Ex Parte Anand et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 26, 2017

13565456 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 26, 2017)

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.
13/565,456 08/02/2012 Abheek Anand 060406-8005.US01 1663
107616 7590 06/28/2017
PERKINS COIE LLP - Facebook
P.O. BOX 1247
SEATTLE, WA 98111 -1247
EXAMINER
UBER, NATHAN C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3622
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/28/2017 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):
patentprocurement @perkinscoie. com
rsarathy@perkinscoie.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ABHEEK ANAND and SOHAM MAZUMDAR
Appeal 2015-003603
Application 13/565,456
Technology Center 3600
Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, ANTON W. FETTING, and
MATTHEW S. MEYERS, Administrative Patent Judges.
CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s
final decision rejecting claims 1, 4—17, and 19-24. We have jurisdiction
over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A method comprising:
initializing, by a processor of a point-of-sale (POS) terminal, a sniff
daemon as a background process executing at the POS terminal;
Appeal 2015-003603
Application 13/565,456
detecting, by the processor configured by the sniff daemon, presence
of a transaction document in a print queue memory of the POS terminal,
wherein a POS application also executing at the POS terminal generates,
upon verification of a payment made for a sales transaction via the POS
application, the transaction document and spools the transaction document to
the print queue memory as part of a receipt printing process, wherein the
print queue memory is a portion of a memory of the POS terminal; and
transmitting, by the processor configured by the sniff daemon without
interaction with the POS application and before the transaction document is
sent to a printer, the transaction document from the print queue memory to a
collection server external to the POS terminal.
Appellants appeal the following rejection(s):
1. Claims 1, 4—17, and 19-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
2. Claims 1, 4—9, 17, 20, and 22—24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
as unpatentable over Ostad et al. (US 2010/0306168 Al, published Dec.
2, 2010) (“Ostad”).
3. Claims 10, 11, 13—16, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Ostad in view of Arzumanyan et al. (US 2010/0010905
Al, published Jan. 14, 2010) (“Arzumanyan”).
4. Claim 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Ostad in view of Arzumanyan and Bakker et al. (US 2005/0023346 Al,
published Feb. 3, 2005) (“Bakker”).
5. Claim 21 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Ostad in view of Bohn et al. (US 2010/0301113 Al, published Dec. 2,
2010) (“Bohn”).
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Appeal 2015-003603
Application 13/565,456
ISSUES
Did the Examiner err in rejecting the appealed claims under 35 U.S.C.
§101 because the Examiner has not established that the claims are directed
to coordinating human activity or a fundamental business practice of
marketing?
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
because Ostad does not disclose the step of initializing a sniff daemon as a
background process executing at the POS terminal?
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
because Ostad does not disclose optically recognizing the transaction
document at the server system?
ANALYSIS
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. §101
The Examiner entered a new ground of rejection under 35 U.S.C.
§ 101 in the Answer.
The Examiner held that the claims are directed to an abstract idea
because the claims are directed to a method of coordinating human activity
and a fundamental business practice of marketing. The Examiner’s rejection
does not include an explanation of how the claims are directed to a method
of coordinating human activity or a fundamental business practice or
marketing.
To determine whether a claim is eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101, we
apply the two-step framework set forth in Mayo Collaborative Services v.
Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1296—97 (2012) and
reiterated in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, 134
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Application 13/565,456
S. Ct. 2347, 2355 (2014), which considers, in the first step, whether the
claims are directed to a patent-ineligible concept, e.g., an abstract idea, and
then, in a second step, whether there is an inventive concept—an element or
combination of elements sufficient to ensure that the claim amounts to
“significantly more” than the abstract idea. Pursuant to this framework,
Appellants have persuaded us that the Examiner erred in determining that
the claims are ineligible under § 101. Reply. 2.
In regard to the first step, where we consider whether the claims are
directed to a patent-ineligible concept, such as an abstract idea, the inquiry is
not merely whether the claims embody an abstract idea. McRO, Inc. v.
Bandai Namco Games America, Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2016)
(quoting Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 132 S. Ct.
1289, 1293 (2012) (“[A]ll inventions at some level embody, use, reflect, rest
upon, or apply laws of nature, natural phenomena, or abstract
ideas.”). Rather, the Federal Circuit has instructed that “the claims are
considered in their entirety to ascertain whether their character as a whole is
directed to excluded subject matter.” Id. (quoting Internet Patents Corp. v.
