DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the application filed 12 July 2024.
Claims 1 – 20 are pending and have been examined.
This action is Non-Final.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 17 recites the method of claim 16, wherein the one or more WITs comprises a first WIT and a second WIT…; however this limitation is indefinite, as it, as claimed, that each of the first WIT and second WIT each have to contain another first and second WIT. Claim 16, from with it depends, recites creating one or more work item templates (WITs), wherein each WIT comprises data for creating at least one work item (WI), and wherein each WIT is selected from a group consisting of a task, an assessment, and a remediation. Neither claim 16 nor claim 17 make any distinction that would make the first or second WIT that each WIT comprise different than the one or more WITs created in claim 16.
Claim 17, therefore, recites that EACH of the one or more WITs created in claim 16 have to have a first and second WIT, which means each of THOSE WITs, (the first and second WITs created in claim 17), would also have to have a first and second WIT, and so on. Correction and / or clarification is requested.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claimed invention, when the claims are taken as a whole, is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 2A – 1: The claims recite a Judicial Exception. Exemplary independent claim 4 recites the limitations of: identifying, for the protected environment, a plurality of tiers, including at least a first tier and a second tier lower than the first tier;
identifying a plurality of tenants operating within the protected environment, wherein each of the plurality of tenants is associated with one of the plurality of tiers;
identifying a plurality of work items (Wis);
identifying one or more tasks to be performed for each work item (WI);
determining, for each of the plurality of Wis, at least a work item type; and
automatically assigning each of the one or more tasks for each of the plurality of WIs to at least one entity, wherein the assigning is based at least in part on:
determining, for each of the one or more tasks, at least one entity for performing the respective task, wherein the determining the at least one entity for each of the one or more tasks is based on one or more of a tenant and a tier associated with the respective task, the respective work item type, or a combination thereof.
These limitations (bolded and italicized), as drafted, is / are a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, cover concepts performed in the human mind, including observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion. See MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. More specifically, the four identifying steps encompass the observation and judgement / comparison, of data, as identifying is the observing or ascertaining of existing or collected information. The step of determining of a work item type encompasses the evaluation and judgement / comparison, of data. The step of assigning additionally encompasses the evaluation and judgement / comparison, of data, such that the work items are assigned based on result of the evaluation and judgement (i.e., determination) of which entity should perform the work item.
Step 2A – 2: This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application, and the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Exemplary independent claim 4 recites the additional elements of: a protected environment, however this amounts to merely generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(h), and automatically assigning, however this merely the automation of a manual process, which is not sufficient to show an improvement in computer-functionality, as discussed in 2106.05(a) I. Further, the preamble of claim 4 recites the limitation of using a computing platform, however this is recited at a high level of generality, and the computer platform is used as a tool to perform the judicial exception, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(f).
Independent claim 1 recites the further additional elements of one or more hardware processors configured by machine-readable instructions, and independent claim 18 recites a non-transient computer-readable storage medium having instructions embodied thereon; however these are recited at a high level of generality, and merely than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(f).
Further, the claims do not provide for or recite any improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field; applying or using a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition; applying the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine; effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; or applying or using the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
The claim is directed to the abstract idea.
The dependent claims have the same deficiencies as their parent claims as being directed towards an abstract idea, as the dependent claims merely narrow the scope of their parent claims, and it has been held that “[i]n defining the excluded categories, the Court has ruled that the exclusion applies if a claim involves a natural law or phenomenon or abstract idea, even if the particular natural law or phenomenon or abstract idea at issue is narrow.” (buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350. )
Turning to the dependent claims, none of the claimed features of the dependent claims further limit the claimed invention in such a way to direct the claimed invention to statutory subject matter (e.g. change the scope of the claimed invention as to no longer be directed towards an abstract idea, or include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements or combination of elements in the claims other than the abstract idea per se), nor do they add limitations that, when taken as a combination, result in the claim as a whole amounting to significantly more than the judicial exception. In respect to exemplary dependent claims 5 – 17:
Claims 5 merely further describes the assigning step;
Claim 6 merely recites an additional step of recording information;
Claim 7 merely recites an additional identifying step;
Claims 8 – 12 merely recite additional mental processes and the use of a computer as a tool;
Claims 13 merely describes an additional assigning step;
Claim 14 merely further describes the identified data;
Claim 15 merely further describes the identified work item types;
Claims 16 and 17 merely recite additional mental processes and the use of a computer as a tool;
Step 2B: The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, explained with respect to Step 2A, Prong Two, the additional elements or combination of elements in the claims other than the abstract idea per se amount to no more than mere instructions to implement the idea on a computer, or the recitation of generic computer structure that serves to perform generic computer functions previously known to the industry1 [e.g. performing repetitive calculations; receiving, processing, and storing data; electronically scanning or extracting data from a physical document; electronic recordkeeping; automating mental tasks; receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data] .
