SHELL OIL COMPANY

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 25, 2021

2020002869 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 25, 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.
14/441,225 05/07/2015 Tom Savels TS4066-02-US-PCT 6951
23632 7590 03/25/2021
SHELL OIL COMPANY
P O BOX 576
HOUSTON, TX 77001-0576
EXAMINER
CHARIOUI, MOHAMED
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2857
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/25/2021 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):
Shelldocketing@cpaglobal.com
USPatents@Shell.com
shellusdocketing@cpaglobal.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte TOM SAVELS and JAN WILLEM DE MAAG
Appeal 2020-002869
Application 14/441,225
Technology Center 2800
Before TERRY J. OWENS, RAE LYNN P. GUEST, and
DONNA M. PRAISS, Administrative Patent Judges.
OWENS, 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 decision to reject claims 1–5. 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. The Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Shell Oil
Company (Appeal Br. 2).
Appeal 2020-002869
Application 14/441,225
2
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to a method for deghosting seismic data
acquired by a marine seismic source and receiver assembly. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter.
1. A method comprising:
deghosting seismic data of a subsurface area acquired by
a marine seismic source and receiver assembly, wherein effects
of seismic reflections by the water surface, known as ghost
signals, are removed by a deghosting algorithm which
transforms input seismic data with the surface ghost reflections
into source-deghosted and receiver-deghosted seismic data
using a sparse-inversion technique, wherein the deghosting
algorithm comprises a minimization scheme based on the
formula

where the matrices V(a)(w) denote residual terms such that
V(a)(rs)(w) is the residual at frequency w of the signal from
source s at receiver r, the matrices D(a)(w) denote acquired data
with or without multiples, the matrices X(w) denote ghost-free
data, the matrices W(w) denote the wavelet information, and the
matrices G(s,r)(w) denote ghost functions, the latter being
defined as
with c the p-wave velocity of the subsurface top layer and
Z(s)(r) the depth of source (s) and receiver (r).
Appeal 2020-002869
Application 14/441,225
3
REJECTION
Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis
1–5 101 Eligibility
OPINION
The Appellant argues the claims as a group (Appeal Br. 3–7). We
therefore limit our discussion to one claim, i.e., claim 1, which is the sole
independent claim. Dependent claims 2–5 stand or fall with that claim.
See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2013).
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 35 U.S.C. § 101 to include
implicit exceptions: “Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas
are not patentable.” Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 216 (2014)
(quoting Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S.
576, 589 (2013)).
In January 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
published Revised Guidance on the application of § 101.2 The Manual of
Patent Examining Procedure (“MPEP”) now incorporates this Revised

2 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50
(Jan. 7, 2019) (“2019 Revised Guidance”). In response to received public
comments, the Office issued further guidance on October 17, 2019,
clarifying the 2019 Revised Guidance. USPTO, October 2019 Update:
Subject Matter Eligibility (the “October 2019 Update”). “All USPTO
personnel are, as a matter of internal agency management, expected to
follow the guidance.” 84 Fed. Reg. at 51; see also October 2019 Update at 1.
Appeal 2020-002869
Application 14/441,225
4
Guidance and subsequent updates at § 2106 (9th ed. Rev. 10.2019, rev. June
2020).3
Under MPEP § 2106.04 (a), (d), 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) (“Step 2A, Prong One”); and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into
a practical application (“Step 2A, Prong Two”).4

Only if a claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not integrate that
exception into a practical application,5 do we then look, under Step 2B
(MPEP § 2106.05(d)), to whether the claim:
(3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that
is not “well-understood, routine, conventional activity” in the
field; or
(4) simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional
activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high
level of generality, to the judicial exception.6

3 All references to the MPEP are to the Ninth Edition, Revision 10.2019
(Last Revised June 2020), unless otherwise indicated.
4 “Examiners evaluate integration into a practical application by:
(1) identifying whether there are any additional elements recited in the claim
beyond the judicial exception(s); and (2) evaluating those additional
elements individually and in combination to determine whether they
integrate the exception into a practical application.” MPEP § 2106.04(d)(II).
5 This corresponds to Alice part one where it is determined whether the claim
is “directed to” an abstract idea. See Alice, 573 U.S. at 219. If a claim is “not
directed to an abstract idea under step one of the Alice analysis, we do not
need to proceed to step two.” Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d
1327, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
6 This corresponds to Alice part two where it is determined whether the
claim “contains an ‘inventive concept’ sufficient to ‘transform’ the claimed
abstract idea into a patent-eligible application.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 221.
Appeal 2020-002869
Application 14/441,225
5

Claim 1 claims a method, i.e., a process. That claim, therefore, falls
within one of the four statutory categories of invention. Accordingly, we
turn to Step 2A(1) of the Revised Guidance.
Under Step 2A(1), we determine that claim 1 recites a judicial
exception, i.e., a mathematical concept abstract idea (deghosting algorithm).
The algorithm is applied to seismic data of a subsurface area acquired by a
marine source and receiver assembly, but “the prohibition against patenting
abstract ideas cannot be circumvented by attempting to limit the use of [the
idea] to a particular technological environment.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 222
(quoting Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 610 (2010)). The algorithm is an
abstract idea even if it is carried out using a computer. See Alice, 573 U.S. at
222 (“simply implementing a mathematical principle on a physical machine,
namely a computer, [i]s not a patentable application of that principle”
(quoting Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., 566 U.S. 66, 84
(2012)) (citing Benson, 409 U.S. at 67).
The Appellant states: “Claim 1 does recite mathematical formulae and
these fall in the Mathematical Concepts grouping of abstract ideas” (Appeal
Br. 4).
We now turn to Step 2A(2) of the Revised Guidance to determine
whether the claims integrate the judicial exception into a practical
application.
Claim 1 has no limitations beyond the step of deghosting using an
algorithm including recited equations. The claim does not actually recite a
step that produces deghosted data but, rather, merely recites a deghosting
algorithm comprising a minimization scheme based on an equation that
provides residual terms. Consequently, the claim does not integrate the
Appeal 2020-002869
Application 14/441,225
6
judicial exception into a practical application.
The Appellant argues that the method integrates the judicial exception
into a practical application by improving the functioning of the computer
and the technical field because the method 1) does not require towing
multiple streamers at different depths or using hydrophone data from
different depths, 2) produces output data that exhibits a significant
bandwidth broadening with respect to input and allows for pronounced
improvement of subsequent imaging, 3) is applicable to previously acquired
data sets, and 4) tackles both the source-ghost and the receiver-ghost in a
single non-cascaded step (Appeal Br. 5–6).
That argument is not persuasive because 1) the Appellant’s claim does
not exclude towing multiple streamers at different depths or using
hydrophone data from different depths, and does not require obtaining
hydrophone data at a single depth; 2) as indicated by the Appellant’s
Specification (Spec. 2), the significant bandwidth broadening and imaging
uplift are the result of the transformation of input hydrophone data into its
deghosted signal, which is a characteristic of the algorithm, not a practical
application of it; 3) the Appellant’s claim does not exclude using newly
acquired data sets, and the applicability to previously acquired data sets
pertains to the source of the method’s seismic data, not to a practical
application of the algorithm; and 4) tackling both the source-ghost and the
receiver-ghost in a single non-cascaded step is a characteristic of the
algorithm, not a practical application of it.
We now turn to step 2B of the Revised Guidance to determine
whether claim 1 amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Claim 1 has no elements beyond the recited step of deghosting
seismic data using an algorithm including recited equations for producing
Appeal 2020-002869
Application 14/441,225
7
residual terms. Hence, that claim does not recite additional elements that
amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
The Appellant does not appear to argue that claim 1 amounts to
significantly more than the recited deghosting algorithm (Appeal Br. 3–7,
Reply Br. 2–7).
The subject matter claimed in claims 1–5, therefore, is patent
ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–5 is AFFIRMED.
DECISION SUMMARY
Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–5 101 Eligibility 1–5
RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED