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Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 7, 2020

15589226 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Apr. 7, 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.
15/589,226 05/08/2017 Aaron Phillips 034392-0452157 2364
909 7590 04/07/2020
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, LLP
PO Box 10500
McLean, VA 22102
EXAMINER
STEWART, CRYSTOL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3624
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/07/2020 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):
docket_ip@pillsburylaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte AARON PHILLIPS, DAVID BATEMAN, BRITT WUENSCHE,
JORDAN KUTSCHEROUSKY, and LINLIN ZHAO
Appeal 2019-001775
Application 15/589,226
Technology Center 3600
Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, DAVID J. CUTITTA II, and
SCOTT RAEVSKY, Administrative Patent Judges.
RAEVSKY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
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 REVERSE.

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 Amplisine
Labs, LLC. Appeal Br. 2.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims relate to dispatch systems, including systems for
dispatching truckers for transporting fluids between oil or gas facilities. See
Spec., ¶ 2. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. One or more tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable
media storing instructions that when executed by a mobile
computing device and a computer-implemented run-ticket
processing system effectuate operations comprising:
forming an electronic run ticket with a native mobile
application executing on a mobile computing device of an oil-
or-gas-field trucker at least in part by:
receiving information entered into the native
mobile application by the trucker during a tank run, the
tank run including the transport of fluid between oil or
gas related facilities, the tank run being described, at least
in part, by the electronic run ticket; and
wirelesses[2] obtaining, with the native mobile
application, a tank identifier of a fluid-holding tank at
one of the oil or gas related facilities from a wireless
signal including the tank identifier, the wireless signal
including the tank identifier being transmitted from the
one of the oil or gas related facilities to the mobile
computing device of the oil-or-gas-field trucker, wherein:
preloaded data used by the native mobile
application to construct a mobile user interface to
receive the information used to form the electronic
run ticket is cached on the mobile computing
device before the trucker arrives at the one of the
oil or gas related facilities, and the preloaded data
is used by the native mobile application to
construct the mobile user interface in the absence
of cellular network access by the mobile

2 Possible spelling error.
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computing device of the trucker at the one of the
oil or gas related facilities; or
at least part of the electronic run ticket is
obtained in the absence of cellular network access
and cached on the mobile computing device, and
the native mobile application causes the at least
part of the electronic run ticket to be accessed in
cache memory after the mobile computing device
regains cellular network access;
sending the electronic run ticket, from the mobile
computing device, via a network, to a server configured to
convey the electronic run ticket into a run ticket processing
workflow hosted by a run-ticket-processing computer system;
receiving, with the run-ticket-processing computer
system, via the network and the server, the electronic run ticket;
sending, from the run-ticket-processing computer system,
to an oil-or-gas facility operator computing device, via a
network, the electronic run ticket, wherein the oil-or-gas facility
operator computing device is caused, by the run-ticket-
processing computer system, to display a user interface having
a first input by which the electronic run ticket is approved and a
second input by which the electronic run ticket is rejected;
receiving, with the run-ticket-processing computer
system, from the oil-or-gas facility operator computing device,
a value indicative of a user input into the user interface on the
oil-or-gas facility operator computing device; and
updating, with the workflow hosting computer system, a
workflow record of the electronic run ticket in memory based
on the value indicative of the user input.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to an
abstract idea. Final Act. 12.
Claims 1, 2, and 10–18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Ulm (US 2015/0032491 A1, Jan. 29, 2015) and Zhang
(US 2014/0244444 A1, Aug. 28, 2014). Id. at 14.
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Claim 3 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Ulm, Zhang, and Lewis (US 2014/0333412 A1, Nov. 13, 2014). Id. at
30.
Claims 4–8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Ulm, Zhang, and Nair (US 2015/0287318 A1, Oct. 8,
2015). Id. at 32.
Claim 9 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Ulm, Zhang, and Shield (US 2005/0261917 A1, Nov. 24, 2005). Id. at
37.
Claim 19 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Ulm, Zhang, and Warkentin (US 2013/0006715 A1, Jan. 3, 2013). Id.
at 41.
Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Ulm, Zhang, and van Dal (US 2013/0124113 A1, May 16, 2013). Id. at
43.
ANALYSIS
We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellant and in light of the arguments and evidence produced
thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential).
Arguments not made are waived. See id.; 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).

Rejections under § 101
I. Principles of Law
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
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implicit exceptions: “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract
ideas” are not patentable. E.g., Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. 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 id. 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.”).
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, 67–68 (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 183 n.7 (quoting Corning v. Burden, 56
U.S. 252, 267–68 (1853))); and manufacturing flour (Benson, 409 U.S. at 69
(citing Cochrane v. Deener, 94 U.S. 780, 785 (1876))).
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
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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. “A claim that recites an
abstract idea must include ‘additional features’ to ensure ‘that the [claim] is
more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the [abstract idea].’” Id.
(alterations in original) (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 77). “[M]erely
requir[ing] generic computer implementation[] fail[s] to transform that
abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.” Id.
After the docketing of this Appeal, the USPTO published revised
guidance on the application of § 101 (“Guidance”). See, e.g., USPTO, 2019
Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7,
2019) (“Revised Guidance”); USPTO, October 2019 Update: Subject Matter
Eligibility (Oct. 17, 2019) (“Update”), 84 Fed. Reg. 55942 (Oct. 18, 2019)
(notice).
Under the 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 activities 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.
Rev. 08.2017, Jan. 2018)).
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:
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(3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that
is not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in the field (see MPEP
§ 2106.05(d)); 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.
See Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 56.

II. Step 2A, Prong One (Judicial Exception)
The Examiner determines that claim 13 is directed to an abstract idea.
Final Act. 12. The Examiner determines claim 1 “directed to generating,
updating and storing oil-field run tickets, constituting abstract ideas based on
an idea ‘of itself.’” Id. The Examiner further determines the claim
limitations
include the abstract idea of forming, obtaining and updating
run-ticket data, which is similar to the concepts that have been
identified as abstract by the courts, such as delivering user-
selected media content to portable devices in Affinity Labs of
Texas, LLC v. Amazon.com and providing out-of-region access
to regional broadcast content in Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v.
DirecTV, LLC.4
Id.

3 Apart from dependent claims 17, 19, and 20, Appellant argues claims 1–20
as a group. See Appeal Br. 5–19. We select independent claim 1 as
representative. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). Because we reverse, we do
not reach Appellant’s arguments regarding dependent claims 17, 19, and 20.

