LURNITURE CORP.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Oct 7, 2020

2020000877 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 7, 2020)

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.
14/792,371 07/06/2015 Samuel David BLOOM P4607US01 3027
54640 7590 10/07/2020
PERRY + CURRIER INC.
1300 YONGE STREET
SUITE 500
TORONTO, ONTARIO M4T-1X3
CANADA
EXAMINER
BOYCE, ANDRE D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3623
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/07/2020 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):
docketing@pckip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte SAMUEL DAVID BLOOM
____________

Appeal 2020-000877
Application 14/792,371
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before NINA L. MEDLOCK, PHILIP J. HOFFMANN, and
BRUCE T. WIEDER, Administrative Patent Judges.

MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1–15. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42. Our decision references Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.,”
filed June 10, 2019) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed November 14,
2019), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed September 16, 2019),
and Final Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed July 26, 2018). Appellant
identifies LevelJump Software Corp. as the real party in interest (Appeal
Br. 3).
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CLAIMED INVENTION
The claimed invention “relates to computer systems, [and] more
specifically, to video content delivery” (Spec. ¶ 1).
Claims 1, 8, and 15 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below with bracketed notations added, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. A method for delivering sales training videos in a
computer network, the method comprising:
[(a)] obtaining content attributes of the sales training
videos, the sales training videos stored in a library of sales
training videos accessible to a customer relationship
management system operating on the computer network, the
content attributes identifying relationships between content of
sales training videos and data stored at the customer relationship
management system;
[(b)] selecting one or more of the sales training videos
based on the content attributes of the sales training videos;
[(c)] outputting indications of the one or more sales
training videos to a remote device via the computer network;
[(d)] initiating playback for the remote device of a
particular sales training video of the one or more sales training
videos;
[(e)] after or during playback of the particular sales
training video, outputting a feedback request to the remote device
via the computer network;
[(f)] receiving user-specified feedback data from the
remote device via the computer network, the user-specified
feedback data indicating a particular object stored in the
customer relationship management system, wherein the
particular object has a stage selected from a plurality of stages,
the plurality of stages defining temporal states that represent
change of the particular object over time; and
[(g)] upon detection of an advancement of the stage of
the particular object, updating at least one content attribute of the
particular sales training video.
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REJECTIONS
Claims 1–15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to a
judicial exception without significantly more.
Claims 1–4, 6–11, and 13–15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Collier et al. (US 2012/0066003 A1, published Mar. 15,
2012) (“Collier”), Sadeh-Koniecpol et al. (US 2014/0199664 A1, published
July 17, 2014) (“Sadeh-Koniecpol”), and Govindaraman et al.
(US 2014/0081715 A1, published Mar. 20, 2014) (“Govindaraman”).
Claims 5 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over Collier, Sadeh-Koniecpol, Govindaraman, and Fox
(US 2007/0031805 A1, published Feb. 8, 2007).
ANALYSIS
Patent-Ineligible Subject Matter
Appellant argues the pending claims as a group (Appeal Br. 11–17).
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).
Under 35 U.S.C. § 101, an invention is patent eligible if it claims a
“new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.”
35 U.S.C. § 101. The Supreme Court, however, has long interpreted § 101
to include an implicit exception: “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and
abstract ideas” are not patentable. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S.
208, 216 (2014).
The Supreme Court, in Alice, reiterated the two-step framework
previously set forth in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus
Laboratories, Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012), “for distinguishing patents that claim
laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those that claim
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patent-eligible applications of those concepts.” Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 217.
The first step in that analysis is to “determine whether the claims at issue are
directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts.” Id. If the claims are not
directed to a patent-ineligible concept, e.g., an abstract idea, the inquiry
ends. Otherwise, the inquiry proceeds to the second step where the elements
of the claims are considered “individually and ‘as an ordered combination’”
to determine whether there are additional elements that “‘transform the
nature of the claim’ into a patent-eligible application.” Id. (quoting Mayo,
566 U.S. at 79, 78). This is “a search for an ‘inventive concept’ — i.e., an
element or combination of elements that is ‘sufficient to ensure that the
patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the
[ineligible concept] itself.’” Id. at 217–18 (alteration in original).
In rejecting the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the Examiner
determined that the claims are directed to delivering sales training videos to
a remote user, i.e., to an abstract idea substantially similar to other concepts
that courts have held abstract (Final Act. 3–4 (noting that the claimed subject
matter is similar to, among other concepts, delivering user-selected media
content to portable devices in Affinity Labs of Texas v. Amazon.com Inc.,
836 F.3d 1266 (Fed. Cir. 2016))). The Examiner also determined that the
claims do not include additional elements sufficient to amount to
significantly more than the abstract idea itself (id. at 4–5).
The Examiner additionally rejected claims 8–14 under § 101 as
directed to non-statutory subject matter, i.e., on the ground that the claims do
not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent-eligible subject
matter (Final Act. 5). The Examiner reasoned that “[i]ndependent claim 8
includes a system defined merely by a plurality of engines, which is deemed
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software, with no accompanying hardware components (e.g., a physical
system including inter alia, processor, server, GUI, etc.)”; the Examiner
rejected dependent claims 9–14 based on the same rationale (id.).
After the Final Office Action was mailed, the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) published revised guidance on January 7,
2019 for use by USPTO personnel in evaluating subject matter eligibility
under 35 U.S.C. § 101. 2019 REVISED PATENT SUBJECT MATTER
ELIGIBILITY GUIDANCE, 84 Fed. Reg. 50, 57 (Jan. 7, 2019) (the “2019
Revised Guidance”).2 That guidance revised the USPTO’s examination
procedure with respect to the first step of the Mayo/Alice framework by
(1) “[p]roviding groupings of subject matter that [are] considered an abstract
idea”; and (2) clarifying that a claim is not “directed to” a judicial exception
if the judicial exception is integrated into a practical application of that
exception. Id. at 50.
The first step, as set forth in the 2019 Revised Guidance (i.e.,
Step 2A), is, thus, a two-prong test. In Step 2A, Prong One, we look to
whether the claim recites a judicial exception, e.g., one of the following
three groupings of abstract ideas: (1) mathematical concepts; (2) certain
methods of organizing human activity, e.g., fundamental economic
principles or practices, commercial or legal interactions; and (3) mental
processes. 2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 54. If so, we next
determine, in Step 2A, Prong Two, whether the claim as a whole integrates

2 The USPTO issued an update on October 17, 2019 (the “October 2019
Update: Subject Matter Eligibility,” available at https://www.uspto.gov/sites/
default/files/documents/peg_oct_2019_update.pdf) clarifying the
2019 Revised Guidance in response to public comments.
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the recited judicial exception into a practical application, i.e., whether the
additional elements recited in the claim beyond the judicial exception, 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. Id. at 54–55. Only if
the claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not integrate that
exception into a practical application do we conclude that the claim is
“directed to” the judicial exception, e.g., an abstract idea. Id.
If the claim is determined to be directed to a judicial exception under
revised Step 2A, we next evaluate the additional elements, individually and
in combination, in Step 2B, to determine whether they provide an inventive
concept, i.e., whether the additional elements or combination of elements
amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception itself; only then, is
the claim patent eligible. 2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 56.
The 2019 Revised Guidance, by its terms, applies to all applications,
and to all patents resulting from applications, filed before, on, or after
January 7, 2019. Id.
Step One of the Mayo/Alice Framework (2019 Revised Guidance, Step 2A)
We are not persuaded, as an initial matter, that the Examiner
oversimplified the claims to identify an abstract idea, or that the Examiner
otherwise failed to consider claim 1 as a whole (Appeal Br. 11–13). Instead,
the Examiner’s characterization of the claim is, in our view, fully consistent
with the Specification, as described below, including the claim language.
Appellant charges that the Examiner “stripped away all of the
substance of the claim and reduced it to merely seven words” (id. at 12), and
that the Examiner ignored several features of the claim (id.). Yet, there is no
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requirement that an examiner’s formulation of the abstract idea must copy
the claim language. That claim 1 includes more words than the phrase the
Examiner used to articulate the abstract idea, and that the Examiner, thus,
articulates the abstract idea at a higher level of abstraction than would
Appellant is, accordingly, an insufficient basis to persuasively argue that the
claim language has been mischaracterized or that the Examiner has failed to
consider the claim as a whole. Cf. Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d
1229, 1240 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“An abstract idea can generally be described at
different levels of abstraction. As the Board has done, the claimed abstract
idea could be described as generating menus on a computer, or generating a
second menu from a first menu and sending the second menu to another
location. It could be described in other ways, including, as indicated in the
specification, taking orders from restaurant customers on a computer.”).
Further, to the extent Appellant maintains that the Examiner has failed
to establish a prima facie case of patent ineligibility (see Appeal Br. 11
(“The initial burden . . . is on the examiner to explain why a claim or claims
are ineligible for patenting, clearly and specifically, so that Appellant has
sufficient notice and is able to effectively respond (MPEP 2106.07). The
Examiner has failed to meet this burden”); id. at 13 (asserting that the
Examiner “does not articulate a rejection to which the Appellant can fairly
respond”)), we note that the Federal Circuit has observed repeatedly that
“the prima facie case is merely a procedural device that enables an
appropriate shift of the burden of production.” Hyatt v. Dudas, 492 F.3d
1365, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445
(Fed. Cir. 1992)). The court has, thus, held that the USPTO carries its
procedural burden of establishing a prima facie case when its rejection
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satisfies the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 132 by notifying the applicant of
the reasons for the rejection, “together with such information . . . as may be
useful in judging of the propriety of continuing the prosecution of [the]
application.” See In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2011)
(alteration in original). Here, the Examiner set forth the statutory basis of
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 established a prima facie case of patent ineligibility.
We also are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in determining that
claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea. The Federal Circuit has explained
that “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.’” Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp.,
822 F.3d 1327, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (quoting Internet Patents Corp. v.
Active Network, Inc., 790 F.3d 1343, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015)). It asks whether
the focus of the claims is on a specific improvement in relevant technology
or on a process that itself qualifies as an “abstract idea” for which computers
are invoked merely as a tool. See id. at 1335–36. Here, it is clear from the
Specification (including the claim language) that claim 1 focuses on an
abstract idea, and not on any improvement to technology and/or a technical
field.
The Specification is titled “System and Method for Delivering Sales
Training Videos,” and describes, in the Background section, that sales
departments often employ a number of representatives for handling inbound
and outbound leads and opportunities (Spec. ¶ 2). These sales
representatives are ideally trained in a variety of areas, including in
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managing a sales process, interacting with customer information systems for
updating customer records within a customer relationship management
(“CRM”) system, and researching product features (id.). The Specification
describes that “[p]resently known training systems for providing computer-
based learning allow each sales representative to receive training in a
manner that suits the representative’s schedule” (id. ¶ 3). However,
according to the Specification, “present training systems are stand-alone,
such that accessing the right content on those systems requires a lot of time
and luck”; these systems also “generally rely on generic content that is
pushed one way, and can lack usability in that content can reside in back end
systems that are not accessible when needed” (id. ¶ 4).
The claimed invention is intended to address these shortcomings by
providing a video training method and system that automatically matches the
relevant video content for a CRM object based on characteristics, i.e.,
attributes, of the video content and the CRM object (Spec. ¶ 90). For
example, the Specification describes that an account CRM object for a
hospital may identify medical devices that the hospital uses and usage
statistics; thus, before a sales representative offering competing medical
devices contacts the hospital, i.e., the account contact, the sales
representative may consume video training relevant to the medical devices
used at the hospital (id. ¶ 60).
The Specification further describes that CRM objects advance through
stages, i.e., temporal states that represent change over time (Spec. ¶ 42).
Thus, for example, in the case of an account, the CRM object may advance
from one stage, e.g., “Lead,” to another stage, e.g., “Customer” (id.).
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Consistent with this disclosure, claim 1 recites a method for delivering
sales training videos in a computer network comprising: (1) matching
content attributes of the sales training videos with data in the CRM system
and selecting one or more sales training videos based on the content
attributes of the training videos, i.e.,
obtaining content attributes of the sales training videos, the
sales training videos stored in a library of sales training videos
accessible to a customer relationship management system
operating on the computer network, the content attributes
identifying relationships between content of sales training videos
and data stored at the customer relationship management system;
[and]
selecting one or more of the sales training videos based on
the content attributes of the sales training videos
(steps (a) and (b)); (2) outputting indications, e.g., video thumbnails,
previews, titles, of the one or more training videos to a remote device, i.e.,
“outputting indications of the one or more sales training videos to a remote
device via the computer network” (step (c)); (3) initiating playback of a
selected training video and requesting feedback from the user of the remote
device, during or after the video playback, i.e., “initiating playback for the
remote device of a particular sales training video of the one or more sales
training videos” and “after or during playback of the particular sales training
video, outputting a feedback request to the remote device via the computer
network” (steps (d) and (e)); (4) receiving feedback indicating a CRM object
having a particular stage; associating the CRM object with the video; and
updating at least one content attribute of the video when the stage of the
CRM object changes, i.e.,
receiving user-specified feedback data from the remote
device via the computer network, the user-specified feedback
data indicating a particular object stored in the customer
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relationship management system, wherein the particular object
has a stage selected from a plurality of stages, the plurality of
stages defining temporal states that represent change of the
particular object over time; and
upon detection of an advancement of the stage of the
particular object, updating at least one content attribute of the
particular sales training video
(steps (f) and (g)).
Appellant summarily asserts that “the present claims do not recite an
abstract idea, and should be found patent-eligible under Prong One of
step 2A of the Alice framework” because the claims “recite none of the
groupings of abstract subject matter” set forth in the Revised Guidance
(Appeal Br. 16). Yet, the limitations of claim 1, when given their broadest
reasonable interpretation, plainly recite a method for training sales
representatives through the delivery and use of sales training videos, i.e.,
“managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people
(including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions),”
which is one of the “certain methods of organizing human activity”
identified in the 2019 Revised Guidance and, therefore, an abstract idea.
See 2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52.
We also are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that claim 1
integrates the recited abstract idea into a practical application under Step 2A,
Prong Two of the 2019 Revised Guidance. Appellant asserts that even if
“the present claims recite a judicial exception, . . . the present claims
integrate such a judicial exception into the practical application of advancing
CRM objects in a CRM system through stages through the use of an
automated user feedback-based recommendation engine” (Appeal Br. 16).
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That argument is not persuasive at least because it is not commensurate with
the scope of the claims.
We find nothing in claim 1, nor for that matter in either of
independent claims 8 and 15 (which explicitly recite a “recommendation
engine”), which describes “advancing CRM objects . . . through stages
through the use of an automated user feedback-based recommendation
engine.” Instead, the best the claims recite is that “the recommendation
engine . . . update[s] at least one content attribute of the particular sales
training video upon detection of an advancement of the stage of the
particular object via the interface” (see claims 8 and 15, Claims App’x.,
Appeal Br. 26, 28). And, even then, no technical details are provided
regarding how an advancement of the stage of the particular object is
detected or how the update is performed.
Attempting to draw an analogy between the present claims and the
patent-eligible claim in McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games America Inc.,
837 F.3d 1299 (Fed. Cir. 2016), Appellant further argues that “McRO
provides an apt comparison under which to determine that the claims should
be found patent eligible under step 2A of the Alice framework” (Appeal
Br. 14; see also id. at 15 (arguing that the present claims are patent eligible
at least by way of comparison to McRO)). Yet, we can find no parallel
between claim 1 and the claim at issue in McRO.
Claim 1 of the ’576 patent,3 at issue in McRO, is directed to a method
for automatically animating the lip synchronization and facial expressions of
three-dimensional animated characters, and recites that the method

3 U.S. Patent No. 6,307,576, issued October 23, 2001.
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comprises, inter alia, “obtaining a first set of rules that define output morph
weight set stream as a function of phoneme sequence and time of said
phoneme sequence.” McRO, 837 F.3d at 1307–08. The Federal Circuit
determined that the claim, when considered as a whole, is directed to a
technological improvement over existing, manual 3–D animation techniques,
and uses limited rules in a process specifically designed to achieve an
improved technological result relative to conventional industry practice. Id.
at 1316. In particular, the Federal Circuit found that the claimed rules allow
computers to produce accurate and realistic lip synchronization and facial
expressions in animated characters that previously could only be produced
by human animators. Id. at 1313. As such, the court determined that the
claim is not directed to an abstract idea, and is patent eligible under
35 U.S.C. § 101. Id. at 1316.
Appellant maintains here that a technical problem with known
computerized user feedback-based recommendation engines is that these
engines rely on subjective human opinion to advance opportunities through
stages of a CRM system — a problem that Appellant asserts is similar to the
problem in McRO where known computerized animation processes involved
human animators making subjective determinations of how to animate
character facial expressions to match sounds voiced by the character (Appeal
Br. 14). Appellant argues that, similar to McRO, which “claims a system
involving rules which replace human subjectivity,” the present claims define
“a system in which CRM object stages are advanced by the updating of
content attributes by an automated feedback mechanism without subjective
human involvement” (id.). Yet, in contrast to the claim in McRO, which
recites a particular type of rules with specific characteristics that allow for
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the improvement realized by the claimed invention, here, claim 1 merely
recites “upon detection of an advancement of the stage of the particular
object, updating at least one content attribute of the particular sales training
video.” The claim provides no technical details regarding how an
advancement of the stage of the particular object is detected or how the
update is performed, let alone, specific rules for detecting “an advancement
of the stage of the particular object” or for “updating at least one content
attribute of the particular sales training video.”
Similar to the claims at issue in Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital
One Financial Corp., 850 F.3d 1332 (Fed. Cir. 2017), 4 “the claim language
here provides only a result-oriented solution with insufficient detail for how
a computer accomplishes it. Our law demands more.” Intellectual Ventures,
850 F.3d at 1342 (citing Elec. Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d
1350, 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2016)).

4 There, the claims concerned a system and method for editing XML
documents of varying (and incompatible) formats and syntaxes; in
accordance with the claimed method, a “dynamic document” containing data
extracted from an original XML document was created and presented to a
user; the user could make changes to the data displayed in the dynamic
document, and the changes were then “dynamically propagated” back into
the original XML document. Intellectual Ventures, 850 F.3d at 1339.
Plaintiffs argued that the claims, thus, set forth a unique solution to a
problem with contemporary XML documents, i.e., the problem of “the
‘incompatibility of XML documents with different ‘XML syntax[es]’ and
different ‘XML formats, relational database schemes, and messages
formats.’” Id. at 1342. Yet, the Federal Circuit rejected that argument,
observing that although the claims purport to modify the underlying XML
document in response to modifications made in the dynamic document,
“[n]othing in the claims indicate[s] what steps are undertaken to overcome
the stated incompatibility problems with XML documents to propagate those
modifications into the XML document.” Id.
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We conclude, for the reasons outlined above, that claim 1 recites a
method of organizing human activity, i.e., an abstract idea, and that the
additional elements recited in the claim, i.e., a “library” storing sales training
videos; a “content relationship management system”; a “computer network”;
and a “remote device,” are no more than generic computer components used
as tools to perform the recited abstract idea. As such, they do not integrate
the abstract idea into a practical application. See Alice Corp., 573 U.S.
at 223–24 (“[W]holly generic computer implementation is not generally the
sort of ‘additional featur[e]’ that provides any ‘practical assurance that the
process is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the [abstract
idea] itself.’” (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 77)). Accordingly, we agree with
the Examiner that claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea.
Step Two of the Mayo/Alice Framework (2019 Revised Guidance, Step 2B)
Having determined under step one of the Mayo/Alice framework that
claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea, we next consider under Step 2B of the
2019 Revised Guidance, the second step of the Mayo/Alice framework,
whether claim 1 includes additional elements or a combination of elements
that provides an “inventive concept,” i.e., whether the additional elements
amount to “significantly more” than the judicial exception itself.
2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 56.
Referencing its arguments in response to the Examiner’s § 103
rejections, Appellant argues, “[a]s will be seen below, . . . the claims provide
an inventive concept which transforms the claims into patent-eligible subject
matter under step 2B of the Alice framework” (Appeal Br. 17). Yet,
Appellant misapprehends the controlling precedent to the extent, Appellant
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intends, by that argument, that claim 1 is patent eligible because the claim is
non-obvious in view of the cited prior art.
Neither a finding of novelty nor a non-obviousness determination
automatically leads to the conclusion that the claimed subject matter is
patent eligible. Although the second step in the Mayo/Alice framework is
termed a search for an “inventive concept,” the analysis is not an evaluation
of novelty or non-obviousness, but rather, a search for “an element or
combination of elements that is ‘sufficient to ensure that the patent in
practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the [ineligible
concept] itself.’” Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 217–18 (citation omitted).
“Groundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant discovery does not by itself
satisfy the § 101 inquiry.” Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad
Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S. 576, 591 (2013). A novel and non-obvious claim
directed to a purely abstract idea is, nonetheless, patent ineligible. See
Mayo, 566 U.S. at 90; see also Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 188–89
(1981) (“The ‘novelty’ of any element or steps in a process, or even of the
process itself, is of no relevance in determining whether the subject matter of
a claim falls within the § 101 categories of possibly patentable subject
matter.”).
We are not persuaded, on the present record, that the Examiner erred
in rejecting independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Therefore, we
sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, and claims 2–15, which fall with
claim 1.5

5 Because we find that all the pending claims are directed to a patent-
ineligible abstract idea, we need not, and do not, address the Examiner’s
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Obviousness
Independent Claims 1, 8, and 15 and Dependent Claims 2–4, 6, 7, 9–11, 13,
and 14
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner erred in
rejecting independent claims 1, 8, and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 at least
because Sadeh-Koniecpol, on which the Examiner relies, does not disclose
or suggest “outputting a feedback request to the remote device via the
computer network” and “receiving user-specified feedback data . . .
indicating a particular object stored in the customer relationship
management system,” i.e., limitations (e) and (f), as recited in claim 1, and
similarly recited in claims 8 and 15 (Appeal Br. 17–19).
Sadeh-Koniecpol is directed to a mock attack cybersecurity training
system and method, and discloses an embodiment, with reference to
Figure 2, on which the Examiner relies (Final Act. 8–9 (citing
Sadeh-Koniecpol ¶ 135, Fig. 2)), in which a user computing device,
e.g., device 1002, communicates with a remote analysis host computer 1010.
The analysis host computer receives user input or user action from the user
computing device; determines whether a need for training is indicated by the
user input or action; and, if so, selects an appropriate training intervention
and transmits the training intervention to the user device. Sadeh-Koniecpol
discloses that the analysis host computer may also receive feedback, in the
form of additional user inputs, from user interaction with the training
intervention and may further transmit additional training interventions or
training intervention feedback to the user computing device

further rejection of claims 8–14 under § 101 as directed to non-statutory
subject matter.
Appeal 2020-000877
Application 14/792,371

18
(Sadeh-Koniecpol ¶ 136). But, we agree with Appellant that there is nothing
in the cited portion of Sadeh-Koniecpol that discloses or suggests that the
user feedback indicates “a particular object stored in a customer relationship
management system,” as called for in independent claims 1, 8, and 15, and,
therefore, nothing that discloses or suggest that the feedback data and object
are used to detect advancement of the object through stages (Appeal Br. 18–
19).
In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of independent claims 1, 8, and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). For the same
reasons, we also do not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 2–4, 6, 7,
9–11, 13, and 14. Cf. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992)
(“dependent claims are nonobvious if the independent claims from which
they depend are nonobvious”).
Dependent Claims 5 and 12
Claims 5 and 12 depend from independent claims 1 and 8,
respectively. The rejection of these dependent claims does not cure the
deficiency in the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1 and 8.
Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 5
and 12 for the same reasons set forth above with respect to independent
claims.
CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–15 101 Eligibility 1–15
Appeal 2020-000877
Application 14/792,371

19
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–4, 6–11,
13–15
103 Collier,
Sadeh-Koniecpol,
Govindaraman
1–4, 6–11,
13–15
5, 12 103 Collier,
Sadeh-Koniecpol,
Govindaraman,
Fox
5, 12
Overall
Outcome
1–15
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