trentostler.comtrentostler.com/.../uploads/downloads/2011/02/BPAI-re… · Web viewBPAI case. Outcome. Representative claim(s) Ex Parte Frank A. Hunleth, Daniel S. Simpkins, & Charles

BPAI case Outcome Representative claim(s)Ex Parte Frank A. Hunleth, Daniel S. Simpkins, & Charles W.K. Gritton, 2009-005621, 2010 WL 4601413 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 10, 2010)

Claims 1-16, 18-38, and 40-44 were affirmed as rejected under 101.

1. In control framework having a plurality of nodes, a subset of said plurality of nodes associated with a displayed portion of a graphical user interface (GUI), a method for tracking said plurality of nodes comprising the steps of:maintaining a data structure which contains boundary information associated with each of said subset of nodes;changing said displayed portion of said GUI from a first portion to a second portion;evaluating said data structure based upon said changing step to determine whether a node has moved into or out of said displayed portion of said GUI; andselectively notifying said node based on a result of said evaluating step.

Ex Parte Robert Lee Jordan III & Rohit v. Kapoor, APL 2009-007011, 2010 WL 3231533 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 13, 2010)

Claims 8-12 were unstatutory under 101.

Claim 8 recited a “computer program product” where the “product” is comprised of “a computer readable medium” and various “computer readable program code” elements.

Ex Parte Radoslaw Romuald Zakrzewski, 2009-005745, 2010 WL 4670609 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 16, 2010)

Held that 1-36 were unstatutory under 101.

1. A method for verifying accuracy of a component that is implemented from a model, comprising:receiving a number of randomly selected sample, M, that result from at least one test of the component, for M ≥ 1/ϵ ln(1/δ),whereinδ represents a confidence value in the range 0<δ<1,ϵ represents an accuracy level of p-est to its true value p, in the range 0<ϵ<1,p represents a probability that a randomly selected point is in accordance with a selected criterion, F,p-est, an estimate of p based on the M randomly selected samples, is zero,and a probability that (p≥ϵ) is equal to or less than δ;determining if each of said randomly selected samples is not in accordance with said selected criterion, F; andverifying accuracy of said component based on said determining.

Ex Parte Michael B. Graham John A. Woffington, IV, & Steven P. Wolf, 2009-010005, 2010 WL 4780572 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 22, 2010)

The claims 33-49 and 64-70 were rejected as nonstatutory.

33. A computerized method for measuring a consumer's perception of a commercial entity's brand equity, logo, trademark, tradename, tag line, product name and the like, comprising the steps of:providing a present interactive advertising message to the consumer;allowing the consumer to interact with the present interactive advertising message;gathering data associated with the consumer's interactions with the present interactive advertising message;generating a statistical report from the data; andproviding the statistical report to the commercial entity.

Ex Parte Lina Strand Backman, 2010-000610,

Claim 1-13 and 17-20 were rejected as

1. A process of informing potential consumers of a new product, including in no particular order: presenting to a

2011 WL 289276 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 26, 2011) –

nonstatutory subject matter.

potential consumer a visual presentation of a first, known product having at least one function and at least one characteristic capable of visualization; presenting to said potential consumer visual presentation of a second, known product having at least one known function similar to said at least one function of said first known product and at least one characteristic capable of visualization; and presenting to said potential consumer one or more intermediate visual presentations of at least one of the first and second products by changing the appearance of said at least one characteristic of said first product to more closely resemble said at least one characteristic of said second product, one of said intermediate visual presentations being an visual presentation of said new product.

Ex Parte Frederick D. Busche, Robert L. Angell, & Alexander D. Zekulin, 2009-007718, 2010 WL 5184640 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 17, 2010`

claims 1-16 were rejected as nonstatutory under 101. This decision cited the guidelines.

1. A system for interpreting scan data, comprising:an input system for inputting scan data of a medical image and associated subject patient data;a geographic information system (GIS) for generating spatial data of a feature from within the medical image, and for calculating image attributes from the spatial data;a relational database for storing integrated attribute data from a plurality of patients, wherein the integrated attribute data includes patient data and image attributes; andan analysis tool for interpreting image attributes of inputted scan data by identifying similar image attributes from the integrated attribute data stored in the relational database and outputting results.

Ex Parte Gopalan Ramanujam, APL 2009-002483, 2010 WL 3214559 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 12, 2010)

Claims 1-25, 32, and 33 were rejected under 101. Claim 1 is exemplary:

1. An apparatus comprising:a destination storage location corresponding to a first architectural register;a functional unit to process a packed format values by converting, responsive to a control signal, a first packed first format value in a first format selected from a first plurality of packed first format values in the first format to a first plurality of second format values, said first packed first format value having a plurality of sub elements each having a first number of bits, each of the first plurality of second format values being a number represented in a second format and having a second number of bits which is greater than the first number of bits, said functional unit to store all of said first plurality of second format values into said first architectural register.

Ex Parte James P. Janniello & Christopher Ward, 2009-005843, 2010 WL 5477248 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 30, 2010)

Claims 21-23 were rejected as non-statutory under 101. It cites to the USPTO 2009 guidelines.

1. A method fo[r] storing digital content in a client-side cache, said method comprising the steps of[:]receiving content broadcast to a client via a wireless broadcast connection, wherein said client is a machine that serves one or more users on a local area network;storing said received content in said client-side cache based on a user profile; andmaking said content in said client-side cache available to other clients.

Ex Parte Kwasi Addo Asare, Attila Barta, Richard D. Huddleston & Daniel E. Jemiolo, 2009-007451, 2010 WL 4917801 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 17, 2010)

Claims 1, 2, 4 through 7, 11, 12, and 14 through 17 were rejected on a new basis under 101.

1. A hosting environment abstraction method comprising the steps of:enumerating each of a set of components in an application;identifying dependencies between each component in said set;organizing a generic representation of said set of components into a hierarchical structure based upon said identified dependencies;producing a model encapsulating said hierarchical structure; and,storing said model in a repository for subsequent retrieval, whereinsaid identifying step comprises the step of inspecting each component in said set for data and method member references to other ones of said components in said set, said references indicating a dependency, andthe components are application components, and the application comprises the set of components.

Ex Parte Yanon Volcani & David B. Fogel, 2009-004790, 2010 WL 4112612 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 18, 2010)

claims 1-20 were rejected as non-statutory under 101.

1. A computer-implemented method carried out on a computer readable medium comprising the steps of:providing a vocabulary database comprising machine readable data corresponding to a plurality of vocabulary words and a lexical impact value respectively corresponding to each vocabulary word;comparing a plurality of text words of a piece of text to the vocabulary database to determine a lexical impact value for each text word that corresponds to a vocabulary word; andoutputting the lexical impact value of the text words that correspond to vocabulary words as output data; andwherein the lexical impact of a portion of text is an emotional response that is expected in a reader due to an underlying associative meaning of individual words rather than an emotional response that the text words are expected to have on the reader due to the meaning of the words in context;wherein the lexical impact values are derived from psychosocial dictionaries, opinions, experiments, or a combination thereof.

Ex Parte Ramesh C. Jain, Terry Randolph Hicks, Asquith A. Bailey, Ryan B. Mckinley, Don Yamoto Duramura, & Arun L. Katkere, 2011-000827, 2010 WL 5199604 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 14, 2010) -

claims 35-48 and 50-64 were rejected under 101. The court cited the guidelines.

35. An interactive viewer to view interactively a multi-media program derived from a real-world environment, the multi-media program comprising a plurality of multi-media events represented by associated and corresponding multiple multi-media data types stored in a multi-media database, the viewer comprising:a user interface to accept input from a user and to output information from the viewer to the user; anda query processing unit to query the multi-media database for selected multi-media events and to create an event timeline for display, the event timeline graphically depicting a plurality of events that satisfy a selected query;wherein, responsive to selection of an event from the event timeline, the user interface is to display the multi-media data types associated with the selected event on the display,wherein the user interface further facilitates display of:

a video window operable to display real-time video clips of the selected event;a user control window operable to enable the user to control the display of information on the display;a two-dimensional (2D) model window operable to display a three-dimensional (3D) model of the selected event;a model navigation control window operable to enable the user to control the display of video information in the video window and the display of the model in the model window; andan event timeline window operable to display the event timeline.

Ex Parte Ameha Aklilu, Raed Hijer, & Wilson Velez, 2009-007075, 2010 WL 4315178 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 29, 2010)

Claims 1-2, and 9-10 fail at non-statutory material under 101.

1. A method for generating object classification models to be utilized to predict object classes in an adaptive learning object classification data processing system, said method comprising:generating a first object classification model by feeding a set of training data related to an object class to be predicted into a training algorithm, wherein said set of training data includes a plurality of objects along with their respective classifications;applying a set of field data related to said object class to be predicted to said first object classification model to produce a set of field object classifications, wherein said set of field data also includes a plurality of objects along with their respective classifications;generating a second object classification model by feeding said set of field data and said set of field object classifications into said training algorithm again; andstoring said second object classification model in a data storage medium, wherein said second object classification is to be utilized to predict object classifications with a higher prediction accuracy than said first object classification model.

Ex Parte Andrew H. Sung, Srinivas Mukkamala & Jean-Louis Lassez, 2009-006827, 2010 WL 4686064 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 28, 2010)

claims 1 and 3-8 were rejected as a new ground of rejection as beign directed toward unstatutory subject matter under 101.

1. A method of detecting intrusions in a computer network, including the steps of;using a feature ranking algorithm to extract features of interest from a network and network activity;using a kernel-based algorithm to analyze extracted features of interest to determine if they are normal or malicious, wherein sad kernel-based algorithm is a support vector machine; andif malicious, causing said activity to be denied prior to access, terminated after access, limited In scope, honey-potted or tracked.

Ex Parte Cary Lee Bates & Paul W. Buenger, 2009-005673, 2011 WL 289283 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf.

Claims 5-8 rejected as non-statutory under 101. The 2009 PTO guidelines are

5. An apparatus comprising:means for finding a first class in a first directory specified in a classpath;means for finding a second class in a second directory,

Jan. 27, 2011) mentioned. wherein the second directory is later in the classpath than the first directory; andmeans for determining whether the second class is a newer version of the first class.

Ex Parte Craig William Fellenstein, Carl Phillip Gusler, Rick Allen Hemiltonii, & James Wesley Seaman, APL 2009-006595, 2010 WL 2985341 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 27, 2010)

claims 1-27 were rejected as a new rejection under 101.

21. A method of identifying optimal times for an end user to contact a target user of a messaging system, comprising detecting messaging system events, recording the messaging system events in a database, compiling statistical usage data from the messaging system events, and displaying the target user's statistical usage data on an output device; wherein the statistical usage data is adapted to allow the end user to determine a best time to contact the target user for a messaging session by providing a plurality of data regarding the target user's times for signing in and signing out, the target user's average time signed on each day, and the target user's messages sent and received.

Ex Parte Brian S. Christian, Russell M. Eames, Thomas Fakes, & Bhavesh R. Thaker, APL 2009-006589, 2010 WL 3389297 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 23, 2010)

claims 1, 4-12, 16-21 and 24-28, were

“barred at the threshold by § 101 as a new rejection.

1. A method, comprising:receiving data input through a web page from a client device;referencing a declarative module to determine a client input security screen to apply to the data input from the client device, wherein the declarative module comprises:a global section that includes at least one client input security screen that applies to any type of client input value; andan individual values section that includes at least one client input security screen that applies to a particular type of client input value; andapplying multiple client input security screens to the data input from the client device, including at least one client input security screen from the global section of the declarative module and at least one client input security screen from the individual values section of the declarative module, wherein the client input security screens are distinct from one another, and wherein said act of referencing comprises first using the global section to screen one or more client input values and then using the individual values section to screen at least one of said one or more client input values.

Ex Parte Kaushal Kurapati & Srinivas Gutta, 2009-007622, 2011 WL 109113 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 10, 2011)

Claims 16-20 are rejected under non-statutory subject matter.

Claim 16, upon which the rest were dependent, had “a computer-readable medium” in the preamble. Claim 1 is representative of the invention:

1. A system for evaluating initial cluster sets comprising:a controller operative to receive a plurality of candidate initial cluster sets corresponding to a sample population of viewing histories and, for each candidate cluster set, operative to compute a metric relating to a distance of each cluster within a particular candidate cluster set to every other cluster within that particular candidate cluster set.

Ex Parte Chet Birger, Claims 1-60 were 1. A method for communicating between two endpoints

David C. Douglas, Steven Rosenthal, & Kenneth R. Traub, APL 2009-006556, 2010 WL 2800803 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 13, 2010)

rejected (as a new rejection) under 101 non-statutory.

connected to a network, the method comprising having a first endpoint use a global address of a second endpoint to communicate with the second endpoint, wherein:the global address specifies a protocol, a network identifier, and an address meaningful for the combination of the protocol and a network identified by the network identifier,an application sends messages directed to the second endpoint through an identity-based communication layer that is situated between a network layer and an application layer, the messages being independent of the protocol, andthe identity-based communication layer transmits the messages to the second endpoint using the protocol, the network, and the address specified by the global address.

Ex Parte Joseph John Fatula, Jr., APL 2009-007432, 2010 WL 3523836 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 8, 2010)

Claims 1-9, and 20-35 were rejected as a new rejection under 101.

20. A method for autonomic management of system resources on a grid computing system, the method comprising:monitoring the grid computing system for a trigger event;accessing one of a plurality of system policies, each of the plurality of system policies corresponding to an operational control parameter of a system resource of the grid computing system, wherein the plurality of system policies comprises a system prediction policy; andregulating the system resource in response to a recognized trigger event according to one of the plurality of system policies.

Ex Parte Harold Edward Elkins II & Freeman Murray Sanderford II, APL 2009-006190, 2010 WL 3017285 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 30, 2010)

the claims 1-45 were barred by a new rejection under 101.

1. A method for modeling distributed generation for a customer, comprising:obtaining a projected electric consumption profile for the customer for a period of time that is divided into a plurality of time periods;obtaining a projected electricity cost that projects the cost of electricity purchased from an electric provider for the period of time, the projected electricity cost being associated with one or more of the plurality of time periods;obtaining operating parameters for one or more generators, the operating parameters including an electrical generator capacity and heat rate information;obtaining a projected fuel price for one or more fuels to be used by the one or more generators for the period of time;determining a projected generator operating cost to generate electricity using a generator from the one or more generators based on the projected electric consumption profile for the plurality of time periods of the period of time, the projected generator operating cost determined using at least the operating parameters associated with the generator and the projected fuel price of the fuel to be used by the generator;generating a projected dispatch operation schedule of the generator by comparing, for the plurality of time periods, the projected generator operating cost of the generator to the projected electricity cost of electricity purchased from an electric provider for the plurality of time periods of the period of time; andgenerating a revised projected electric consumption profile

for the customer by subtracting the projected dispatch of the generator for the plurality of time periods from the projected electric consumption profile.

Ex Parte Matthew Gelhaus, Winthrop D. Childers, Art Piehl, Jim Przybyla, Adam Ghozeil, & Eric Martin, APL 2009-006994, 2010 WL 3523834 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 7, 2010)

claim 28 was rejected as non-statutory under 101.

28. An article of manufacture, comprising:a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code means embodied therein for spreading a non-periodic color signal sent to a spatial light modulator across a frame period, the computer readable program code means in the article of manufacture comprising:computer readable program code for dividing a frame period into a plurality of time slices; computer readable program code for assigning a color to each time slice, wherein one or more colors are assigned to the plurality of time slices in the frame period; and computer readable program code for interleaving the one or more colors assigned to the time slices across the frame period.

Ex Parte Graeme John Proudler, APL 2009-006599, 2010 WL 2727840 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 8, 2010)

claims 1-43 and 50 were rejected as nonstatutory as a new rejection.

33. A method of controlling processing of data, wherein the data comprises a plurality of rules associated with a plurality of data items comprising a set of logically related data items, each data item in the set having a rule associated therewith, said rules acting to individually define usage and/or security to be observed when processing each of the data items in the set of data items, and in which forwarding of the set of data items is performed in accordance with mask means provided in association with the rules.

Ex Parte Justin Monk, Denise Keay, Nathan Darmento, & Joan Rhode, 2009-013250, 2010 WL 5477256 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 30, 2010)

Claims 6, 8-15 were rejected as non-statutory subject matter.

Claim 6 is a method claim that recites the steps of “receiving,” “associating,” and “providing a response.”

Ex Parte Jeffrey T. Awe, Joseph P. Bigus, Anthony M. Dunbar, Gregory R. Hintermeister, Jacob Kugel, & Donald A. Schlosnagle, APL 2009-001465, 2010 WL 3719107 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 9, 2010) -

Claims 14-21 and 31 were directed to non-statutory subject matter.

Ex Parte Dustin C. Kirkland & Liliana Orozco, APL 2009-002027, 2010 WL 3702407 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 20, 2010)

The claim 8 and 13 were reversed as statutory subject matter because support for the means-for language in the claim was found in the Specification. Claim 14 was not argued and the rejection was affirmed.

Ex Parte Tal Drory, Amir Bar-or, Nitzan Peleg, &

claims 1-11 were allowed as statutory

1. A system for performing query operations, the system comprising:

David Konopnicki, 2009-005871, 2010 WL 4876342 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 29, 2010)

subject matter, claims 21-23 were rejected as non-statutory.

a base table having a plurality of spatial objects;an index table that comprises a plurality of data entries, the plurality of data entries being associated with the plurality of spatial objects;a module adapted to perform a query operation on the index table, the module configured to;convert a query window into a plurality of values;create a scan range for each of the plurality of values with a begin range value and an end range value from the plurality of values, wherein the scan range includes a stop condition;scan the plurality of data entries for each of the scan ranges to identify one of the end range value and the stop condition; andreturn a result based upon the plurality of data entries that are within the scan range for each of the plurality of values.

Ex Parte Philip D. Mackenzie, & Michael Kendrick Reiter, 2009-007332, 2010 WL 5173222 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 17, 2010)

claims 1-5, 7-12, and 14-18 is directed to non-statutory subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101

1. A method for use in a device associated with a first party for performing a signature operation on a message substantially based on the digital signature algorithm (DSA), the method comprising the steps of:generating in the first party device a first component associated with the signature operation based on assistance from a device associated with a second party, wherein the assistance from the second party device is received as a first message from the second party device;transmitting the first component to the second party device;generating in the first party device a second component associated with the signature operation based on further assistance from the second party device, wherein the further assistance from the second party device is received as a second message from the second party device, wherein the second message comprises results generated using the transmitted first component; andoutputting a form of the first component and the second component as a result of the DSA signature operation.

Ex Parte Jorg Heuer, Andreas Hutter, & Ulrich Niedermeier, APL 2009-004590, 2010 WL 3072973 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 4, 2010)

clalims 19-36 were rejected as non-statutory under 101. `

19. A method for improved decoding of a binary representation of a[n] XML-based document, comprising the steps of:associating the binary representation of the XML-based document to a name space or schema, wherein the XML-based document contains only elements or types of a name subspace of the name space or of a simplified schema of the schema;transmitting the name subspace or simplified schema to at least one decoder;transmitting a correction code to the at least one decoder;performing a code substitution of the name subspace or simplified schema to codes of the name space or schema using the correction code; anddecoding, via the decoder, the binary representation of the XML-based document in accordance with the name space or schema from the name subspace or simplified schema with

the aid of the correction code.