Applicant’s specification, at, e.g., FIG. 1, FIG. 10, paragraphs [0093]-[0094], [0129]-[0131], [0250]-[0269], provides evidence of generic computer hardware performing generic, well-known, computer functions.
Viewed as a whole, these additional claim elements, both individually and in combination, do not provide meaningful limitations to transform the above identified abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claims amount to significantly more (e.g. improvements to another technology or technical fields, improvements to the functioning of the computer itself, or meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment) than the abstract idea itself. Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than the above-identified judicial exception (the abstract idea). Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely provide conventional computer implementation2.
Therefore, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter. See Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. No. 13–298.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1 – 3, 4 – 7, 13, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang (U.S. 2015/0178135), in view of McPherson et al. (U.S. 2015/0205634, hereinafter McPherson).
In respect to claim 1, Wang discloses a system configured for automated workflow management in a protected environment using a computing platform, the system comprising: one or more hardware processors configured by machine-readable instructions to:
identify, for the protected environment, a plurality of tiers, including at least a first tier and a second tier lower than the first tier ([0026]…provided mechanisms and methods for facilitating tiered service model-based fair allocation of resources for application servers in multi-tenant environments. In one embodiment and by way of example, a method includes collecting, by and incorporating into the database system, data relating to job types associated with one or more tenants of a plurality of tenants within a multi-tenant database system, computing, based on the data, an actual resource use and an expected resource allocation associated with each job type, and assigning classifications to the job types based on their corresponding actual resource use and the expected resource allocation. The method may further include routing the job types between tiers based on the assigned classifications, where the routing includes at least one of promoting, demoting, and maintaining one or more tiers for the job types. [0027] While the present invention is described with reference to an embodiment in which techniques for facilitating management of data in an on-demand services environment are implemented in a system having an application server providing a front end for an on-demand database service capable of supporting multiple tenants, the present invention is not limited to multi-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers. Embodiments may be practiced using other database architectures, i.e., ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope of the embodiments claimed; see further [0084] Method 400 describes a process relating to tiered queues for enforcing fair usage involving fair usage monitor 264 of workload logic 262 of FIGS. 2-3. Method 400 begins at block 402 with fair usage monitor detecting those tenants that are starved for worker host resources. At block 404, a decision is made as to whether the tenant jobs are assigned to a highest queue tier. If yes, at block 406, an offending tenant is demoted to the lower queue tier via a routing table sweeper process and thus, the available lower tier queue is found and the routing table is updated accordingly at block 408. If not, at block 410, the tenant is promoted to a higher queue tier via the routing table sweeper process and thus, the available higher tier queue is found and the routing table is updated accordingly. In one embodiment, at block 414, the updated routing table is propagated to all worker hosts in the cluster of worker hosts. At block 416, all jobs belonging to that tenant are sent to and executed from the new queue]; [0124] If the FAIR job type is not found or, referring back to block 1059, if the OFFENDER is found, the job type may be demoted from current tier to a lower tier, such as from tier t to tier t+l (e.g., tier 2 to tier 2+1 or 3) [i.e., including at least a first tier and a second tier lower than the first tier] ) ;
identify a plurality of tenants operating within the protected environment, wherein each of the plurality of tenants is associated with one of the plurality of tiers ([0026]…provided mechanisms and methods for facilitating tiered service model-based fair allocation of resources for application servers in multi-tenant environments. In one embodiment and by way of example, a method includes collecting, by and incorporating into the database system, data relating to job types associated with one or more tenants of a plurality of tenants within a multi-tenant database system, computing, based on the data, an actual resource use and an expected resource allocation associated with each job type, and assigning classifications to the job types based on their corresponding actual resource use and the expected resource allocation. The method may further include routing the job types between tiers based on the assigned classifications, where the routing includes at least one of promoting, demoting, and maintaining one or more tiers for the job types. [0027] While the present invention is described with reference to an embodiment in which techniques for facilitating management of data in an on-demand services environment are implemented in a system having an application server providing a front end for an on-demand database service capable of supporting multiple tenants, the present invention is not limited to multi-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers. Embodiments may be practiced using other database architectures, i.e., ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope of the embodiments claimed); and
identify a plurality of work items (WIs) ([0026]… a method includes collecting, by and incorporating into the database system, data relating to job types associated with one or more tenants of a plurality of tenants within a multi-tenant database system, computing, based on the data, an actual resource use and an expected resource allocation associated with each job type, and assigning classifications to the job types based on their corresponding actual resource use and the expected resource allocation…).
While Wang discloses work items on which work is to be performed, it may not explicitly disclose identify one or more tasks to be performed for each work item (WI).
Analogous art McPherson discloses identify one or more tasks to be performed for each work item (WI) ([0043] When a worker component 260 begin processing a job, the worker component 260 first elaborates the job into a series of smaller operations (referred to as "elaborated operations", "sub-operations", or "sub-ops") that can each be retired or rolled back individually. In one implementation, the series of sub-ops for a particular job is pre-configured and known by the worker component 260 as part of the broker 222 model…).
Since each individual element and its function are shown in the prior art, albeit shown in separate references, the differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art rests not on any individual element or function but in the very combination itself- that is the jobs or work items that have sub-operations or tasks of McPherson with the jobs or work items in Wang.
One of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention would have been able to combine the elements of the above references, and would have found that the simple combination of one known element with another produces a predictable result of identifying the tasks that make up jobs to possibly assign each task to a different entity, which renders the claim obvious.
Wang, as combined with McPherson further discloses determine, for each of the plurality of Wis, at least a work item type ([0026]… a method includes collecting, by and incorporating into the database system, data relating to job types associated with one or more tenants of a plurality of tenants within a multi-tenant database system, computing, based on the data, an actual resource use and an expected resource allocation associated with each job type, and assigning classifications to the job types based on their corresponding actual resource use and the expected resource allocation…); and
automatically assign each of the one or more tasks for each of the plurality of WIs to at least one entity, wherein the assigning is based at least in part on: determining, for each of the one or more tasks, at least one entity for performing the respective task, wherein the determining the at least one entity for each of the one or more tasks is based on one or more of a tenant and a tier associated with the respective task, the respective work item type, or a combination thereof ( [0084] Method 400 describes a process relating to tiered queues for enforcing fair usage involving fair usage monitor 264 of workload logic 262 of FIGS. 2-3. Method 400 begins at block 402 with fair usage monitor detecting those tenants that are starved for worker host resources. At block 404, a decision is made as to whether the tenant jobs are assigned to a highest queue tier. If yes, at block 406, an offending tenant is demoted to the lower queue tier via a routing table sweeper process and thus, the available lower tier queue is found and the routing table is updated accordingly at block 408. If not, at block 410, the tenant is promoted to a higher queue tier via the routing table sweeper process and thus, the available higher tier queue is found and the routing table is updated accordingly. In one embodiment, at block 414, the updated routing table is propagated to all worker hosts in the cluster of worker hosts. At block 416, all jobs belonging to that tenant are sent to and executed from the new queue).
Claims 4 and 18 recite a method for automated workflow management in a protected environment using a computing platform, and a non-transient computer-readable storage medium having instructions embodied thereon, the instructions being executable by one or more processors to perform a method for automated workflow management in a protected environment using a computing platform, respectively, performing the same steps as found in claim 1, and are rejected using the same rationale.
In respect to claim 2, the combined invention of Wang and McPherson discloses the system of claim 1, Wang further disclosing wherein the automatically assigning each of the one or more tasks to the at least one entity includes assigning each task to one of: a respective tenant of the plurality of tenants, a team associated with a respective one of the plurality of tiers, a team associated with a respective one of the plurality of tenants, a plurality of entities, including a first entity associated with the first tier and a second entity associated with the second tier, or a specific entity associated with a respective one of the plurality of tenants ( [0084] Method 400 describes a process relating to tiered queues for enforcing fair usage involving fair usage monitor 264 of workload logic 262 of FIGS. 2-3. Method 400 begins at block 402 with fair usage monitor detecting those tenants that are starved for worker host resources. At block 404, a decision is made as to whether the tenant jobs are assigned to a highest queue tier. If yes, at block 406, an offending tenant is demoted to the lower queue tier via a routing table sweeper process and thus, the available lower tier queue is found and the routing table is updated accordingly at block 408. If not, at block 410, the tenant is promoted to a higher queue tier via the routing table sweeper process and thus, the available higher tier queue is found and the routing table is updated accordingly. In one embodiment, at block 414, the updated routing table is propagated to all worker hosts in the cluster of worker hosts. At block 416, all jobs belonging to that tenant are sent to and executed from the new queue).
