Ex Parte HAMILTON et al

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 25, 2019

14048365 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Mar. 25, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/048,365 10/08/2013
46169 7590 03/27/2019
SHOOK, HARDY & BACON L.L.P.
(Cerner Corporation)
Intellectual Property Department
2555 GRAND BOULEVARD
KANSAS CITY, MO 64108-2613
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
RYAN HAMILTON
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
CRNI.196078 1476
EXAMINER
NGUYEN, TRAN N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3686
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/27/2019 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):
IPDOCKET@SHB.COM
IPRCDKT@SHB.COM
BPARKERSON@SHB.COM
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Exparte RYAN HAMILTON, BHARAT SUTARIYA, TEHSIN SYED,
BENJAMIN DAVID WILKERSON, and ANGIE GLOTSTEIN
Appeal2018-000645
Application 14/048,3 65 1
Technology Center 3600
Before DAVID M. KOHUT, BETH Z. SHAW, and
JAMES W. DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judges.
DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify Cemer Innovation, Inc. as the real party in interest.
Br. 3.
Appeal2018-000645
Application 14/048,365
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' disclosed and claimed invention generally relates to
"organizational management of population health." Spec. ,r 4. More
particularly, Appellants describe the managing population health techniques
includes building and maintaining data stores related to healthcare
organizations and healthcare providers, building and maintaining data stores
related to patient information, and attributing patients to healthcare
providers. Spec. ,r,r 4--5. According to the Specification, exemplary
healthcare organization and provider data may include information such as
operating hours, geographic location, associated providers, credentials,
affiliations, and demographic characteristics. Spec. ,r 4 7. Patient data may
include patient demographics, health history, diagnoses, treatments, test
results, insurance information, and preferences. Spec. ,r,r 56, 77. Patient
information from various reference records is combined "to form person-
centric longitudinal health records known as population records. Each
record is longitudinal in that it contains information on all of the patient's
health encounters even though the encounters may have occurred at
disparate locations and with disparate providers." Spec. ,r 61. In a disclosed
embodiment, an attribution program "attributes patients to various healthcare
providers within a healthcare organization." Spec. ,r 74. For example, in a
tired attribution schema, a patient may be attributed to a healthcare
organization or provider based on organizational data, whereas attributing a
specific provider to a patient may be based on patient data. Spec. ,r 79.
Claim 1 is representative of the subject matter on appeal and is
reproduced below:
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Application 14/048,365
1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media
having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that,
when executed, perform a method of using organizational data
and patient population data to attribute patients within a defined
patient population segment to one or more providers associated
with a healthcare organization, the method comprising:
building a data store of organizational data associated with
a healthcare organization from data received from one or more
sources;
based on the organizational data associated with the
healthcare organization, identifying one or more providers
associated with the healthcare organization, specialties
associated with the one or more providers, and locations of the
one or more providers;
based on a plurality of longitudinal patient population
records, identifying a set of patients currently associated with the
healthcare organization;
using the longitudinal patient population records:
1) identifying a set of patients associated with the
healthcare organization;
2) for each patient in the set of patients associated
with the healthcare organization, identifying within a
corresponding longitudinal patient population record
previous and current provider relationships based on one
or more provider encounters of the patient, and
3) identifying preference information of the patient
regarding a provider type;
creating an attribution scheme for implementation by a
program engine, wherein the attribution scheme attributes each
patient in the set of patients to at least one of the one or more
providers associated with the healthcare organization based on:
1) the specialties associated with the one or more
providers,
2) the locations of the one or more providers relative
to a location associated with the patient,
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Application 14/048,365
3) the previous and current provider relationships
identified based on the one or more provider encounters of
the patient, and
4) the preference information identified for the
patient regarding a provider type; and
modifying the attribution scheme when one or more of the
organizational data associated with the healthcare organization
or the longitudinal patient population records is updated.
The Examiner's Rejection
Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to
patent-ineligible subject matter. Final Act. 2-13.
ANALYSIS 2
Appellants dispute the Examiner's conclusion that the pending claims
are directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. Br. 10-20. In particular,
Appellants argue the Examiner oversimplifies the claims (e.g., claim 1) and
fails to consider "the character of each claim as a whole." Br. 11. Rather,
Appellants assert, the Examiner relies on two non-precedential opinions to
conclude the claims are directed to an abstract idea. Br. 11-14 (referring to
Cyberfone Sys. v. CNN Interactive Grp., 558 F. App'x 988 (Fed. Cir. 2014);
SmartGene, Inc. v. Advanced Biological Labs., SA, 555 F. App'x 950 (Fed.
Cir. 2014) ). Appellants argue the claims are not directed to an abstract idea
2 Throughout this Decision, we have considered the Appeal Brief, filed
March 16, 2017 ("Br."); the Examiner's Answer, mailed August 25, 2017
("Ans."); and the Final Office Action, mailed October 20, 2016 ("Final
Act."), from which this Appeal is taken. Appellants did not file a Reply
Brief. To the extent Appellants have not advanced separate, substantive
arguments for particular claims or issues, such arguments are considered
waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv) (2016).
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Application 14/048,365
but instead recite an attribution schema "customized to reflect a specific
healthcare organization, its contractual quality measures goals, its providers'
specialties and locations, and its patient population's preferences and
locations and known relationships with providers." Br. 15-16. Moreover,
Appellants assert the claims provide an inventive concept to transform the
alleged abstract idea into a patent-eligible application. Br. 18-20.
Specifically, Appellants argue the claims are necessarily rooted in computer
technology because the embodiments "include computer-based network and
attribution services for building a customized healthcare organization
attribution schema that is specifically created for, and implemented by, a
computer program engine." Br. 19.
The Supreme Court's two-step framework guides our analysis of
patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int 'l, 573
U.S. 208,217 (2014). In addition, the Office recently published revised
guidance for evaluating subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101,
specifically with respect to applying the Alice framework. USPTO, 2019
Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7,
2019) ("Office Guidance"). If a claim falls within one of the statutory
categories of patent eligibility (i.e., a process, machine, manufacture, or
composition of matter) then the first inquiry is whether the claim is directed
to one of the judicially recognized exceptions (i.e., a law of nature, a natural
phenomenon, or an abstract idea). Alice, 573 U.S. at 217. As part of this
inquiry, we must "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 Tex., LLC v. DirecTV, LLC, 838 F.3d 1253,
1257-58 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (internal citations omitted). Per Office Guidance,
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this first inquiry has two prongs of analysis: (i) does the claim recite a
judicial exception (e.g., an abstract idea), and (ii) if so, is the judicial
exception integrated into a practical application. 84 Fed. Reg. at 54. Under
the Office Guidance, if the judicial exception is integrated into a practical
application, see infra, the claim passes muster under§ 101. 84 Fed. Reg. at
54--55. If the claim is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., recites a judicial
exception and does not integrate the exception into a practical application),
the next step is to determine whether any element, or combination of
elements, amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception. Alice,
573 U.S. at 217; 84 Fed. Reg. at 56.
Here, we conclude Appellants' claims recite an abstract idea. In
particular, Appellants' claims are generally directed to using organizational
data and patient population data to attribute patients to healthcare providers
in a healthcare organization. This is consistent with how Appellants
describe the claimed invention. See, e.g., Spec. ,r 27 ( describing the program
templates are designed to "identify population segments ... [and] attribute
patients within the segment to healthcare providers"); see also Br. 15
( describing claimed embodiments as defining an attribution schema for a
healthcare organization to reflect the attribution of its healthcare providers
and its patient population). We conclude that attributing patients to
healthcare providers based on organizational data and patient population
data is a certain method of organizing human activity ( e.g., managing
relationships between people }-i.e., an abstract idea. See 84 Fed. Reg. at 52.
Claim 1 is reproduced below and includes the following claim
limitations that recite using organizational data and patient population data
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to attribute patients to healthcare providers in a healthcare organization,
emphasized in italics.
1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media
having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that,
when executed, perform a method of using organizational data
and patient population data to attribute patients within a defined
patient population segment to one or more providers associated
with a healthcare organization, the method comprising:
building a data store of organizational data associated with
a healthcare organization from data received from one or more
sources;
based on the organizational data associated with the
healthcare organization, identifying one or more providers
associated with the healthcare organization, specialties
associated with the one or more providers, and locations of the
one or more providers;
based on a plurality of longitudinal patient population
records, identifying a set of patients currently associated with the
healthcare organization;
using the longitudinal patient population records:
1) identifying a set of patients associated with the
healthcare organization;
2) for each patient in the set of patients associated
with the healthcare organization, identifying within a
corresponding longitudinal patient population record
previous and current provider relationships based on one
or more provider encounters of the patient, and
3) identifying preference information of the patient
regarding a provider type;
creating an attribution scheme for implementation by a
program engine, wherein the attribution scheme attributes each
patient in the set of patients to at least one of the one or more
providers associated with the healthcare organization based on:
1) the specialties associated with the one or more
providers,
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Application 14/048,365
2) the locations of the one or more providers
relative to a location associated with the patient,
3) the previous and current provider relationships
identified based on the one or more provider encounters
of the patient, and
4) the preference information identified for the
patient regarding a provider type; and
modifying the attribution scheme when one or more of the
organizational data associated with the healthcare organization
or the longitudinal patient population records is updated.
