Robert Wartenfeld et al.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardAug 1, 201914145908 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Aug. 1, 2019) Copy Citation 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. 14/145,908 12/31/2013 Robert Wartenfeld 1158.613 7280 12973 7590 08/01/2019 Medley, Behrens & Lewis, LLC 6100 Rockside Woods Blvd. Suite 440 Independence, OH 44131 EXAMINER MORGAN, ROBERT W ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3626 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/01/2019 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): admin-docketing@medleybehrens.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte ROBERT WARTENFELD, ZIV OFEK, EYAL GREENBERG, ZIV GOME, and SHIRI BEN-TAL ____________ Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before JAMES R. HUGHES, JOHN A. EVANS, and JASON M. REPKO, Administrative Patent Judges. EVANS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s final rejection of Claims 37–56, all pending claims.2 Claims 1– 1 Appellants state the real party in interest is Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc. App. Br. 3. 2 Appellants recite “claims 35–50” as appealed. App. Br. 1. At least because Claims 35 and 36 are not pending, we view this recitation as due to harmless, typographic error. Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 2 36 have been cancelled. See App. Br. 26–30 (Claims Appx.); Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM-IN-PART.3 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The claims relate to a method of using a health information exchange (HIE) system, which stores patient record data in electronic medical records (EMRs), in order for a health provider to obtain context information pertaining to the patient. See Abstract. Invention Claims 37 and 56 are independent; Claim 41 is dependent. An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of Claim 37, which is reproduced below with some formatting added. In addition, Appellants’ arguments make reference to Claim 41, which is also reproduced below: 37. A method of providing health information of a patient from a health information exchange (HIE) system for view by a health provider with health information of the patient from an EMR application of an EMR system of the health provider, the method comprising: 3 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed May 24, 2017, “App. Br.”), the Reply Brief (filed January 9, 2018, “Reply Br.”), the Examiner’s Answer (mailed November 9, 2017, “Ans.”), the Final Action (mailed October 3, 2017, “Final Act.”), and the Specification (filed December 31, 2013, “Spec.”) for their respective details. Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 3 (a) running on a computerized device an instance of an agent application that is bound to an instance of an EMR application running on the computerized device; and (b) responsive to a health provider using the EMR application instance running on the computerized device to acquire health information of a patient from an EMR system of the EMR application and display it within a graphic user interface generated by the EMR application instance running on the computerized device, acquiring by the agent application instance running on the computerized device health information of the patient from the HIE system and displaying it within a graphic user interface generated by the agent application instance running on the computerized device; (c) wherein the agent application instance performs a context interception process which determines a patient context within the EHR application instance in order to acquire and display the health information of the patient from the HIE system. 41. The method of claim 37, further comprising determining context by screen scraping by the agent application instance information displayed by the EMR application instance. References and Rejections4 Mahesh et al. (“Mahesh”) US 2006/0074633 A1 Oct. 1, 2004 Brummel et al. (“Brummel”) US 2002/0083075 A1 Dec. 5, 2001 4 The present application was examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions. Final Act. 2. Claims 37–56 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to non-statutory subject matter without significantly more, and Appellants’ arguments relate only to Claim 41. Final Act. 3. Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 4 1. Claims 37–56 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to non-statutory subject matter without significantly more. Final Act. 3. 2. Claims 37–56 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Mahesh and Brummel. Final Act. 4–18. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the rejections of Claims 1 and 21–39 in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner erred. We have considered in this Decision only those arguments Appellants actually raised in the Brief. Any other arguments which Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Brief are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). With respect to the rejections under §§ 101 and 103, we are not persuaded that Appellants identify reversible error except for the rejection of Claim 41, which we reverse under §§ 101 and 103. We provide the following explanation to highlight and address specific arguments and findings primarily for emphasis. We consider Appellants’ arguments as they are presented in the Appeal Brief, pages 7–25. CLAIMS 37–56: INELIGIBLE SUBJECT MATTER Claims 37–56 stand rejected as being directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. See Final Act. 4. However, Appellants direct their arguments solely to the merits of Claim 41. App. Br. 6, 8. Because Appellants presents no arguments directed to Claims 37–40 and 42–56, the rejection of those claims is summarily affirmed. See MPEP § 1204 II (“If an Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 5 appellant does not file an amendment cancelling claims that the appellant does not wish to appeal, but then also fails to provide any argument in the appeal brief directed to those claims, any challenge to that ground of rejection has been waived, and the Board has discretion to simply affirm any rejections against such claims.”) (citing Hyatt v. Dudas, 551 F.3d 1307, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2008)). We review the record de novo. SiRF Tech., Inc. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 601 F.3d 1319, 1331 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (“Whether a claim is drawn to patent-eligible subject matter is an issue of law that we review de novo.”). Based upon our review of the record in light of recent policy guidance with respect to patent-eligible subject matter rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101, we reverse the rejection of claim 41 for the specific reasons discussed below. Statutory Construction in View of International Agreements. Appellants discuss that in 1994, a number of agreements were signed in Marrakesh, Morocco, pursuant to the Uruguay Round talks. App. Br. 21. According to Appellants, these agreements included an Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization Appendix 1C of which was an Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Id. at 22. Appellants maintain Congress approved these agreements in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (HR 5110, 103rd Congress) and this Act was codified as, inter alia, 19 U.S.C. § 3511. Id. Appellants contend the Supreme Court has held that “an act of congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations, if any other possible construction remains.” App. Br. 24 (quoting Alexander Murray v. The Schooner Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. 64 (1804)). Appellants Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 6 argue, thus, if a statute is subject to two different interpretations, one of which would violate an international agreement the U.S. has entered into, and another which is consistent with the international agreement, the statute should be construed so as to be consistent with the international agreement. This has become known as the Charming Betsy cannon of statutory construction. According to Appellants, TRIPS requires that “‘patents shall be available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application.’” App. Br. 23 (quoting TRIPS § 5, Art. 27). Appellants argue TRIPS provides “the terms ‘inventive step’ and ‘capable of industrial application’ may be deemed by a Member to be synonymous with the terms ‘non-obvious’ and ‘useful’ respectively.” Id. Appellants argue 35 U.S.C. § 101 is currently interpreted to “contain an important implicit exception: Laws of nature, natural phenomenon, and abstract ideas are not patentable,” but that this exception violates the Charming Betsy canon. Id. at 18. Therefore, according to Appellants, because the Examiner finds that the claims “‘distinguish[] over the prior art,’” the claims should be subject matter eligible. App. Br. 18 (internal citation omitted). Appellants’ invocation of the Trade–Related Aspects of Intellectual Property agreement (“TRIPs”) is unavailing. TRIPs is not self-executing as 19 U.S.C. § 3512(a)(1) specifically provides that “[n]o provision of any of the Uruguay Round Agreements [including TRIPs], nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstance, that is inconsistent with Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 7 any law of the United States shall have effect.” 19 U.S.C. § 3512(a)(1) (2000). Congress has also specifically precluded any person other than the United States from using TRIPs as a cause of action or a defense, and from challenging government action on the ground that such action is inconsistent with TRIPs. 19 U.S.C. § 3512(c) (1) (2000). See In re Rath, 402 F.3d 1207, 1210, n. 2 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (citing 19 U.S.C. § 3512(c)(1)). We, thus, decline to reach the Constitutional question posed by Appellants. “It is well settled that administrative agencies are without authority to determine the constitutionality of statutes.” Elgin v. Dept. of Treasury, 567 U.S. 1, 16 (2012) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The Supreme Court has also stated that “‘adjudication of the constitutionality of congressional enactments has generally been thought beyond the jurisdiction of administrative agencies.’” Id. (quoting Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich, 510 U.S. 200, 215 (1994)).5 Patent Owner’s arguments, with respect to Constitutional questions, are noted and they are preserved for appeal. Prima Facie Case and Preemption. Appellants contend the Examiner fails to make a prima facie case that Claim 41 recites patent-ineligible subject matter. See App. Br. 8–9. 5 The Board has previously “declin[ed] to consider [the] constitutional challenge as, generally, ‘administrative agencies do not have jurisdiction to decide the constitutionality of congressional enactments.’” Square, Inc. Unwired Planet LLC, IPR2014-01165, Paper 32, 25 (PTAB Oct. 30, 2015) (quoting Riggin v. Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices, 61 F.3d 1563, 1569 (Fed. Cir. 1995)). We, likewise, decline to consider Patent Owner’s constitutionality argument. Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 8 We conclude that the Examiner did initially set forth a prima facie case of patent-ineligibility, i.e., the Examiner’s reasons are sufficient to set forth the basis for the rejection so as to put the patent applicant on notice of the reasons why the applicant is not entitled to a patent. Cf. In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992). Citing Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International,6 Appellants contend that patents which pose no risk of preemption remain eligible. App. Br. 9, 6– 8. While preemption may denote patent ineligibility, its absence does not demonstrate patent eligibility. See FairWarning, IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., Inc., 839 F.3d 1089, 1098 (Fed. Cir. 2016). For claims covering a patent- ineligible concept, preemption concerns “are fully addressed and made moot” by an analysis under the Mayo/Alice framework. Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2015). We conduct such an analysis below. In response to Supreme Court and Federal Circuit opinions, the USPTO has issued updated guidance. We review this appeal within the framework of the Revised Guidance which specifies and particularizes the Mayo/Alice framework. 35 U.S.C. § 101 Section 101 provides that a patent may be obtained for “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” 35 U.S.C. § 101. The Supreme Court has 6 Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2354 (2014). Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 9 long recognized, however, that § 101 implicitly excludes “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas” from the realm of patent-eligible subject matter, as monopolization of these “basic tools of scientific and technological work” would stifle the very innovation that the patent system aims to promote. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 216 (2014) (quoting Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S. 576, 589 (2013)); see also Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 72–78 (2012); Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 185 (1981). Under the mandatory Revised Guidance, we reconsider whether Appellants’ claims recite: 1. any judicial exceptions, including certain groupings of abstract ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human interactions such as a fundamental economic practice, or mental processes), and 2. additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application (see MPEP § 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h)). Only if a claim, (1) recites a judicial exception, and (2) does not integrate that exception into a practical application, do we then reach the issue of whether the claim: 3. adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that is not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in the field (see MPEP § 2106.05(d)); or 4. simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 10 generality, to the judicial exception. A. Whether the claims recite a judicial exception. The Revised Guidance extracts and synthesizes key concepts identified by the courts as abstract ideas to explain that the abstract idea exception includes the following groupings of subject matter, when recited as such in a claim limitation(s) (that is, when recited on their own or per se): (a) mathematical concepts,7 i.e., mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas, equations,8 and mathematical calculations9; (b) certain methods of organizing human activity—fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or 7 Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 611 (2010) (“The concept of hedging . . . reduced to a mathematical formula . . . is an unpatentable abstract idea.”). 8 Diehr, 450 U.S. at 191 (“A mathematical formula as such is not accorded the protection of our patent laws”); Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 594 (1978) (“[T]he discovery of [a mathematical formula] cannot support a patent unless there is some other inventive concept in its application.”). 9 SAP America, Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1163 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (holding that claims to a “series of mathematical calculations based on selected information” are directed to abstract ideas). Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 11 instructions)10; and (c) mental processes—concepts performed in the human mind (including observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion).11 The preamble of independent Claim 37 recites: “A method of providing health information of a patient from a health information exchange (HIE) system for view by a health provider with health information of the patient from an EMR application of an EMR system of the health provider, the method comprising.” The limitations recited in the body of the claim are analyzed in Table I against the categories of abstract ideas as set forth in the Revised Guidance. Claim 37 Revised Guidance, p. 52 (a) running on a computerized device an instance of an agent application that is bound to an instance of an EMR application running on the computerized device; and Incidental use of a computer.12 10 Alice, 573 U.S. at 219–20 (concluding that use of a third party to mediate settlement risk is a “fundamental economic practice” and thus an abstract idea); see Revised Guidance, p. 52, n.13 for a more extensive listing of “certain methods of organizing human activity” that have been found to be abstract ideas. 11 Mayo, 566 U.S. at 71 (“‘[M]ental processes[ ] and abstract intellectual concepts are not patentable, as they are the basic tools of scientific and technological work’” (quoting Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972))). 12 See CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1376, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (holding that the incidental use of ‘‘computer’’ or ‘‘computer readable medium’’ does not make a claim otherwise directed to process that ‘‘can be performed in the human mind, or by a human using a pen and paper’’ patent eligible). Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 12 (b) responsive to a health provider using the EMR application instance running on the computerized device to acquire health information of a patient from an EMR system of the EMR application and display it within a graphic user interface generated by the EMR application instance running on the computerized device, acquiring by the agent application instance running on the computerized device health information of the patient from the HIE system and displaying it within a graphic user interface generated by the agent application instance running on the computerized device; (c) Mental processes—concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion). (c) wherein the agent application instance performs a context interception process which determines a patient context within the EHR application instance in order to acquire and display the health information of the patient from the HIE system. (c) Mental processes—concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion). In view of Table I, we find independent Claim 37 recites an abstract idea, i.e., mental processes. Dependent Claim 41 recites: “[t]he method of claim 37, further comprising determining context by screen scraping by the agent application instance information displayed by the EMR application instance.” To define “screen scraping, Appellants’ Specification incorporates by reference the Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 13 disclosure of US 13/208,417 (“the ’417 Application”). See Spec. 1:4–6. The ’417 Application discloses suitable methods for capturing information from said display screen are known including “computerized solutions such as ScreenScraping Studio, described online at the following http location: screen-scraper.deskperience.com.”13 US 13/208,417, 30:13–14. The deskperience.com website discloses: WordCaptureX WordCaptureX is a software library that allows your application (i.e. single click dictionary) to capture words on the screen, up to an entire line of text. So the most common usage is for a dictionary app that empowers users to look up any word in any application with just a single click on that word. In order to achieve this goal we are offering support for the two major tasks involved. The first one is about defining and monitoring the actions that an user is supposed to do on the screen of another application and informing your app when such an action has been detected. The second task is about screen scraping (or capturing) the word/text pointed by the user action. http://wordcapturex.deskperience.com/ (accessed July 26, 2019). Thus, a user may point to a word or text on a screen and manually write the indicated text on a piece of paper, or may use a software product to perform essentially the same task. In terms of the Revised Guidance, the recitation “screen scraping” in Claim 41 is equivalent to: (c) Mental processes—concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion). See 13 Our attempt to navigate to “screen-scraper.deskperience.com,” resulted in re-direction to “http://wordcapturex.deskperience.com/.” Our discussion of screen scraping is as disclosed in this related deskperience.com website. Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 14 Rev. Guid., 52. “If a claim, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it is still in the mental processes category unless the claim cannot practically be performed in the mind.” Rev. Guid., 52, n. 14; See Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1318 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (‘‘[W]ith the exception of generic computer-implemented steps, there is nothing in the claims themselves that foreclose them from being performed by a human, mentally or with pen and paper.’’); Synopsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp., 839 F.3d 1138, 1139, (Fed. Cir. 2016) (holding that claims to the mental process of ‘‘translating a functional description of a logic circuit into a hardware component description of the logic circuit’’ are directed to an abstract idea, because the claims ‘‘read on an individual performing the claimed steps mentally or with pencil and paper’’). In accordance with the Revised Guidance, we conclude under Prong 1 that “screen scraping” and the “context interception process which determines a patient context” are mental processes, normally carried out by medical professionals who routinely view computer monitors to acquire health information for patients and determine the patient’s “context.” Thus, Claim 41 recites a judicial exception, per se. 2. Integration of the judicial exception into a practical application. Under the Prong 2, where, as here, we determine the claims recite a judicial exception, we look to determine the presence of additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. The Revised Guidance is “designed to more accurately and consistently identify claims that recite a practical application of a judicial exception and thus are not Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 15 ‘directed to’ a judicial exception.” Revised Guidance, at 53. The claims recite a practical application where an additional element reflects an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field.14 Revised Guidance, at 55. Appellants contend that in “accord with DDR, Claim 41 is patent eligible because it is directed to a technical solution necessarily rooted in computer technology.” App. Br. 11. Appellants argue that “[a]s noted in the Specification . . . , ‘[c]ertain embodiments of the present invention seek to provide a technical solution for the problem of allowing medical data to be effectively retrieved, stored, and presented to medical service providing users where the medical data exists in digital form in a plethora of non- compatible partially overlapping software systems which are constantly being updated.’” App. Br. 12 (quoting Spec., 4, ll. 2–5). Appellants contend the claims “address the problem that medical data exists in a plethora of non- compatible partially overlapping software systems” by using a “health information exchange (HIE) network[]” which “provides the capability to electronically move clinical information among disparate health care information systems. Id. (quoting Spec., 4, ll. 22–24). The Examiner finds Appellants’ analogy to DDR Holdings to be inapt because the “problem addressed by the claim is not one ‘arising within the realm of computer networks’ as required by the Court in DDR Holdings, nor 14 The Revised Guidance also finds integration into a practical application where the judicial exception is used in medical treatment or to transform an article to a different state. Revised Guidance, at 55. Such considerations are not before us. Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 16 is the solution one that is necessarily rooted in computer technology as opposed to use in implementation.” Ans. 23. We disagree. Appellants disclose: Generally, Health Information Exchange (HIE) is defined as the mobilization of healthcare information electronically across organizations within a region, community or hospital system. HIE provides the capability to electronically move clinical information among disparate health care information systems while maintaining the meaning of the information being exchanged. Spec., 4, ll. 21–24 (cited by Appellants). As disclosed by Appellants, the claims address a problem (making disparate system compatible) that “aris[es] within the realm of computer networks.” The claimed solution, “screen scraping,” arguably, improves the technical functioning of the computer system. Therefore, under Prong 2, we find Claim 41 is not “directed to” an abstract idea and decline to sustain the rejection of Claim 41 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. CLAIM 41: OBVIOUSNESS OVER MAHESH AND BRUMMEL. Claims 37–56 stand rejected as obvious. See Final Act. 4. However, Appellants direct their arguments solely to the merits of Claim 41. App. Br. 6. Because Appellants presents no arguments directed to Claims 37–40 and 42–56, the rejection of those claims is summarily affirmed. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.31(c) (“An appeal, when taken, is presumed to be taken from the rejection of all claims under rejection unless cancelled by an amendment filed by the applicant and entered by the Office.”); 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(iv) Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 17 (“[A]ny arguments or authorities not included in the appeal brief will be refused consideration by the Board for purposes of the present appeal.”); MPEP § 1205.02 (9th ed. January 20184)15 (“[T]he Board may summarily sustain any grounds of rejections not argued.”). Claim 41 depends from independent Claim 37 and further recites: “determining context by screen scraping by the agent application instance information displayed by the EMR application instance.” Appellants contend Mahesh fails to disclose “screen scraping at all.” App. Br. 7. R. 50. Appellants argue Mahesh fails to determination of context by the agent application instance via “screen scraping,” but instead relies on obtaining information from the context manager based on “a query” by the user. Id., 7–8. The Examiner finds the rejection of Claim 41 relies on the combination of Brummel and Mahesh to teach the claimed “screen scraping.” Ans. 21. However, contrary to the Examiner’s finding, in mapping the claimed “screen scraping” onto the prior art, the Examiner cites only the disclosure of Mahesh. See Ans. 21–22. Thus, we cannot credit the Examiner’s conclusion that “one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references.” Ans. 21. Appellants argue that a text search of Mahesh fails to disclose any recitation of “screen”, “capture”, “capturing”, “intercept”, “intercepting”, “scrape”, or “scraping”. App. Br. 7. The Answer fails to respond to this argument. 15 Revision 08.2017, Revised January 2018. Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 18 Appellants contend obtaining information by screen scraping differs from obtaining information via a query. The Answer fails to respond to this argument. See Ans. 21 (“user may access desired information from a plurality of systems with unwanted information removed.”) (citing Mahesh, ¶ 4). However, the portion of Mahesh cited by the Examiner fails to provide disclosure of obtaining information from a screen: Thus, management of multiple and disparate devices, positioned within an already crowded environment, that are used to perform daily tasks is difficult for medical or healthcare personnel. Additionally, a lack of interoperability between the devices increases delay and inconvenience associated with the use of multiple devices in a healthcare workflow. The use of multiple devices may also involve managing multiple logons within the same environment. A system and method for improving ease of use and interoperability between multiple devices in a healthcare environment would be highly desirable. Mahesh, ¶ 4. In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the rejection of Claim 41 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.16 DECISION The rejection of Claims 37–40 and 42–56 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is SUMMARILY AFFIRMED. 16 Should prosecution continue, the Examiner might consider whether the original Specification provides adequate written description support, under 35 U.S.C. § 112, for the claim term “screen scraping.” Appeal 2018-002562 Application 14/145,908 19 The rejection of Claim 41 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is REVERSED. The rejection of Claims 37–40 and 42–56 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is SUMMARILY AFFIRMED. The rejection of Claim 41 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is REVERSED. 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). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED-IN-PART Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation