Doreen Granpeesheh

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 30, 2019

12874159 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 30, 2019)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
12/874,159 09/01/2010 Doreen Granpeesheh 407842-500001US 6667
133139 7590 09/30/2019
Adler Pollock & Sheehan P.C.
One Citizens Plaza
8th floor
Providence, RI 02903
EXAMINER
GRANT, MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3715
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/30/2019 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
APS.IPSS@cpaglobal.com
IPDocketing@apslaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte DOREEN GRANPEESHEH
____________

Appeal 2017-009193
Application 12/874,1591
Technology Center 3700
____________

Before MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, KENNETH G. SCHOPFER, and
BRADLEY B. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judges.

ASTORINO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
The Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s
decision rejecting claims 1–8 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to a
judicial exception without significantly more. We have jurisdiction over the
appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 “The real party in interest is Center for Autism and Related Disorders.”
Appeal Br. 1.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Subject Matter on Appeal
The Appellant’s invention relates to a system for providing behavioral
educators of children with developmental disorders (e.g., autism) training in
Applied Behavior Analysis,2 assessment tools, and instruction programs
based on a child’s needs as identified through the assessment tools. See
Spec. ¶ 1.
Claim 1, the sole independent claim, is representative of the subject
matter on appeal and reproduced below with bracketed notations.
1. A computer-based system, comprising:
a processor and a non-transitory storage medium
communicatively coupled to said processor, said storage medium
storing instructions, which when executed by said processor
cause said processor to execute a program module configured
with education, assessment, treatment plan and progress chart
sub-modules for assessing development of a subject individual,
developing an individualized treatment plan for the subject
individual, and presentation of progress charts concerning
progress of the subject individual through lessons of the
individualized treatment plan, respectively, wherein
[(A)] the education sub-module includes
educational materials for a behavioral educator, which
educational materials provide training in Applied
Behavior Analysis (ABA)-based programs of instruction
to teach individuals with developmental disorders;
[(B)] the assessment sub-module of the program
module includes assessment tools for the behavioral
educator to identify mastered and non-mastered skills of
the subject individual, said assessment tools including a
question and answer interchange mechanism configured to

2 “Applied [B]ehavior [A]nalysis . . . can be regarded as the application of
behaviorism, the study of human behavior, to affect, enhance or eliminate a
particular behavior in an individual.” Spec. ¶ 2.
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permit evaluation of the subject individual’s existing skills
and identification of the subject individual’s skill strengths
and deficits that require intervention, wherein:
each question of the question and answer
interchange is associated with a lesson,
said question and answer interchange
mechanism is organized in two components, a first
component comprising a preliminary exclusionary
questionnaire having a plurality of yes or no
questions designed to determine whether or not the
subject individual can perform basic skills, and a
second component comprising a screening
questionnaire having a plurality of single selection
check boxes for the behavioral educator to specify
information concerning the subject individual’s
current abilities with respect to a number of age-
appropriate lessons wherein the behavioral educator
is instructed to designate those lessons that cover
topics in which the subject individual demonstrates
no skills whatsoever, and
said assessment sub-module further includes
a detailed set of skill assessment questions based on
particular skills the subject individual should
exhibit for each of a number of lesson areas and
tailored to further determine skill deficits of the
subject individual not specifically identified by the
screening questionnaire,
wherein through answers provided by the
behavioral educator via the assessment tools a
lesson associated with an answered question is
automatically placed within a task list of the
treatment plan sub-module and skill strengths and
deficits of the subject individual are identified;
[(C)] the treatment plan sub-module of the
program module includes a user interface configured to
permit the behavioral educator to review, select from and
add to a set of domain-sorted lessons deemed necessary
for the subject individual based on answers obtained
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through the assessment tools from the task list to define an
individualized, ABA-based program of instruction based
on the identified skill strengths and deficits of the subject
individual, wherein the lessons in the task list are
presented in a suggested teaching order according to
difficulty level and age criteria, a lesson in the task list
being associated with a lesson plan, the lesson plan
including a cross reference field that provides a name of a
related lesson and a link to the related lesson, wherein the
link is only provided when the behavior educator has
already answered skills assessment questions regarding
the lesson area of the related lesson and, based on the
answers to the skills assessment questions and the related
lesson is determined to be consistent with an age and an
identified skill deficit of the subject individual, otherwise,
when the behavior educator has not answered questions
regarding the lesson area, prompting the behavior educator
to answer skills assessment questions regarding the lesson
area and, when the answers to the skills assessment
questions identify age and a skill deficit of the subject
individual consistent with the related lesson area,
providing the link; and
[(D)] the progress chart sub-module of the program
module includes a user interface configured to permit
monitoring of the subject individual’s progress as the
subject individual progresses through the lessons of the
individualized program of instruction under the guidance
of one or more instructors.

