Peter Malcolm

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 30, 2019

11958279 - (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.
11/958,279 12/17/2007 Peter Malcolm 063170.9370 1846
106095 7590 09/30/2019
Baker Botts LLP/CA Technologies
2001 Ross Avenue
SUITE 900
Dallas, TX 75201
EXAMINER
ZELASKIEWICZ, CHRYSTINA E
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3621
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):
PTOmail1@bakerbotts.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte PETER MALCOLM
____________________

Appeal 2017-0114541
Application 11/958,2792
Technology Center 3600
____________________

Before ANTON W. FETTING, MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, and
TARA L. HUTCHINGS, Administrative Patent Judges.

HUTCHINGS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1–42 and 64. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 Our Decision references Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed
May 22, 2017) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Sept. 12, 2017), and the
Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed July 12, 2017) and Final Office Action
(“Final Act.,” mailed Dec. 21, 2016).
2 Appellant identifies CA, Inc. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 3.
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CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellant’s claimed invention “relates to the provision of extended
management functionality for Internet applications, particularly in the areas
of information security, transaction auditing and reporting, centralized
policy, and application connectivity.” Spec. ¶ 2.
Claims 1 and 22 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 22,
reproduced below with bracketed notations added, is illustrative of the
subject matter on appeal:
22. A method of managing information comprising the
steps of:
[(a)] providing an application stored in a memory of a
workstation for receiving at least inbound data from a computer
network;
[(b)] providing policy data, containing rules which define
whether or not a validation check is required for a digital
certificate used to digitally sign signed data received in said
inbound data;
[(c)] identifying, by the workstation, in at least said
inbound data, a transaction and the signed data that has been
digitally signed with the digital certificate;
[(d)] extracting, by the workstation, one or more details of
said signed data;
[(e)] accessing a database to obtain information associated
with a history of transmissions signed by said digital certificate;
[(f)] determining, by the workstation, whether or not to
request a validation check for said digital certificate, the
determining based on the information associated with the history
of transmissions signed by said digital certificate and the policy
data containing rules which define whether or not a validation
check is required for said digital certificate;
[(g)] determining that the validation check for said digital
certificate is not required;
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[(h)] accepting, by the workstation, the signed data in
response to a determination that the validation check for said
digital certificate is not required;
[(i)] allowing the transaction to occur in response to
accepting the signed data; and
[(j)] updating the database by updating the history of
transmissions signed by said digital certificate to include the
transaction.

REJECTIONS
I. Claims 1–42 and 64 are provisionally rejected on the ground of
nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as unpatentable over
claims 1–46 of Application No. 11/958,291.
II. Claims 1–42 and 64 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as
directed to a judicial exception without significantly more.
III. Claims 1–4, 7–17, 19, 21–25, 28–38, 40, 42, and 64 are rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Asay (US 5,903,882, iss.
May 11, 1999) and Butt (US 6,754,829 B1, iss. June 22, 2004).
IV. Claims 5, 6, 18, 20, 26, 27, 39, and 41 are rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Asay, Butt, and Cooper
(US 2009/0037388 A1, pub. Feb. 5, 2009).

ANALYSIS
Rejection I
We note that Application No. 11/958,291 is now abandoned.
Therefore, we dismiss as moot the provisional rejection of claims 1–42 and
64 on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting.
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Rejection II
Appellant argues claims 1–42 and 64 together. App. Br. 8–28. We
select claim 22 as representative. Claims 1–21, 23–42, and 64 stand or fall
with claim 22. 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
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).
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The Court acknowledged in Mayo, that “all inventions at some level
embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of nature, natural phenomena,
or abstract ideas.” Mayo, 566 U.S. at 71. Therefore, the Federal Circuit has
instructed that claims are to be considered in their entirety to determine
“whether their character as a whole is directed to excluded subject matter.”
McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am., Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1312
(Fed. Cir. 2016) (quoting Internet Patents Corp. v. Active Network, Inc.,
790 F.3d 1343, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015)).
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. That guidance
“extracts and synthesizes key concepts identified by the courts as abstract
ideas to explain that the abstract idea exception includes” the following three
groupings: (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
PATENT SUBJECT MATTER ELIGIBILITY GUIDANCE, 84 Fed. Reg. 50, 52
(Jan. 7, 2019) (the “2019 Revised Guidance”).3
Under the 2019 Revised Guidance, in determining whether a claim is
patent-eligible, we first look to whether the claim recites a judicial
exception, including one of the enumerated groupings of abstract ideas
(“Step 2A, Prong One”). Id. at 54. If so, we next consider whether the
claim includes additional elements, beyond the judicial exception, “that

3 The Revised Guidance, by its terms, applies to all applications, and to all
patents resulting from applications, filed before, on, or after January 7, 2019.
84 Fed. Reg. 50.
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integrate the [judicial] exception into a practical application,” i.e., 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. (“Step 2A, Prong Two”). 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 then look to
whether the claim “[a]dds 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
previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to
the judicial exception” (“Step 2B”). Id. at 56.
Step One of the Mayo/Alice Framework
The Federal Circuit has explained that “the ‘directed to’ inquiry
applies a stage-one filter to claims, considered in light of the [S]pecification,
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., 790 F.3d at 1346).
We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in determining that
claim 22 is directed to an abstract idea. Here, claim 22 recites a method of
“managing information” comprising the steps of: “. . . receiving at least
inbound data” (limitation (a)); “providing policy data, containing rules
which define whether or not a validation check is required for a [] certificate
used to [] sign signed data received in said inbound data” (limitation (b));
“identifying . . . in at least said inbound data, a transaction and the signed
data that has been [] signed with the [] certificate” (limitation (c));
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extracting, . . . one or more details of said signed data” (limitation (d));
“. . . obtain[ing] information associated with a history of transmissions
signed by said [] certificate” (limitation (e)); “determining . . . whether or
not to request a validation check for said [] certificate, the determining based
on the information associated with the history of transmissions signed by
said [] certificate and the policy data containing rules which define whether
or not a validation check is required for said [] certificate” (limitation (f));
“determining that the validation check for said [] certificate is not required”
(limitation (g)); “accepting . . . the signed data in response to a determination
that the validation check for said [] certificate is not required” (limitation
(h)); “allowing the transaction to occur in response to accepting the signed
data” (limitation (i)); and “. . . updating the history of transmissions signed
by said [] certificate to include the transaction” (limitation (k)).
These limitations, when given their broadest reasonable interpretation,
recite collecting, processing, and storing data for use in a transaction, i.e., a
commercial interaction,4 which is a certain method of organizing human
activity, and, therefore, an abstract idea. See 2019 Revised Guidance 52.
Having concluded that claim 1 recites a judicial exception, i.e., an
abstract idea (Step 2A, Prong One), we next consider whether the claim
recites “additional elements that integrate the exception into a practical

4 We characterized the abstract idea at a higher level of abstraction than the
Examiner. However, we find no error in the Examiner’s determination that
claim 22 is directed to “determining whether a validation check is required
on a digital certificate used to sign transaction data.” Final Act. 2. This
concept also falls into the grouping of subject matter relating to a
commercial transaction, i.e., a method of organizing human activity, which
is an abstract idea.
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application” (Step 2A, Prong Two). Revised Guidance 54; see also
MANUAL OF PATENT EXAMINING PROCEDURE (“MPEP”) § 2106.05(a)–(c),
(e)–(h).
Beyond the abstract idea, claim 1 additionally recites an “application,”
“memory,” “workstation,” “computer network,” “digital certificate,”
“digitally sign[ing],” and “database.” We find no indication in the
Specification, nor does Appellant direct us to any indication, that these
additional elements implement the abstract idea with a specialized computer
hardware or other inventive computer components, i.e., a particular machine,
or that the claimed invention is implemented using other than generic
computer components to perform generic computer functions. Instead, these
elements are described in the Specification at a high level of generality, i.e.,
as generic computer components. See, e.g., Spec. ¶¶ 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 14, 55,
58, 64, 81. And “after Alice, there can remain no doubt: recitation of generic
computer limitations does not make an otherwise ineligible claim patent-
eligible.” DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1256
(Fed. Cir. 2014).
Appellant contends that the claims are directed to a computer-centric
problem associated with digital certificate verification and, thus, are
necessarily rooted in computer technology to overcome a problem that
specifically arises with computer-implemented communications. App. Br. 9;
see also id. at 20–21 (arguing that the claims are analogous to the patent-
eligible claims in DDR Holdings). Similarly, Appellant asserts that the
claims are analogous to the claims in Enfish because they “improve an
existing technological process” by “using a history of transmissions signed
by a digital certificate in combination with policy data to determine whether
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[to] request a validation check of the digital certificate in a centralized
system.” App. Br. 19 (citation omitted). Appellant contends that claim 22’s
limitation (f) reflects a “specific technological solution that leverages the
history of transmissions signed by the digital certificate in a single integrated
system to determine whether to request verification of a digital certificate
and incur the associated costs.” Id. at 14.
However, we are not persuaded that claim 22 recites any elements,
considered individually and as an ordered combination, that address a
problem rooted in technology analogous to the situation in DDR Holdings or
an improvement in computer functionality analogous to the situation in
Enfish. Instead, claim 22 improves the abstract idea by implementing it in a
centralized system and determining whether to request a validation check
based on a history of transaction. In this way, the invention avoids payment
of fees for unnecessary validity checks. See Spec. ¶¶ 15 (describing that
digital certificates are verified by third party services for a fee), 141. Thus,
we agree with the Examiner (see Ans. 5, 8–9) that claim 22 addresses a
financial problem with a business solution that saves costs.
Appellant further asserts that eCommerce differs from traditional
commerce in that it requires extra security precautions related to identity and
trust. App. Br. 10 (citing Spec. ¶ 27). However, we are not persuaded that
concerns regarding identity and trust are unique to eCommerce transactions.
To the contrary, these concerns play a role in traditional commerce as well,
and result in an entity requesting an individual to verify his identity before
allowing a transaction to occur.
Appellant asserts that the distributed nature of computer systems give
rise to additional technological problems with digital certificates that
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claim 22 addresses. App. Br. 11 (citing Spec. ¶ 142). Appellant argues that
a single, integrated system for information exchange is needed for digital
certificate validation to avoid incurring unnecessary validation costs. Id. at
12 (citing Spec. ¶ 28). The Specification describes, for example, that users
of a distributed system operate in isolation from other users, and have no
ability to share information, even when at the same location. See Spec. ¶ 27.
As a result, two users in an organization may independently receive e-mail
messages digitally signed by the same sender, each incurring a separate
validation charge for validating the same digital certificate. Id. Another
consequence of this paradigm is that multiple users may request validation
of a certificate that has been revoked, incurring unnecessary charged. Id.
¶ 141. Yet, we are not persuaded that using an integrated system to process
information regarding digital certificate validation reflects an improvement
to technology. Instead, the improvement is realized by linking use of the
abstract idea in a particular technological environment (i.e., a centralized
system).
Appellant alleges that paragraph 143 of the Specification “specifically
address[es] the technological solution to which the [c]laims are directed.”
Id. at 13. This paragraph, however, explains that information about the
digital certificates that have been received is stored, together with the status
of the certificate at the last check and transaction history. Put differently,
this paragraph represents the abstract idea to which claim 22 is directed. See
Two-Way Media Ltd. v. Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, 874 F.3d
1329, 1337 (2017) (a claim that recites the functional results of converting,
routing, controlling, monitoring and accumulating records, without
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sufficiently describing how to achieve this result, is directed to an abstract
idea).
Appellant argues that claim 22 is patent-eligible because it allegedly
avoids preemption. See App. Br. 16. Appellant’s argument is unpersuasive
of Examiner error. Although preemption is the concern that drives the
exclusion of abstract ideas from patent eligible subject matter (see Alice, 573
U.S. at 216), it is not a separate test for patent eligibility. Instead, the proper
test for determining whether a claim recites patent eligible subject matter is
to apply the two-step framework that the Supreme Court delineated in Alice
and Mayo. “Where a patent’s claims are deemed only to disclose patent
ineligible subject matter under the Mayo framework . . . , preemption
concerns are fully addressed and made moot.” Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v.
Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2015). “[P]reemption may
signal patent ineligible subject matter, [but] the absence of complete
preemption does not demonstrate patent eligibility.” Id.
We also find no indication in the Specification that the claimed
invention effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a
different state or thing. Nor do we find anything of record, short of attorney
argument, that attributes an improvement in technology and/or a technical
field to the claimed invention or that otherwise indicates that the claimed
invention integrates the abstract idea into a “practical application,” as that
phrase is used in the 2019 Revised Guidance. See Revised Guidance 55.
For example, each of steps (a)–(j) is written as result-based limitations
without technological details for how to achieve the desired results. See
Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Fin. Corp., 850 F.3d 1332, 1342
(Fed. Cir. 2017) (explaining that “[o]ur law demands more” than claim
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language that “provides only a result-oriented solution, with insufficient
detail for how a computer accomplishes it”). Appellant’s Specification also
fails to provide any such technological details for each of these steps.
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 recites additional elements that provide an inventive
concept (i.e., whether the additional elements amount to significantly more
than the judicial exception itself).
Appellant contends that “the use of the history of transmissions in
combination with policy data in determining whether or not to request a
validation check of a digital certificate” constitutes an inventive concept.
App. Br. 14. Yet, this concept is part of the abstract idea, and the inventive
concept under step two of the Mayo/Alice test cannot be the abstract idea
itself:
It is clear from Mayo that the “inventive concept” cannot be the
abstract idea itself, and Berkheimer . . . leave[s] untouched the
numerous cases from this court which have held claims ineligible
because the only alleged “inventive concept” is the abstract idea.
Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 890 F.3d 1369, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (Moore, J.,
concurring).
Appellant additionally argues that the location of the determining step
presents an inventive concept. App. Br. 15 (citing Spec., Fig. 5).
Specifically, Appellant asserts that “the e-mail is examined before the e-mail
is even placed in the Inbox[;]” however, “[if] the user is required to enter a
decryption key, the message is examined immediately following decryption,
but before viewing.” Id. (citing Spec. ¶ 94). However, these features are not
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recited in claim 22. Instead, claim 22 recites that accepting the signed data
occurs in response to a determination that a validation check is not required.
There is no indication that the claimed accepting (limitation (h)) entails more
than authenticating the digital certificate as valid without performing a
validation check, such that the transaction is allowed to proceed (limitation
(i)). See App. Br. 7 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 143–44 as describing the claimed step
of accepting); see also Spec. ¶¶ 143–44.
However, even if claim 22 were to recite preventing a message from
being placed in an inbox until it was determined that a validation check is
not required, it is unclear, and Appellant does not describe, how this change
would constitute an inventive concept significantly more than the abstract
idea, as opposed to an improvement to a process that is itself abstract.
As we explained above, the only additional recited elements claim 22
recites beyond the abstract idea are an “application,” “memory,”
“workstation,” “computer network,” “digital certificate,” “digitally
sign[ing],” and “database,” which are described in the Specification at a high
level as generic components performing generic functions. Appellant cannot
reasonably contend, nor does Appellant, that there is a genuine issue of
material fact regarding whether any of these additional elements, considered
alone and as an ordered combination, is well-understood, routine, or
conventional, where nothing in the Specification indicates that the
operations recited in claim 22 are implemented using anything other than
generic computer components to perform generic computer functions, e.g.,
receiving and processing information, and displaying the results.
We are not persuaded, on the present record, that the Examiner erred
in rejecting claim 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Therefore, we sustain the
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Examiner’s rejection of claim 22 and claims 1–21, 23–42, and 46, which fall
with claim 22.

Rejection III
Independent Claims 1 and 22, and Dependent Claims 2–4, 7–17, 19, 21, 23–
25, 28–38, 40, 42, and 64
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner erred in
rejecting claims 1 and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because Butt and Asay,
considered alone or in combination, do not teach or suggest “determining . . .
whether or not to request a validation check for said digital certificate, the
determining based on the information associated with the history of
transmissions signed by said digital certificate and the policy data containing
rules which define whether or not a validation check is required for said
digital certificate,” as recited in limitation (f) of claim 22, and similarly
recited in claim 1. App. Br. 29–32; see also Reply Br. 2–3. The Examiner
acknowledges that Asay does not disclose the argued limitation, and relies
on Butt to cure the deficiency. Final Act. 6–7 (citing Butt col. 4, ll. 31–51;
col. 7, ll. 20–47; col. 10, ll. 53–65).
Butt relates to providing remote access to manageable devices using
certificates with embedded cryptographic data to validate operator identity
and access rights. Butt, col. 1, ll. 7–11. Manageable devices are
preconfigured to trust a signing certificate at installation time. Id. at col. 7,
ll. 3–6. The manageable device agrees to trust any session certificate created
by an owner of a signing certificate. Id. at col. 7, ll. 7–10. The manageable
device maintains a list of trusted signing certificates, allowing it to trust
more than one core (i.e., a computer on which management services reside).
Id. at col. 3, ll. 17–20; col. 7, ll. 24–26. Each certificate contains
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information about the issuer, which enables identification of the core’s
signing certificate in the trusted certificate list. Id. at col. 7, ll. 26–31.
Further, trusted cores maintain a list of other trusted cores, and instruct the
manageable device to add certificates for these other trusted cores to its
trusted certificate list. Id. at col. 7, ll. 36–40.
The Examiner takes the position that the manageable device’s list of
trusted signing certificates teaches the claimed “determining based on the
information associated with the history of transmissions signed by said
digital certificate,” as recited in claim 22’s limitation (f), and similarly
recited in claim 1. Final Act 7 (citing Butt, col. 7, ll. 20–47). Yet, the cited
portion of Butt does not describe a history of transmissions signed by the
signing certificate, much less that a step of determining whether to request a
validation check for a digital certificate is based on information related
thereto, as required by limitation (f) of claim 22, and similarly required by
claim 1.
In the remarks, the Examiner additionally finds that Asay discloses
this aspect of the claim language. See Final Act. 21–22 (citing Asay, col. 14,
ll. 43–55); see also Ans. 10 (citing Asay, col. 14, ll. 43–53; col. 25, ll. 1–7).
Asay describes that a certificate validity database includes, for each primary
certificate, the following information: validity status; supplemental
assurance parameters applicable to secondary certificates based on the
primary certificate; and links to account history and periodic reporting
information. Asay, col. 14, ll. 43–48. Yet, we find nothing in the cited
portion indicating that information associated with a history of transmissions
signed by a digital certificate is used in a step of determining.
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Asay also provides an example in which Perry is concerned about
Susan’s ability to pay $10,000 for widgets. Id. at col. 24, ll. 64–66. Rather
than seeking supplemental certificates (e.g., a letter of credit from Susan’s
bank), a digital signal is verified. Id. at col. 25, ll. 1–5. But this cited
portion does not teach or suggest that information associated with a history
of transmissions signed by the signing certificate is used to determine
whether to request a validation check for a digital certificate, as required by
claim 22, limitation (f), and similarly required by claim 1.
In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of independent claims 1 and 22, and dependent
claims 2–4, 7–17, 19, 21, 23–25, 28–38, 40, 42, and 64.

Rejection IV
Dependent Claims 5, 6, 18, 20, 26, 27, 39, and 41
The Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 5, 6, 18, 20, 26, 27, 39,
and 41 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Asay, Butt, and
Cooper does not cure the deficiency in the Examiner’s rejection of
independent claims 1 and 22 under U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Asay and Butt. Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
claims 5, 6, 18, 20, 26, 27, 39, and 41 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for the same
reason set forth above with respect to the independent claims.

DECISION
We dismiss the Examiner’s provisional rejection of claims 1–42
and 64 on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting.
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We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–42 and 64 under
35 U.S.C. § 101.
We reverse the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–42 and 64 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED