Ex Parte Cohen-Solal et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 8, 2017

13580387 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 8, 2017)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte ERIC COHEN-SOLAL, KARINA TULIPANO,
VICTOR P. M. VLOEMANS, ROLAND OPFER, and
INGWER C. CARLSEN
____________

Appeal 2016-005783
Application 13/580,3871
Technology Center 3600
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Before CARL L. SILVERMAN, JOYCE CRAIG, and
STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges.

SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is a decision on Rehearing in Appeal No. 2016-005783. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Appellants submit their Request
for Rehearing under 37 C.F.R § 41.52(a)(2) (“Appellant may present a new
argument based upon a recent relevant decision of . . . a Federal Court”).
Req. 1. Specifically, Appellants’ Request for Rehearing is based on a recent
decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which was decided
after issuance of the Decision on Appeal: Core Wireless Licensing v. LG

1 The real party in interest is identified as Koninklijke Philips Electronics
N.V. App. Br. 1.
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Electronics, Inc., 2018 WL 542672; Nos. 2016-2684, 2017-1922 (Fed. Cir.
Jan. 25, 2018).
We have reconsidered our Decision regarding the claims in light of
Appellants’ arguments in the Request for Rehearing (“Request”). We grant
the Request to the extent that we consider Appellants’ arguments infra, but
DENY the request to modify our Decision. We incorporate our earlier
Decision herein by reference. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(a)(1).

ISSUES ON REHEARING
Appellants present arguments they assert should be considered in the
Request based on Core Wireless Licensing. Thus, the issue is whether Core
Wireless Licensing changes our Decision.

ANALYSIS

In our Decision, we affirmed the rejections of claims 1–5, 7, 9–14,
and 16–23 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. (Decision 12).
Appellants argue the claims are patent eligible under the standard
articulated in Core Wireless Licensing in which

the Court held that, although the generic idea of summarizing
information existed prior to the claimed invention, the claims were
directed to a particular manner of summarizing and presenting
information in electronic devices. Core Wireless Licensing at 9. The
claims at issue restrained the type of data that can be displayed in a
summary window, which is a specific manner of displaying a limited
set of information to the user.

Req. 2.
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According to Appellants, “the present claims are not directed to the
generic idea of summarizing information, but rather are directed to a
particular manner of summarizing and presenting information in an
electronic device comprising a data storage and a digital processing device.
Id. at 3. For example, regarding claim 1, Appellants argue

The recited particular manner of summarizing patient data includes
grouping the nodes of the clinical guideline into care phases,
associating patient data with patient care phases selected from those
care phases of the clinical guideline, and determining patient care phase
time intervals for the patient care phases based on acquisition date
information for the patient data associated with the patient care phases.
These patient care phase time intervals are selected such that that [sic]
no more than two patient care phase time intervals overlap at any point
in time and such that each patient care phase time interval includes all
acquisition dates for the patient data associated with the patient care
phase.

Id. (emphasis omitted).

According to Appellants
In Core Wireless Licensing, the court held the claims at issue, which
were directed to an improved user interface for computing devices, to
be patent eligible. Specifically, the Court held that, although the
generic idea of summarizing information existed prior to the claimed
invention, the claims were directed to a particular manner of
summarizing and presenting information in electronic devices. Core
Wireless Licensing at 9. The claims at issue restrained the type of data
that can be displayed in a summary window, which is a specific manner
of displaying a limited set of information to the user. Id. The Court
held that these claims recited a specific improvement over prior
systems, resulting in an improved user interface for electronic devices,
and thus were directed to statutory subject matter.

Id. at 2.
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Likewise, the present claims are not directed to the generic idea of
summarizing information, but rather are directed to a particular manner
of summarizing and presenting information in an electronic device.

Id. at 3.