Claim 5 recites a method performing the same steps as claim 2, and is rejected using the same rationale.
In respect to claim 3, the combined invention of Wang and McPherson discloses the system of claim 1, Wang further disclosing wherein the one or more hardware processors are further configured to: automatically record results of work performed, based at least in part on tracking one or more task metrics for each of the one or more tasks ([0090] Transaction sequence 460 describes a transaction relating to an end-to-end routing of jobs involving routing framework 266 of workload logic 262 of FIGS. 2-3. In one embodiment, a tenant 462 submits a new job request for execution 464, which is received at a worker host 304. Routing table 306 accesses a destination queue 466 for the tenant 462, where the tenant's job is enqueued to its assigned queue 468 at the queue host 302. Then, the tenant's job is fetched from the subscribed queue 470 at the worker host 304. At the worker host 304, tenant's job is executed 472 and any results of the executed job are sent to and received 474 at the tenant 462).
Claims 6 and 19 recite a method and a non-transient computer-readable storage medium performing the same steps as claim 3, and are rejected using the same rationale.
In respect to claim 7, the combined invention of Wang and McPherson discloses the method of claim 4, McPherson further disclosing further comprising: identifying, for at least one task, one or more tasks that are related to or dependent on the at least one task. ([0047] As previously discussed, the broker 222 can provide status information of a job to the user requesting the job. A status of the job is stored in the job status records 229. A job entry in the job status record 229 may include a variety of fields, such as, but not limited to, a job ID, job type, title, description, arguments, child jobs, parent job, state, completion status, retry count, rollback retry count, percentage complete, result, object type, application id, application name, domain name, owner login, creator login, and object URL. A job entry in the job status records 229 may include a job status/state field. When a job is initially scheduled by the broker 222 to the scheduler 250, the job status field is set to "scheduled" (or something similar). When a worker begins processing a job and elaborates the operations of the job, each operation is stored with the job entry in the job status records 229, and provided a corresponding job status field. When the worker component 260 successfully completes an elaborated operation of a job, the job status field for that corresponding elaborated operation is updated to "completed" or any other similar signifier).
In respect to claim 13, the combined invention of Wang and McPherson discloses the method of claim 4, Wang further disclosing further comprising automatically assigning each of the plurality of WIs to one of a tier, a team, or a tenant ([0084] Method 400 describes a process relating to tiered queues for enforcing fair usage involving fair usage monitor 264 of workload logic 262 of FIGS. 2-3. Method 400 begins at block 402 with fair usage monitor detecting those tenants that are starved for worker host resources. At block 404, a decision is made as to whether the tenant jobs are assigned to a highest queue tier. If yes, at block 406, an offending tenant is demoted to the lower queue tier via a routing table sweeper process and thus, the available lower tier queue is found and the routing table is updated accordingly at block 408. If not, at block 410, the tenant is promoted to a higher queue tier via the routing table sweeper process and thus, the available higher tier queue is found and the routing table is updated accordingly. In one embodiment, at block 414, the updated routing table is propagated to all worker hosts in the cluster of worker hosts. At block 416, all jobs belonging to that tenant are sent to and executed from the new queue).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8 – 12, 14 – 17, and 20 would be allowable if the independent claims from which they depend were rewritten to overcome the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action, and if the instant claims were rewritten to overcome any applicable rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(b), set forth in this Office action, and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The closest prior art of record includes Wang, McPherson, Gerber et al. (US 2019/0146830), Douglas et al. (U.S. 2015/0058467), and Balasubramaniam et al. (U.S. 2014/0033212).
In respect to claims 8 and 20, for example, Gerber et al. discloses databases (libraries) that stores templates for work items (see at least [0013]). However Gerber et al., either alone or taken in combination with any other references of record, do not anticipate or render obvious the claimed functionality directed to assigning at least one of the plurality of libraries to each of the plurality of tiers. Claims 9 – 12 depend on claim 8.