4 Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v. Amazon.com Inc., 838 F.3d 1266, 1271 (Fed.
Cir. 2016); Affinity Labs of Tex., LLC v. DIRECTV, LLC, 838 F.3d 1253
(Fed. Cir. 2016).
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Appellant contends claim 1 does not recite an abstract idea. Appeal
Br. 5–14. Appellant contends the Examiner’s characterization of the claims
“cannot account for the subject matter of the claims as a whole.” Id. at 8. In
particular, Appellant contends the Examiner’s claim characterization omits
several elements, including the “wirelesses obtaining,” “preloaded data,” and
“at least part of the electronic run ticket” limitations. Id.
The Specification discloses that oil and gas truck drivers are
frequently “independent parties from the operators of the oil and gas related
facilities, making coordination with well operators and various parties
difficult and labor intensive.” Spec. ¶ 3. To address this and other
problems, the Specification discloses a dispatch server system that “may
help truckers identify tank runs for which they are qualified (e.g., by
operators of the relevant facilities), choose among those tank runs, and
coordinate with various other stakeholders, such as well operators and
disposal facility operators.” Id. ¶ 14. The Specification also envisions
creating “run tickets . . . for invoicing purposes and to track the conveyance
of fluid through the oil and gas fields.” Id. ¶ 25.
We determine that claim 1 recites a fundamental economic practice
because claim 1 broadly relates to forming an electronic run ticket for
tracking a tank run of a trucker transporting fluid between oil or gas related
facilities. Specifically, claim 1 recites:
forming an electronic run ticket . . . at least in part by:
receiving information entered . . . by the trucker
during a tank run, the tank run including the transport of
fluid between oil or gas related facilities, the tank run
being described, at least in part, by the electronic run
ticket; and
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. . . obtaining, with the native mobile application, a
tank identifier of a fluid-holding tank at one of the oil or
gas related facilities . . . .:
. . . .
sending the electronic run ticket . . . to convey the
electronic run ticket into a run ticket processing workflow . . .;
receiving . . . the electronic run ticket;
sending . . ., to an oil-or-gas facility operator . . ., the
electronic run ticket . . . by which the electronic run ticket is
approved and . . . rejected;
receiving . . . a value indicative of a user input . . .; and
updating . . . a workflow record of the electronic run
ticket . . . based on the value indicative of the user input.
These limitations of Appellant’s claim 1, under their broadest
reasonable interpretation, recite operations that would ordinarily take place
in the process of tracking an oil or gas trucker’s tank run, which is a known
business activity and a fundamental economic practice—one of certain
methods of organizing human activity identified in the Guidance, and
therefore an abstract idea. See Revised Guidance (Revised Step 2A, Prong
One), 84 Fed. Reg. at 52 (describing an abstract idea category of “[c]ertain
methods of organizing human activity—fundamental economic principles or
practices . . . commercial or legal interactions (including . . . advertising,
marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations)”), 54. Such
activities are squarely within the realm of abstract ideas. See, e.g., Alice,
573 U.S. at 219–20 (use of a third party to mediate settlement risk is a
“fundamental economic practice” and thus abstract); Bilski, 561 U.S. at 611–
12 (hedging is a “fundamental economic practice” and therefore abstract);
see also FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., Inc., 839 F.3d 1089, 1093–94
(Fed. Cir. 2016) (“generating a rule for monitoring audit log data” is within
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the “realm of abstract ideas includ[ing] collecting information”) (internal
quotations omitted).
For these reasons, we determine that claim 1 recites a fundamental
economic practice as identified in the Guidance, and thus, an abstract idea.
See Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 52.

III. Step 2A, Prong 2 (Integration into a Practical Application)
Under the Guidance, we now must determine if additional elements in
the claims integrate the judicial exception into a practical application
(see MPEP §§ 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h)).5
Appellant contends “the independent claims recite cache memory with
improvements like those that lead to a ruling of subject matter eligibility in
Visual Memory LLC v. NIVIDIA Corp., 867 F.3d 1253 (Fed. Cir. 2017).”
Appeal Br. 12. Appellant contends that the claimed “preloaded data”
limitation (reproduced below) permits “data relevant to recited operations”
to be available “even in the absence of cellular network access (e.g., in
remote rural well sites and other ‘geographically remote areas.’” Id. at 12–
13. Appellant contends, “[c]ollectively, these operations render the claimed
technique robust to variation in cellular network coverage, much like the
technological improvement in Visual Memory rendered the claimed memory
system robust to variation in processor type.” Id. at 13.
Claim 1 recites the following additional limitations, among others:

5 We acknowledge that some of the considerations at Step 2A, Prong 2 may
be evaluated under Step 2 of Alice (Step 2B of the Guidance). For purposes
of maintaining consistent treatment within the Office, we evaluate them
under Step 1 of Alice (Step 2A of the Guidance). See Revised Guidance, 84
Fed. Reg. at 55 n.25, 27–32.
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preloaded data used by the native mobile
application to construct a mobile user interface to receive
the information used to form the electronic run ticket is
cached on the mobile computing device before the
trucker arrives at the one of the oil or gas related
facilities, and the preloaded data is used by the native
mobile application to construct the mobile user interface
in the absence of cellular network access by the mobile
computing device of the trucker at the one of the oil or
gas related facilities; or
at least part of the electronic run ticket is obtained
in the absence of cellular network access and cached on
the mobile computing device, and the native mobile
application causes the at least part of the electronic run
ticket to be accessed in cache memory after the mobile
computing device regains cellular network access;
These additional limitations, individually and in combination, address
a technical problem arising in the context of network connectivity, namely
the problem that user interfaces for drivers necessary to access “interlocks
on a fluid-handling site” may not be available in remote areas without
cellular access. See Spec. ¶ 34. As claimed, and explained in the
Specification, the solution to this problem is a technical one. The
Specification explains,
data for constructing these interfaces and rules for responding
to various answers provided by the trucker may be cached by
application 14 in advance, e.g., upon a trucker claiming a tank
run. As a result, driver compliance with various instructions
may be rendered more likely even when cellular access is not
provided.
Id. Thus, similar to the claims in DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P.,
773 F.3d 1245 (Fed. Cir. 2014), “[a]lthough the claim[] address[es] a
business challenge . . . it is a challenge particular to [network connectivity].”
DDR, 773 F.3d at 1257.
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We, therefore, conclude these limitations integrate the recited judicial
exception of a fundamental economic practice into a practical application.
Accordingly, under the Guidance, the claims are eligible because they are
not directed to the recited judicial exception. Thus, we need not reach step
2B of the Alice inquiry. We reverse the Examiner’s rejection under § 101.