ANALYSIS
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
implicit exceptions: “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract
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ideas” are not patentable. E.g., Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l,
573 U.S. 208, 216 (2014) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
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 Alice,
573 U.S. 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 (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 182 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))).
In Diehr, the claim at issue recited a mathematical formula, but the
Supreme Court held that “[a] claim drawn to subject matter otherwise
statutory does not become nonstatutory simply because it uses a
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mathematical formula.” Diehr, 450 U.S. at 176; see also id. at 191 (“We
view respondents’ claims as nothing more than a process for molding rubber
products and not as an attempt to patent a mathematical formula.”). Having
said that, the Supreme Court also indicated that a claim “seeking patent
protection for that formula in the abstract . . . is not accorded the protection
of our patent laws, . . . and this principle cannot be circumvented by
attempting to limit the use of the formula to a particular technological
environment.” Id. (citing Benson and Flook); see, e.g., id. at 187 (“It is now
commonplace that an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula
to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent
protection.”).
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
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 (citation omitted).
“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. (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.

USPTO § 101 Guidance
The USPTO recently published revised guidance on the application of
§ 101. 2019 REVISED PATENT SUBJECT MATTER ELIGIBILITY GUIDANCE,
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84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019) (“2019 Revised Guidance”). Under the 2019
Revised 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 activity such as a fundamental economic
practice, or mental processes); and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into
a practical application (see MANUAL OF PATENT EXAMINING
PROCEDURE (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:
(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 2019 Revised Guidance.

Claims 1–8
The Appellant argues claims 1–8 as a group. Appeal Br. 8–14. We
select independent claim 1 as representative. The remaining claims stand or
fall with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
As an initial matter, we note that the Appellant argues that the
Examiner “fail[s] to provide any analysis behind the rejection, the Answer
and the [F]inal Office Action have failed to make out any prima facie case of
lack of subject matter eligibility.” Reply Br. 6; see id. at 8. However, in
rejecting the claims under § 101, the Examiner set forth a well-reasoned
analysis of the claims and a comprehensive explanation of the bases for the
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rejection. See Final Act. 2–8; Ans. 9–14. The Examiner, thus, notified the
Appellant of the reasons for the rejection in a sufficiently articulate and
informative manner as to meet the notice requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 132.
And we find that, in doing so, the Examiner set forth a prima facie case of
patent ineligibility. See In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2011)
(holding that the USPTO carries its procedural burden of establishing a
prima facie case when its rejection satisfies the requirements of 35 U.S.C.
§ 132); Chester v. Miller, 906 F.2d 1574, 1578 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (Section 132
“is violated when a rejection is so uninformative that it prevents the
applicant from recognizing and seeking to counter the grounds for
rejection.”).

Step One of the Mayo/Alice Framework
Does the claim recite a judicial exception?
Under the first step of the Mayo/Alice framework and Step 2A,
Prong 1, of Office Guidelines (see 2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at
53–54), the Examiner determines that the “claimed system basically boils
down to asking an educator questions and then based on the educator’s
answers to those question[s] formulating an individual education plan for a
subject, as well as tracking the progress of that subject in carrying out that
plan.” Ans. 10 (emphasis added). The Examiner determines that claimed
subject matter may be performed by human beings alone, which is a concept
that is an “idea of itself” and abstract. Id.
In response, the Appellant argues that even if the Examiner is correct
as to what the claimed system basically boils down to, which Appellant does
not admit to, the concept “is not a recognized example of ‘abstractness.’”
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Reply Br. 8; see id. at 3–7; Appeal Br. 8–12. The Appellant’s argument is
not persuasive.
Limitations (B) and (C) recite modules for assessing the skills of an
individual and providing ordered lessons to the individual for improving
upon skill deficits, which are steps for customizing a teaching plan for an
individual by an educator (i.e., a specific way of teaching), and similar to
managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people,
which falls within “Certain methods of organizing human activity”
grouping. See 2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52; Intellectual
Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 1370 (Fed. Cir.
2015) (customizing information and presenting it to users based on
particular characteristics); Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v. Amazon.com Inc.,
838 F.3d 1266, 1271 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (customizing a user interface based on
user selections). Therefore, claim 1 recites a judicial exception under the
Guidance’s groupings of abstract ideas.