Appellants argue claim 1’s “particular manner of summarizing
information in an electronic device overcomes deficiencies in conventional
CDSS2 summarization.” Request. 3–4. According to Appellants

the particular manner of summarizing information in the electronic
device (i.e. CDSS) per claim l overcomes deficiencies in conventional
CDSS summarization which do not provide a readily comprehensible
presentation of temporal context of patient data. Claim 1 thus does not
merely recite some generic idea of summarizing information, but rather
claim 1 is directed to a particular manner of summarizing information
in electronic devices, and hence is patent eligible as per Core Wireless
Licensing.

Id. at 4.
In our Decision, we were not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments set
forth in the Briefs and agreed instead with the Examiner’s conclusion that
the claims are directed to abstract ideas and patent-ineligible concepts.
Decision 6–9. In particular, the claims are directed to the abstract idea of
“creating and updating patient care time intervals by creating or updating a
clinical workflow patient care plan using phase time intervals.” Id. at 6–7.
We also agreed with the Examiner’s conclusion that the claims do not

2 Appellants describe “A clinical decision support system (CDSS) is an
interactive electronic system that provides guidance for a physician or other
medical personnel in diagnosing and treating a patient.” Spec. 1:4–6.
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present additional elements that amount to significantly more than the
abstract idea. Id. at 5–9.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments that Core Wireless
Licensing is applicable to the claims before us. For example, to the extent
there is an improvement in claim 1, the improvement is to the abstract idea--
and this improvement is implemented by processing with conventional
computer equipment. Id. at 7. Although Core Wireless Licensing is
“directed to a particular manner of summarizing and presenting information
in electronic devices,” resulting in an improved user interface, claim 1 does
not recite an improved user interface, in contrast to Core Wireless Licensing.
See Core Wireless Licensing at 9–10. As stated in Core Wireless Licensing,
Claim 1 of the ’476 patent requires “an application summary that can
be reached directly from the menu,” specifying a particular manner by
which the summary window must be accessed. The claim further
requires the application summary window list a limited set of data,
“each of the data in the list being selectable to launch the respective
application and enable the selected data to be seen within the
respective application.” This claim limitation restrains the type of
data that can be displayed in the summary window. Finally, the claim
recites that the summary window “is displayed while the one or more
applications are in an un-launched state,” a requirement that the
device applications exist in a particular state. These limitations
disclose a specific manner of displaying a limited set of information to
the user, rather than using conventional user interface methods to
display a generic index on a computer. Like the improved systems
claimed in Enfish, Thales, Visual Memory, and Finjan, these claims
recite a specific improvement over prior systems, resulting in an
improved user interface for electronic devices.

Id.
In Core Wireless Licensing the Specification confirmed the improved
user interface and, in particular, that the claims are “directed to an
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improvement in the functioning of computers, particularly those with small
screens.” Id. at 10. Because Core Wireless Licensing held the claims are
not directed to an abstract idea, the second step of the Alice inquiry was not
addressed. Id.
In view of the above, the current claims are distinguishable from Core
Wireless Licensing and, as discussed in our Decision, the claims are also
distinguishable from Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327 (Fed.
Cir. 2016), and DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245,
1249 (Fed. Cir. 2014). Decision 6–8. See also Electric Power Group, LLC
v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2016), in which the court
characterized the claims as directed to the abstract idea of collecting
information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and
analysis. Id. at 1354.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments regarding claim 1.
We are also not persuaded by Appellants’ similar arguments for independent
claims 9 and 16. Appellants present similar arguments for dependent claims
2, 3, 12, 14, 16, and 17. Request. 5–6. We note dependent claims 2, 14, and
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17 recite displaying (or display) patient data. We are not persuaded by
Appellants’ arguments for the same reasons discussed, supra.
In view of the above, we find no error in the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection
of claims 1–5, 7, 9–14, and 16–23 and in our affirmance of that rejection.

CONCLUSION
Nothing in Appellants’ Request has persuaded us that our Decision
should be modified in view of Core Wireless Licensing. Accordingly, we
deny the Request for Rehearing.

DECISION
To summarize, our decision is as follows:
We have considered the Request but DENY the request that we
reverse the Examiner as to claims 1–5, 7, 9–14, and 16–23.

DENIED

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