Active Network, Inc., 790 F.3d 1343, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (emphasis
added).
Here, each of independent claims 1, 6, 10, 14, and 17 recites steps for
detecting or recognizing a transaction document. For example, independent
claim 1 recites the steps of “initializing, by a processor of a point-of-sale
(POS) terminal, a sniff daemon as a background process,” “detecting, by the
processor configured by the sniff daemon, presence of a transaction
document in a print queue memory,” and “transmitting, by the processor
configured by the sniff daemon without interaction with the POS application
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Application 13/565,456
and before the transaction document is sent to a printer, the transaction
document from the print queue memory to a collection server external to the
POS terminal.” Independent claims 6, 10, 14, and 17 include similar
limitations. Thus, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner’s
characterization of the claims as “directed to the abstract idea of
coordinating human activity and the fundamental business practice of
marketing” does not account for these steps, and, therefore does not reflect
the character of the claims as a whole (see Reply Br. 2 (citing Ans. 3)).
In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 1,
4—17, and 19-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. §102
We will not sustain this rejection as it is directed to claim 1 because
we agree with the Appellants that Ostad does not disclose initiating by a
processor a sniff daemon as a background process executing at the POS
terminal as required by claim 1. The Examiner relies on paragraphs 38 and
41 of Ostad for teaching this subject matter (Final Act. 4).
The Appellants’ disclosure states that the invention utilizes a
background process running on the POS system to sniff and collect
transaction data from a printer queue or local database (Spec. ®[ 19). The
POS terminal includes a sniffer module that executes a daemon process.
The Specification defines a daemon process as computer program process
that is not under the direct control of an interactive user (Spec. 1! 49).
Therefore, the sniffer daemon of claim 1 is a process that runs in the
background or behind the scenes and without user intervention.
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Application 13/565,456
The Examiner recognizes that Ostad does not specifically use the term
“background process,” the Examiner finds with reference to paragraph 23
that the POS computer of Ostad to be the sniffer daemon because it performs
the same functions that achieve equivalent results (Ans. 8).
We agree with the Appellants that the POS computer is not a sniff
daemon. There is no disclosure that the point of sale capturing done by the
POS computer is done in the background without user intervention. In this
regard paragraph 23 of Ostad discloses that the POS computer is a cash
register which is not utilized without user intervention. The Examiner has
not established that Ostad discloses a process that runs in the background
without user intervention as required by claim 1.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the rejection as it is
directed to claim 1 and claims 4, 5, and 22 dependent therefrom.
We will not sustain this rejection as it is directed to claim 6 and claims
7 9 dependent therefrom for the same reason.
We will not sustain this rejection as it is directed to claim 17 and
claims 20, 23, and 24 dependent therefrom because Ostad does not disclose
a sniffer module as required by claim 17.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
Claims 10, 11, 13 16, and 19
We will not sustain this rejection because we agree with the
Appellants that Ostad does not disclose optically recognizing at the
collection server system the transaction document as required by claim 10.
Rather, we find that the optical recognition takes place at the POS computer
and transaction data is subsequently sent to the server (37). The Examiner
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Application 13/565,456
finds that the POS computer of Ostad can be considered a server and that in
that case the POS computer is performing the optical character recognition
(Ans. 9 10). While it may be true that the POS computer can be considered
a server, we agree with the Appellants that as claim 10 recites receiving at a
collection server system, a transaction document from a POS terminal
external to the collection server system, the claim requires both a server
system and a POS computer which is external to the server system.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claim 10 and claims 11 and 13 dependent thereon.
We will also not sustain this rejection as it is directed to claims 14, 16,
and 19 because each of these claims requires a sniff daemon and sniffer
module which we have found lacking in Ostad and the Examiner relies on
Ostad for teaching this subject matter in rejecting these claims (Final Act.
10, 12).
Claim 12 and 21
We will not sustain the rejection of claim 12 which depends from
claim 10 for the same reasons given above in our discussion of the rejection
of claim 10.
We will not sustain the rejection of claim 21 which depends from
claim 1 for the same reasons given above in our discussion of the rejection
of claim 1.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner is reversed.
ORDER
REVERSED
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