Rejections under § 103
Appellant contends that the combination of Ulm and Zhang fail to
teach or suggest:
wirelesses obtaining, with the native mobile application,
a tank identifier of a fluid-holding tank at one of the oil or gas
related facilities from a wireless signal including the tank
identifier, the wireless signal including the tank identifier being
transmitted from the one of the oil or gas related facilities to the
mobile computing device of the oil-or-gas-field trucker,
as recited in claim 1. Appeal Br. 21–23.
Appellant contends that while Ulm describes a “tank name” field
within a work order, “Ulm describes that this information is manually
provided or manually selected during creation of the work order, not
obtained wirelessly.” Appeal Br. 21 (emphasis added). Specifically,
Appellant references Ulm’s teaching that “the salesperson 28 inputs the
transaction requirements 22 into the computer program . . . [or] the customer
18 enters the information into the computer program themselves,” where the
information includes “tank name.” Id. at 21–22 (citing Ulm ¶ 51).
Appellant also relies on Ulm’s disclosure that “the driver device 74 also
allows the driver 42 to manually input a work order.” Id. at 22 (citing Ulm
¶ 66).
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The Examiner finds that Ulm teaches that a “computer program
accesses a worksite information set 34 indicative of worksites 36 and
storage units 38 associated with the worksites 36” and that this “analysis is
performed solely by the computer program.” Ans. 18 (citing Ulm ¶ 31);
Final Act. 15. The Examiner further finds Ulm discloses a “stand-alone
computer program . . . downloaded on a user’s computing device,” which
can “obtain[] information indicative of the worksite 36 and the storage unit
38.” Id. (citing Ulm ¶¶ 38, 39). Additionally, the Examiner finds Ulm
discloses a computer program that “selects and sends the electronic work
order 10 to the driver 42 without dispatcher 32 oversight.” Id. at 19 (citing
Ulm ¶ 62). Based on these and other teachings of Ulm, the Examiner finds
that “Ulm discloses a driver wirelessly receiving information from a
computer program outlining specific requirements of a work order.” Id.
We agree with Appellant that Ulm fails to teach or suggest the
disputed limitation. None of the Examiner’s relied-upon teachings refer to
sending a wireless signal from oil or gas related facilities, let alone
“wireless[ly] obtaining, with the native mobile application, a tank identifier
of a fluid-holding tank at one of the oil or gas related facilities from a
wireless signal,” as recited in claim 1.
The Examiner has not relied on any of the other cited references to
teach this element. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claim 1 and its corresponding dependent claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
We do not reach Appellant’s further allegations of error because we find the
issue discussed above to be dispositive of the rejection of all the pending
claims.
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CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35
U.S.C. §
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–20 101 Eligibility 1–20
1, 2, 10–18 103 Ulm, Zhang 1, 2, 10–
18
3 103 Ulm, Zhang, Lewis 3
4–8 103 Ulm, Zhang, Nair 4–8
9 103 Ulm, Zhang, Shield 9
19 103 Ulm, Zhang, Warkentin 19
20 103 Ulm, Zhang, Van dal 20
Overall
Outcome
1–20
REVERSED