step one of the Mayo/Alice framework that
claim 15 is directed to an abstract idea, we next consider under Step 2B of
the 2019 Revised Guidance, the second step of the Mayo/Alice framework,
whether claim 15 adds specific limitations beyond the judicial exception that
are 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.
The Examiner determined here, and we agree, that the only claim
elements beyond the abstract idea are a “computer hardware memory
device”; a “machine, including at least one processor”; an “online social
network”; a “job posting user interface”; a “web crawler”; and a
“communication channel,” i.e., generic computer components used to
perform generic computer functions (Final Act. 16–17) — a determination
amply supported by, and fully consistent with the Specification (see, e.g.,
Spec. ¶¶ 18, 19, 26–28, 31, 39, 68, 69, 73–81).6 Appellant cannot

6 See also the Office’s April 19, 2018 Memorandum to the Examining
Corps from Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy, Robert W.
Bahr, entitled, Changes in Examination Procedure Pertaining to
Subject Matter Eligibility, Recent Subject Matter Eligibility Decision
(Berkheimer v. HP, Inc.), available at
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reasonably contend, nor does Appellant, that there is a genuine issue of
material fact regarding whether the operation 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 15 require any
specialized hardware or inventive computer components or that the claimed
invention is implemented using other than a generic computer component to
perform generic computer functions, e.g., receiving, storing, and processing
information. Indeed, 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) (internal 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.”).
We are not persuaded, on the present record, that the Examiner erred
in rejecting independent claim 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Therefore, we

https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/memo-berkheimer-
20180419.PDF, which expressly directs that an examiner may support the
position that an additional element (or combination of elements) is well-
understood, routine or conventional with “[a] citation to an express
statement in the specification . . . that demonstrates the well-understood,
routine, conventional nature of the additional element(s)” (id. at 3).
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sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 15, and claims 1–14 and 16–20,
which fall with claim 15.
Obviousness
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner erred in
rejecting independent claims 1, 8, and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 because
neither Ellis nor Wong, individually or in combination, discloses or suggests
presenting unpaid job postings only via a job search user interface of an
online social network, and presenting paid job postings via the job search
user interface and also via another communication channel of the online
social network, i.e., limitations (b) and (c), as recited in claim 1, and
similarly recited in claims 8 and 15 (Appeal Br. 12–15).
Ellis is directed to a method and system for facilitating the hiring of
new employees using mobile phones, and discloses that in one embodiment,
a computing device generates job search results by performing a search for
job postings based on user-specified criteria (Ellis ¶ 23). In accordance with
the method, the computing device accesses a user’s social network account
to identify employers of contacts in the user’s social network, and for each
job search result, the computing device determines the number of contacts
who work for the employer associated with the job search result (id). The
job search results are then ranked based on the number of contacts who work
for employers associated with the job search results, and the ranked search
results are presented to the user (id.).
The Examiner cites paragraphs 28 and 33–36 of Ellis as disclosing
receiving job posting information from multiple different job posting
sources, e.g., web pages, subscription services (Final Act. 30–31). And the
Examiner opines that “one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it
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obvious that . . . gathering job postings from web pages and job posting sites
does not [require] payment in the retrieval of job postings” whereas “the use
of a subscription service to retrieve other postings is commonly known . . .
[to] require some form of payment” (id. at 32). The Examiner, however,
acknowledges that Ellis does not explicitly disclose paid and unpaid job
postings (id. at 31–32), and cites Wong to cure this deficiency (id. at 33).
The difficulty with the Examiner’s rejection, as Appellant observes,
and we agree, is that although Wong discloses both paid and unpaid
services, neither Ellis nor Wong, individually or in combination, discloses or
suggests presenting job postings either in a user interface or in both a user
interface and another channel, depending on whether the job posting is paid
or unpaid, as called for in the independent claims (Appeal Br. 12–15; see
also Reply Br. 1–2).
Responding to Appellant’s argument, the Examiner asserts that “the
idea of paid vs unpaid has a distinction, and that when an entity pays for a
service[,] the entity is expecting something in return, otherwise why would
an entity pay” (Ans. 9). But, as Appellant observes, the Examiner does not
point to any disclosure or suggestion in Wong that job postings are handled
differently based on whether the posting is paid or unpaid (Reply Br. 2).
In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of independent claims 1, 8, and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. For the same
reasons, we also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent
claims 1–7, 9–14, and 16–20. Cf. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266 (Fed.
Cir. 1992) (“dependent claims are nonobvious if the independent claims
from which they depend are nonobvious”).
Appeal 2018-006887
Application 14/586,598

18
CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–20 101 Eligibility 1–20
1–20 103 Ellis, Wong 1–20
Overall
Outcome
1–20
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED