Square, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 8, 2021

2021001890 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 8, 2021)

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.
14/985,604 12/31/2015 Christopher Philip Renke S156-0160US 2554
126350 7590 03/08/2021
Lee & Hayes, P.C./Square
601 West Riverside Avenue
Suite 1400
Spokane, WA 99201
EXAMINER
CHEIN, ALLEN C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3687
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/08/2021 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):
lhpto@leehayes.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte CHRISTOPHER PHILIP RENKE and JUSTIN BRUNET
____________

Appeal 2021-001890
Application 14/985,604
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, JAMES P. CALVE, and
NINA L. MEDLOCK, 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 1–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

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 August 27, 2020) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed January 19,
2021), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed November 20, 2020),
and Final Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed April 8, 2020). Appellant
identifies Square, Inc. as the real party in interest (Appeal Br. 3).
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CLAIMED INVENTION
The claimed invention relates to “techniques and arrangements for
splitting one or more items from a merchant ticket to one or more other
merchant tickets” (Spec. ¶ 17).
Claims 1, 3, and 15 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A system that processes payments for a plurality of
merchants, the system comprising:
one or more processors of a payment processing server;
and
one or more computer-readable media storing computer-
executable instructions that, when executed on the one or more
processors, cause the one or more processors to perform acts
comprising:
receiving, at the payment processing server from
point-of-sale (POS) devices, historical ticket information
generated at least in part via the POS devices, wherein
historical tickets associated with the historical ticket
information indicate associations between items and
customers;
determining, by the payment processing server,
based at least in part on the historical ticket information,
that a first historical ticket of the historical tickets,
received from a first POS device of a first merchant,
indicates an association between a first type of item and a
first customer;
determining, by the payment processing server,
based at least in part on the historical ticket information,
that the first historical ticket indicates an association
between a second type of item and the first customer;
storing, by the payment processing server in a
database, a split ticket indicator associated with the first
customer indicating that the first customer is associated
with the first type of item and the second type of item;
receiving, by the payment processing server and
from a second POS device associated with a second
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merchant, an open ticket comprising a list of items
including a first item and a second item and a list of
customers including the first customer, wherein items of
the list of items are unallocated with respect to customers
of the list of customers;
determining, by the payment processing server, that
the first item is of the first type of item;
determining by the payment processing server, that
the second item is of the second type of item; and
sending, by the payment processing server to the
second POS device and based at least in part on the split
ticket indicator, a message that causes the second POS
device to suggest, at least in part via a user interface (UI)
presented on a display of the second POS device, to split
at least the first item and the second item from the open
ticket to a new split ticket associated with the first
customer.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1 and 2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over Zamer (US 2015/0348144 A1, published Dec. 3, 2015), Arvanitis
(US 2015/0262245 A1, published Sept. 17, 2015), Farnoosh Torabi, Ladies,
This is Why You Should Let the Guy Pay on the First Date (Oct. 21, 2014)
(available at https://money.com/who-should-pay-on-first-date/)
(“Mmagnarelli”),2 Fujimoto (US 2003/0177068 A1, published Sept. 18,
2003), and Zarghami (US 2009/0006151 A1, published Jan. 1, 2009).
Claims 3–7, 9, 10, 12, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Zamer, Zarghami, and Baril et al. (US 2008/0126220 A1,
published May 29, 2008) (“Baril”).

2 For consistency, we use the same designation here that the Examiner used
in identifying this article in the Final Office Action.
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Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Zamer, Zarghami, Baril, and Mmagnarelli.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Zamer, Zarghami, Baril, and Miyuki (US 2006/0229984 A1, published
Oct. 12, 2006).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Zamer, Zarghami, Baril, and Raff et al. (US 2011/0153393 A1, published
June 23, 2011) (“Raff”).
Claims 15–17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Zamer and Baril.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Zamer, Baril, and Zarghami.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Zamer, Baril, Zarghami, Mmagnarelli, and Arvanitis.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Zamer, Baril, Zarghami, Mmagnarelli, Arvanitis, and Fujimoto.
ANALYSIS
Independent Claim 1 and Dependent Claim 2
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner erred in
rejecting independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 because Zamer, on
which the Examiner relies, does not disclose or suggest “sending, by the
payment processing server to [a] second POS device and based at least in
part on [a] split ticket indicator, a message that causes the second POS
device to suggest . . . to split at least the first item and the second item from
the open ticket to a new split ticket,” wherein the “open ticket compris[es] a
list of items including a first item and a second item and a list of customers
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. . . wherein items of the list of items are unallocated with respect to
customers of the list of customers,” and wherein the spit ticket indicator is
derived from “historical tickets associated with the historical ticket
information [that] indicate associations between items and customers,” as
recited in claim 1 (Appeal Br. 14–17).
Zamer is directed to a system and method for splitting a bill among a
group of users, e.g., users seated at a table in a restaurant, and describes that
voice and context recognition are used to create an inventory of items for a
specific user (Zamer ¶ 10). In accordance with the method, each user, thus,
provides his or her order by speaking menu items out loud; the voice order is
captured by the user’s mobile device and communicated to a waiter device
(id. ¶¶ 11, 55). Once each order is associated with a user, the waiter device
transmits this information to a service provider, which creates an inventory
of items ordered by the specific user (id.). When the group is ready to pay
the bill, the waiter device transmits the total bill to each of the users at the
table, the service provider then splits the bill according to the inventory of
items ordered by each user so that each user pays only for what he or she
ordered (id. ¶ 11).
Zamer discloses, in paragraphs 61–63, cited by the Examiner, that, in
some aspects, the service provider server identifies subgroups within the
party at the table, i.e., groups within the party that usually pay together or
that are likely to want to pay together (e.g., a family, married couple, a
dating couple, an older family member and younger family member), and
splits the bill according to the subgroup (Zamer ¶¶ 61, 62). “Subgroups can
be identified based on past interactions and/or transactions; social network
relationships; subaccounts in an account with the service provider; and/or
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context” (id. ¶ 63). Zamer, thus, describes, for example, that the service
provider can determine, e.g., based on past transactions, that a first user and
second user have dined out together before, and that the first user usually
pays for the meal; based on this information, the service provider combines
the cost of the items ordered by the first user and second user into a single
bill, communicates this cost to the first user, and deducts the cost from the
bill for the table (id.).
Responding to Appellant’s argument that Zamer does not disclose or
suggest recommending a new split ticket that allocates items on an open
ticket to a customer based on historical tickets that indicate associations
between items and customers, the Examiner points to paragraphs 55 and
61–63 of Zamer as disclosing the argued feature (Final Act. 3–4; see also
Ans. 5–6). But, we agree with Appellant that there is nothing in the cited
portions of Zamer that discloses or suggests allocating items on an open
ticket to a customer based on historical tickets that indicate associations
between items and customers, i.e., using past transaction information to
decide, given a list of unallocated items, what item a particular customer
ordered, as called for in claim 1 (Appeal Br. 16–17; see also Reply Br. 3–6).
Instead, Zamer discloses that its system captures a voice order associated
with a particular user, and then creates an inventory of items ordered by that
user.
“Zamer involves no prediction as to what a particular user ordered;
once a voice is identified as belonging to a particular user, the ordered items
are simply extracted from the recording” (Appeal Br. 16). And although
Zamer discloses the use of past transactions, i.e., historical data, in
determining whether to combine the cost of items ordered by a first user and
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a second user into a single bill, i.e., in determining how to split a bill, that
determination, as Appellant observes, is separate from, and comes after the
inventory of items ordered by each user has been established using the voice
differentiation (id. at 17 (citing Zamer ¶¶ 59, 61–63)).
In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. For the same reasons, we
also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claim 2. 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”).
Independent Claims 3 and 15 and Dependent Claims 4–14 and 16–20
Independent claims 3 and 15 include language substantially similar to
the language of independent claim 1, and stand rejected based on the same
rationale (with respect to Zamer) applied with respect to claim 1 (Final
Act. 16–17, 25–26). Therefore, we do not sustain the rejections under
35 U.S.C. § 103 of independent claims 3 and 15, and claims 4–14 and 16–
20, which depend therefrom for the same reasons set forth above with
respect to claim 1.
CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 2 103 Zamer, Arvanitis,
Mmagnarelli,
Fujimoto,
Zarghami
1, 2
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Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
3–7, 9,
10, 12, 14
103 Zamer, Zarghami,
Baril
3–7, 9, 10,
12, 14
8 103 Zamer, Zarghami,
Baril, Mmagnarelli
8
11 103 Zamer, Zarghami,
Baril, Miyuki
11
13 103 Zamer, Zarghami,
Baril, Raff
13
15–17 103 Zamer, Baril 15–17
18 103 Zamer, Baril,
Zarghami
18
19 103 Zamer, Baril,
Zarghami,
Mmagnarelli,
Arvanitis
19
20 103 Zamer, Baril,
Zarghami,
Mmagnarelli,
Arvanitis,
Fujimoto
20
Overall
Outcome
1–20
REVERSED