Is the claim “directed to” the recited judicial exception?
Under Step 2A, Prong 2 of the 2019 Revised Guidance, we look to
whether the claims “apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner
that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that the claim
is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the judicial
exception,” i.e., “integrates the . . . judicial exception into a practical
application,” such that it is not directed to the identified abstract idea. 2019
Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 54. The Appellant argues that claim 1, as
a whole, includes features, such as the processor, the non-transitory storage
medium, and the treatment plan sub-module, that make claim 1 not abstract.
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See Appeal Br. 10–12. For example, the Appellant points out that the
treatment plan sub-module of claim 1 provides for:
a user interface configured to permit the behavioral educator to
review, select from and add to a set of domain-sorted lessons and
a lesson plan including a cross reference field that provides a
name of a related lesson and a link to the related lesson, wherein
the link is only provided when the behavior educator has already
answered skills assessment questions regarding the lesson area
of the related lesson.
Reply Br. 5; see id. at 6–7. When viewed through the lens of the 2019
Revised Guidance, the Appellant contends that the additional elements of
claim 1 integrate the abstract idea into a practical application by “reflect[ing]
an improvement in the functioning of a computer.” 84 Fed. Reg. at 55. We
disagree.
Under the first step of the Alice framework, we “look at the ‘focus of
the claimed advance over the prior art’ to determine if the claim’s ‘character
as a whole’ is directed to excluded subject matter.” Affinity Labs of Texas,
LLC v. DIRECTV, LLC, 838 F.3d 1253, 1257 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (quoting Elec.
Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2016), cert.
denied, 137 S. Ct. 1230 (2017)).
The “directed to” inquiry . . . cannot simply ask whether the
claims involve a patent-ineligible concept, because essentially
every routinely patent-eligible claim involving physical products
and actions involves a law of nature and/or natural phenomenon
. . . . Rather, 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.” Internet Patents Corp. v. Active Network, Inc.,
790 F.3d 1343, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015).

Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2016). In
other words, the first step of the Alice framework “asks whether the focus of
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the claims is on the specific asserted improvement in [the relevant
technology] . . . or, instead, on a process that qualifies as an ‘abstract idea’
for which computers are invoked merely as a tool.” Id. at 1335–36; see also
2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 54–55.
The Specification provides evidence as to what the claimed invention
as a whole is directed to. Here, the Specification is titled “METHODS AND
SYSTEMS OF TREATMENT PLANS” and describes that the present invention
provides age appropriate comprehensive ABA-based programs for
individuals (e.g., children) with developmental disabilities based on
identified needs. See Spec. ¶¶ 22, 71. The Specification describes ABA as a
framework for understanding how to develop an appropriate program for
teaching a child with developmental disabilities. See id. ¶ 2.
An examination of claim 1 shows that the claim recites a computer-
based system comprising a processor and a non-transitory computer medium
with executable instructions stored thereon to execute a program module
configured with education, assessment, treatment plan, and progress chart
sub-modules that provide a behavioral educator with (a) “training in Applied
Behavior Analysis (ABA)-based programs of instruction”; (b) “assessment
tools . . . to identify mastered and non-mastered skills of the subject
individual” by use of “a preliminary exclusionary questionnaire,” “a
screening questionnaire,” and “a detailed set of skill assessment questions”
through which a lesson associated with the answers are placed within a task
list; and (c) “a set of . . . lessons . . . based on answers obtained through the
assessment tools . . . to define an individualized, ABA-based program of
instruction . . . , wherein the lessons [are placed in the] . . . task list [and] . . .
are presented in a suggested teaching order according to difficulty level and
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age criteria” and “associated with a lesson plan”; and (d) a way to “monitor[]
. . . the subject individual’s progress . . . through the lessons of the
individualized program of instruction.” See supra. The Specification
discloses that its client computers (e.g., a processor) “may be any form of
computer-base[d] system,” including “personal computers, laptop
computers, net book computers, mobile devices, smart phones, and the like”
and a non-transitory computer medium including RAM, ROM, or magnetic
or optical disk. Spec. ¶¶ 23, 25; see id. ¶¶ 24, 26–30. As for the claimed
“program module” and various “sub-modules,” the Specification describes
“algorithms and processes presented herein may be implemented in hard-
wired circuitry, by specially programming a general-purpose computer
system or by any combination of hardware and software.” Id. ¶ 28.
Additionally, the Specification describes:
[E]mbodiments of the present invention may be implemented
with the aid of computer-implemented processes or methods
(a.k.a. programs or routines). These processes may be rendered
in any computer-readable language including, without limitation,
C#, C/C++, Fortran, COBOL, PASCAL, assembly language,
markup languages (e.g., HTML, SGML, XML, VoXML), and
the like, as well as object-oriented environments such as the
Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), JavaTM
and the like. In general, however, all of the aforementioned
terms as used herein are meant to encompass any series of logical
steps performed in a sequence to accomplish a given purpose.
Id. ¶ 71.
When considered collectively and under the broadest reasonable
interpretation, the recitations of claim 1 describe a program for training
behavioral educators, assessing skills of a subject individual, identifying
ordered lessons for the subject individual in order to improve identified skill
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deficits, and monitoring progress of the subject individual. The education
sub-module of limitation (A) includes educational materials for a behavioral
educator, specifically training in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)-based
programs of instruction. In other words, the education module provides
data. See id. ¶ 33. The progress chart sub-module of limitation (D) includes
data showing the progress of a subject through the lessons of the
individualized program of instruction. In other words, the progress chart
sub-module presents data. See id. ¶¶ 21, 34, 59, Fig. 11. Limitations (A)
and (D) are insignificant pre-solution and post-solution activity. See also
Bilski, 561 U.S. at 610–11 (instructing that limiting the abstract idea to a
particular technological environment and adding insignificant post solution
activity does not circumvent the prohibition against patenting abstract ideas).
Analysis of claim 1, as a whole, confirms the Examiner’s
determination that the claim is directed to an abstract idea. A review of the
Specification demonstrates that the claim elements are not improvements in
the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or
technical field. See supra. And, the claimed features, alone and in
combination, are no more than generic components operating in their
ordinary capacity. Moreover, we find no evidence that the additional
elements, alone or in combination, implement the abstract idea with a
particular machine that is integral with the claim; effect a transformation or
reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; apply the judicial
exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of
the abstract idea to a particular environment; or otherwise integrate the
abstract idea into a practical application. See 2019 Revised Guidance at 55
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(identifying exemplary considerations indicative that additional elements
may have integrated the exception into a practical application).
Further, we note that the level of abstraction at which the Examiner
describes the invention does not change the accuracy of the Examiner’s
determination. Apple v. Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d 1229, 1240 (Fed. Cir.
2016) (“An abstract idea can generally be described at different levels of
abstraction”).
The Appellant’s argument as to the lack of preemption (Appeal Br.
13–14) is unpersuasive. Cf. OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d
1359, 1362–63 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (“[T]hat the claims do not preempt all price
optimization or may be limited to price optimization in the e-commerce
setting do not make them any less abstract.”), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 701
(2015). Although “preemption may signal patent ineligible subject matter,
the absence of complete preemption does not demonstrate patent
eligibility.” Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371,
1379 (Fed. Cir. 2015). “Where a patent’s claims are deemed only to
disclose patent ineligible subject matter” under the Alice framework,
“preemption concerns are fully addressed and made moot.” Id.
On this record, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner erred in
concluding that claim 1 is directed to a judicial exception.