In respect to claim 14, for example, while Wang discloses tiers, and Douglas et al. discloses a Platform Tier (see at least [0091]), none of the prior art of record alone or taken in combination with any other references of record, do not anticipate or render obvious the claimed functionality directed to wherein each of the plurality of tiers comprises one of a Platform tier, a virtual Security Operations Center (vSOC) tier, or an Enterprise tier, and wherein each of the plurality of tiers is associated with a plurality of work item types. Claim 15 depends on claim 14.
In respect to claim 16, for example, Gerber et al. discloses databases (libraries) that stores templates for work items (see at least [0013]). However Gerber et al., either alone or taken in combination with any other references of record, do not anticipate or render obvious the claimed functionality directed to automatically creating, using the computing platform, one or more work item templates (WITs), wherein each WIT comprises data for creating at least one work item (WI), and wherein each WIT is selected from a group consisting of a task, an assessment, and a remediation.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure.
McHugh; Jason George et al. US 20190149478 A1 Systems And Methods For Allocating Shared Resources In Multi-Tenant Environments
McCormick; Michael US 20230049160 A1 Dynamically Updating Resource Allocation Tool
Wolthuis; John et al. US 20150264180 A1 System And Method For A Work Distribution Service
Gerber; Thomas et al. US 20190146830 A1 Template-Driven Multi-Tenant Workflow Processing
Rabinovici; Sorano et al. US 20150113540 A1 Assigning Resources Among Multiple Task Groups In A Database System
Mullins; Brian C. et al. US 20210241231 A1 Automatic Assignment of Tasks to Users in Collaborative Projects
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALAN S MILLER whose telephone number is (571)270-5288. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 10am-6pm. Examiner’s fax phone number is (571) 270-6288.
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/ALAN S MILLER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3625
1 “It is well-settled that mere recitation of concrete, tangible components is insufficient to confer patent eligibility to an otherwise abstract idea. Rather, the components must involve more than performance of “‘well understood, routine, conventional activit[ies]’ previously known to the industry.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2359 (quoting Mayo, 132 S.Ct. at 1294)”. Id, pages 10-11. “Likewise, the server fails to add an inventive concept because it is simply a generic computer that “administer[ s]” digital images using a known “arbitrary data bank system.” Id. at col. 5 ll. 45–46. But “[f]or the role of a computer in a computer-implemented invention to be deemed meaningful in the context of this analysis, it must involve more than performance of ‘well-understood, routine, [and] conventional activities previously known to the industry.’” Content Extraction, 776 F.3d at 1347–48 (quoting Alice, 134 S. Ct at 2359). “These steps fall squarely within our precedent finding generic computer components insufficient to add an inventive concept to an otherwise abstract idea. Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2360 (“Nearly every computer will include a ‘communications controller’ and a ‘data storage unit’ capable of performing the basic calculation, storage, and transmission functions required by the method claims.”); Content Extraction, 776 F.3d at 1345, 1348 (“storing information” into memory, and using a computer to “translate the shapes on a physical page into typeface characters,” insufficient confer patent eligibility); Mortg. Grader, 811 F.3d at 1324–25 (generic computer components such as an “interface,” “network,” and “database,” fail to satisfy the inventive concept requirement); Intellectual Ventures I, 792 F.3d at 1368 (a “database” and “a communication medium” “are all generic computer elements”); BuySAFE v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (“That a computer receives and sends the information over a network—with no further specification—is not even arguably inventive.”)”. TLI Communications LLC v. AV Automotive L.L.C., (No. 15-1372, (Fed. Cir. May 17, 2016)), at *12-13.
See additionally MPEP 2106.05(d).
2 “Nor, in addressing the second step of Alice, does claiming the improved speed or efficiency inherent with applying the abstract idea on a computer provide a sufficient inventive concept. See Bancorp Servs., LLC v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Can., 687 F.3d 1266, 1278 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (“[T]he fact that the required calculations could be performed more efficiently via a computer does not materially alter the patent eligibility of the claimed subject matter.”); CLS Bank, Int’l v. Alice Corp., 717 F.3d 1269, 1286 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (en banc) aff’d, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014) (“[S]imply appending generic computer functionality to lend speed or efficiency to the performance of an otherwise abstract concept does not meaningfully limit claim scope for purposes of patent eligibility.” (citations omitted))”. Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 115 U.S.P.Q.2d 1636 (Fed. Cir. 2015).