More particularly, using organizational data and patient population
data to attribute patients to healthcare providers in a healthcare organization
requires: (i) creating an attribution scheme to attribute patients to at least
one of healthcare providers based on information related to the healthcare
providers and information related to the patient (i.e., the claimed step of
creating an attribution scheme); and (ii) updating the attribution scheme as
information associated with the healthcare provider or patient is updated
(i.e., the claimed step of modifying the attribution scheme).
Because the claim recites an abstract idea, we next determine whether
the claim integrates the abstract idea into a practical application. 84 Fed.
Reg. at 54. To determine whether the judicial exception is integrated into a
practical application, we identify whether there are "any additional elements
recited in the claim beyond the judicial exception(s)" and evaluate those
elements to determine whether they integrate the judicial exception into a
recognized practical application. 84 Fed. Reg. at 54--55 (emphasis added);
see also Manual of Patent Examining Procedure ("MPEP") § 2106.05(a}-
(c), (e}-(h) (9th ed. Rev. 08.2017, Jan. 2018).
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Here, we find the additional limitations do not integrate the judicial
exception into a practical application. Specifically, "building a data store
... from data received from one or more sources," identifying one or more
healthcare providers based on the data store of the data, and identifying a set
of patients from a plurality of longitudinal patient population records serve
to link the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or
field of use. See MPEP § 2106.05(h); see also Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S.
584, 589-90 (1978); Affinity Labs, 838 F.3d at 1258-59 (stating "that merely
limiting the field of use of the abstract idea to a particular existing
technological environment does not render the claims any less abstract"); 84
Fed. Reg. at 55. Moreover, the limitations of gathering the data to be
operated upon (i.e., identifying data from a database), is also insufficient to
transform the judicial exception into a patent-eligible application. See
MPEP § 2106.05(g); see also Flook, 437 U.S. at 590; In re Grams, 888 F.2d
835, 840 (Fed. Cir. 1989) ("deriv[ing] data for the algorithm will not render
the claim statutory"); 84 Fed. Reg. at 55.
Further, contrary to Appellants' assertions (see Br. 18-20), the claims
do not provide a technical solution to a problem necessarily rooted and
arising in computer technology. Rather, as in independent claim 15, the
claims merely invoke a computer to perform the judicial exception, which is
insufficient to confer patent eligibility to an otherwise ineligible concept.
See Alice, 573 U.S. at 222-25; see also 84 Fed. Reg. at 55; MPEP
§ 2106.05(±); Ans. 3--4; but see DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P.,
773 F.3d 1245, 1225-59 (Fed. Cir. 2014).
Because we determine the claims are directed to an abstract idea or
combination of abstract ideas, we analyze the claims under step two of Alice
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to determine if there are additional limitations that individually, or as an
ordered combination, ensure the claims amount to "significantly more" than
the abstract idea. Alice, 573 U.S. at 217-18 (citing Mayo Collaborative
Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 72-73, 77-79 (2012)). As
stated in the Office Guidance, many of the considerations to determine
whether the claims amount to "significantly more" under step two of the
Alice framework are already considered as part of determining whether the
judicial exception has been integrated into a practical application. 84 Fed.
Reg. at 56. Thus, at this point of our analysis, we determine if the claims
add a specific limitation, or combination of limitations, that is not well-
understood, routine, conventional activity in the field, or simply appends
well-understood, routine, conventional activities at a high level of generality.
84 Fed. Reg. at 56.
Here, Appellants' claims do not recite specific limitations ( or a
combination of limitations) that are not well-understood, routine, and
conventional. For example, when describing the control server and remote
computers of a computing environment for practicing the claimed invention
(see, e.g., Fig. 1 ), Appellants describe the components at a high level of
generality and note the components are "well-known computing systems"
such as personal computers or laptop devices. Spec. ,r 31; see also Spec.
For the reasons discussed supra, we are unpersuaded of Examiner
error. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-20
under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
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Application 14/048,365
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-20 under
35 U.S.C. § 101.
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.
§ 41.50(±).
AFFIRMED
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