Step Two of the Mayo/Alice Framework
Under step two of the Alice framework, we find supported the
Examiner’s determination that “[t]he additional element(s) or combination
of elements in the claim(s) other than the abstract idea per se amount(s) to
no more than: a processor and a non-transitory storage medium
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communicatively coupled to said processor” and that “these additional claim
element(s) do not provide meaningful limitation(s) to transform the abstract
idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the
claim(s) amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.” Final
Act. 5.
The Appellant argues that claim 1 includes limitations that recite
significantly more than the abstract idea because claim 1 provides a
processor, a non-transitory storage medium, a program module, and various
sub-modules. See Appeal Br. 12–14. The Appellant, by example, points to
limitation 1(C), i.e., the treatment plan sub-module. See id. at 14. We
disagree.
Taking the claims’ elements separately, the processor and a non-
transitory storage medium are purely conventional. See supra. It is clear,
from the Specification, including the claim language, that the claim
“limitations require no improved computer resources [the Appellant] claims
to have invented, just already available computers, with their already
available basic functions, to use as tools in executing the claimed process”
performed by the claimed system. SAP Am., Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC,
898 F.3d 1161, 1169–70 (Fed. Cir. 2018). Additionally, the instructions
performed by the processor by use of the program module and the various
sub-modules are purely conventional. See Elec. Power, 830 F.3d at 1355
(gathering, sending, monitoring, analyzing, selecting, and presenting
information does not transform the abstract process into a patent-eligible
invention); Trading Techs. Int’l, Inc. v. IBG LLC, 921 F.3d 1084, 1093 (Fed.
Cir. 2019) (data gathering and displaying are well-understood, routine, and
conventional activities); Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Fin.
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Corp., 850 F.3d 1332, 1341 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (determining that there was “no
‘inventive concept’ that transform[ed] the abstract idea of collecting,
displaying, and manipulating XML data into a patent-eligible application of
that abstract idea).”
The Appellant’s other arguments, including those directed to now-
superseded USPTO guidance (see, e.g., Appeal Br. 8–12), have been
considered but are not persuasive of error. See 2019 Revised Guidance, 84
Fed. Reg. at 51 (“Eligibility-related guidance issued prior to the Ninth
Edition, R–08.2017, of the MPEP (published Jan. 2018) should not be relied
upon.”)).
Thus, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–8 under
35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to a judicial exception without
significantly more. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).

DECISION
We AFFIRM the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–8.
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