Ex Parte Mustansir Banatwala, Stephen J. Foley & Alexander Kordun, 2009-006785, 2010 WL 4250887 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 18, 2010)

– claims 1, 2, 4-13 are non-statutory under 101.

1. A discussion forum resource comprising:at least one topic thread disposed in the discussion forum resource forum and created for externally sourced content in the discussion forum resource [sic], wherein said externally sourced content comprise postings from another forum resource; and,a data aggregator executing in a computing platform and coupled to said at least one topic thread and configured to manage said externally sourced content in said at least one topic thread.

Ex Parte Bhooshan Prafulla Kelkar, Tanveer F. Syeda-Mahmood & Gregor M. Meyer, APL 2009-004635, 2010 WL 3768175 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 24, 2010)

Claims 1-6, 10-16, and 20 are non-statutory. They cited to the Official Gazette of 2010.

Claim 1 is representative.

Ex Parte Kevin v. Fliess, Dennis B. Moore, & Irene Ivashenko, 2009-009726, 2010 WL 5096101 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 10, 2010)

1-9 and 24-25 are rejected as non-statutory.

1. A method of presenting data relating to skills distribution in an enterprise, the method comprising:receiving skill availability information describing available skill resources across a plurality of categories in three or more category classes;displaying the skill availability information in a two-dimensional chart as a first geometric object on three or more category axes lying in a two-dimensional plane of the two-dimensional chart and sharing a common origin; anddisplaying skill needs information in the two-dimensional chart as a second geometric object on the three or more category axes such that overlap of the first and second geometric objects indicates one or more relationships between the skill availability information and the skill needs information, the skill needs information based at least in part on a current status of a task of the enterprise.

Ex Parte Tse-Huong Choo, Scott A. Leerssen, & Joubert Berger, APL 2009-006352, 2010 WL 2985362 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 28, 2010)

Claims 1-18, 21-29 are rejected as non-statutory under 101.

1. A computer system for controlling access to certain files by processes, said computer system comprising:compartments implemented on an operating system;a database containing access rules, said access rules defining which compartments are authorized to access particular file resources;a kernel module the receiving a system call to access a file from a user space application belonging to a compartment; anda security module for determining whether said user space application is authorized to access said file utilizing access rules stored in said database.

Ex Parte Raj Dosanjh, 2009-007286, 2010 WL 5199592 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 21, 2010)

Claims 1,2,4-11 were non-statutory subject matter under 101.

1. A method of determining a price at which a supplier provides a commodity to a customer, the method being performed by the supplier and comprising:(a) characterizing, by the supplier, nature of growth of the customer's usage of the commodity;(b) receiving information from the customer specifying the

commodity required;(c) receiving notification of the use of a quantity of the commodity by the customer; and(d) determining, by the supplier, a price for the commodity used, the determined price being dependent on the quantity of the commodity used by the customer, a level of commercial risk associated with the nature of growth of the customer's usage of the commodity, and an industry average price for the commodity at the time of determination of the price, wherein, if usage monitoring indicates that the customer has a need for more or less of the commodity, the method further comprises effecting provision of more or less of the commodity from the supplier to the customer.

Ex Parte Shawn Joseph Baraczyk & Brian Robert Muras, APL 2009-008207, 2010 WL 3827129 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 29, 2010)

Claim 29 was rejected as non-statutory under 101.

29. A program product, comprising:program code configured upon execution to log query execution in a database management system by generating an encrypted representation of an execution detail for a query executed by the database management system, and logging the execution detail for the query in an execution log for the database management system by storing the encrypted representation thereof in the execution log; anda recordable computer readable medium storing the program code.

Ex Parte Yazaki Corp., APL 2009-007532, 2010 WL 3072975 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 4, 2010) -

claims 11 and 12 were rejected as non-statutory subject matter, but 13 and 14 were allowed.

11. A method of preparing a wire harness production, comprising the steps of:providing standard wire harness wiring pattern information related to a first pattern including parts, electric circuits, and wirings of a standard type vehicle;generating modified wire harness wiring pattern information related to at least one second pattern in which at least one of the parts, the electric circuits, and the wirings of the first pattern is altered;providing parts specification information including specifications of the parts, the electric circuits and the wiring included in the at least one second pattern;simulating whether the at least one second pattern is practical while referring to the parts specification information;modifying at least one of first sub patterns constituting the first pattern to at least one of second sub patterns so as to constitute the second pattern judged as practical by the simulating step;providing wire harness path pattern information related to a plurality of wire harness path patterns of the standard type vehicle;generating jig arrangement pattern information related to jig arrangement patterns prepared by applying at least one sub jig arrangement pattern to each of the wire harness path patterns;providing path decision information, which selects one wire harness path pattern among the plurality of wire harness path patterns;providing alternation information, which indicates at least one of alternation portions altered from the first pattern;

selecting one jig arrangement pattern corresponding to the selected wire harness path pattern among the plurality of wire harness path patterns;generating a path plan by integrating the modified second sub pattern having the alternation portions which is indicated in the alternation information and the selected jig arrangement pattern; andoutputting the path plan.

13. A method of preparing a wire harness production, using a system for preparing a wire harness production havingstandard wire harness wiring pattern information related to a first pattern including parts, electric circuits, and wirings of a standard type vehicle;a modified wiring pattern generator, which generates modified wire harness wiring pattern information related to at least one second pattern in which at least one of the parts, the electric circuits, and the wirings of the first pattern is altered;a parts information storage, which stores parts specification information including specifications of the parts, the electric circuits and the wiring included in the second patterns;a simulator, which simulates whether each of the second patterns is practical while referring to the parts specification information;a sub wiring pattern modifier, which modifies at least one of first sub patterns constituting the first pattern to at least one of second sub patterns so as to constitute the second pattern judged as practical by the simulator;wire harness path pattern information related to a plurality of wire harness path patterns of the standard type vehicle;a jig arrangement pattern information generator, which generates jig arrangement pattern information related to jig arrangement patterns prepared by applying at least one sub jig arrangement pattern to each of the wire harness path pattern;path decision information, which selects one wire harness path pattern among the plurality of wire harness path patterns;alternation information which indicates at least one of alternation portions altered from the first pattern;a jig arrangement pattern selector, which selects one jig arrangement pattern corresponding to the selected wire harness path pattern among the plurality of wire harness path patterns; anda path plan generator, which generates a path plan by integrating the modified second sub pattern having the alternation portions which is indicated in the alternation information and the selected jig arrangement pattern,said method comprising the steps of:

providing the standard wire harness wiring pattern information related to the fist pattern including parts, the electric circuits, and the wirings of a standard type vehicle;generating the modified wire harness wiring pattern

information related to the at least one second pattern in which at least one of the parts, the electric circuits, and the wirings

of the first pattern is altered; providing the parts specification information including the specifications of the parts, the electric circuits and the wiring included in the at least one second pattern;simulating whether the at least one second pattern is practical while referring to the parts specification information;modifying the at least one of first sub patterns constituting the first pattern to the at least one of second sub patterns so as to constitute the second pattern judged as practical by the simulating step;providing the wire harness path pattern information related to the plurality of wire harness path patterns of the standard type vehicle;generating the jig arrangement pattern information related to the jig arrangement patterns prepared by applying the at least one sub jig arrangement pattern to each of the wire harness path patterns;providing the path decision information, which selects the one wire harness path pattern among the plurality of wire harness path patterns;providing the alternation information, which indicates the at least one of alternation portions altered from the first pattern;selecting the one jig arrangement pattern corresponding to the selected wire harness path pattern among the plurality of wire harness path patterns;generating the path plan by integrating the modified second sub pattern having the alternation portions which is indicated in the alternation information and the selected jig arrangement pattern; andoutputting the path plan.

Ex Parte Ching-Yu Hung & Deependra Talla, APL 2009-015005, 2010 WL 3827147 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 29, 2010)

Claims 1-5 were rejected as non-statutory.

1. A method of tetrahedral interpolation, comprising the steps of:(a) receive a color space input point;(b) compute a base point and three differentials for said input point;(c) compare said three differentials;(d) compute tetrahedron vertices from the results of steps (b) and (c), a first one of said vertices being said base point;(e) find output values for each of said vertices;(f) compute an interpolated output value for said input point as the sum of the output value of said base point plus the inner product of said differentials in size order with corresponding differences of said output values for said vertices.

Ex Parte Joseph A. Russo, Mustansir Banatwala, Miguel A. Estrada, & Sami M. Shalabi, APL 2009-001876, 2010 WL 3441058 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 30, 2010)

Claims 1 - 8 and 12 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Claims 9-11 were allowed under 101.

1. A hierarchical grouping system comprising:a collaborative context comprising a community of subscribers, a plurality of roles assigned to said subscribers, and a plurality of tools and resources configured for access by said subscribers said access being limited by said roles;a directory comprising entries associated with said subscribers, said directory having a single hierarchical

structure; and,a mapping between said directory and said roles in said collaborative context.

Ex Parte Michael J. Burkhart, Daniel C. Eisenhauer, Daniel M. Schumacher, & Thomas J. Watson, APL 2009-008220, 2010 WL 3738331 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 22, 2010)

– Claims 1-20 are rejected as an abstract idea and not 101 eligible as a new rejection.

1. A computer-implemented method for creating rules for the administration of end-user license agreements (‘EULAs'), the method comprising:identifying, from historical license data, a license administration pattern, the license administration pattern representing a trend in an organization's administration of the EULAs, terms in the EULAs, or material subject to the EULAs; andcreating in dependence upon the license administration pattern, a license administration rule, the license administration rule representing a conditional expression used to establish conditions for accepting or rejecting the EULAs.

Ex Parte David Joseph Kropaczek, William Earl Russell, II, & William Charles Cline, 2009-006499, 2010 WL 4057213 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 13, 2010)

– Claims 1-33 rejected. 1. A method of evaluating a proposed solution to a constraint problem, the method automated by a computer processor, comprising:providing an objective function definition generic to constraint problems, the generic objective function definition being a sum of a first number of credit terms plus a sum of a second number of penalty terms, each of the credit terms associated with an optimality condition and each of the penalty terms associated with a constraint;configuring the generic objective function into an application specific objective function applicable to the constraint problem;receiving a value of at least one variable in at least one credit term in the application specific objective function, the credit term variable being related to the proposed solution;receiving a value of at least one variable in at least one penalty term in the application specific objective function, the penalty term variable being related to the proposed solution; andgenerating a figure of merit for the proposed solution based on the credit term variable and the penalty term variable using the application specific objective function.

Ex Parte Stephen Rodney Cumpson & Ozcan Mesut, APL 2009-005308, 2010 WL 3803642 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 27, 2010)

Clailm 19 was rejected as non-statutory subject matter.

[c]omputer program product storable on a medium readable out by a computer system, comprising a software code section which includes the computer system to execute the method as claimed in claim 1, when the product is executed on the computer system

Ex Parte David Ulf & Jay Richmond, APL 2009-008071, 2010 WL 3611779 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 7, 2010)

Claims 1-3, 6 were rejected under 101. Claims 4-5, 7-10 were allowed.

1. A method for maximizing opportunity sales by moving a purchaser off an original travel reservation purchase choice and onto a substitute travel reservation purchase, the method comprising the steps of:being notified of a first actor tendering a purchase commitment for a first travel reservation item at a first price with the travel reservation to be fulfilled at a specific future date, the first reservation item being a service selected from

the group consisting of a hotel room rental, an automobile rental, an airline flight ticket, and a sea travel, the service to be fulfilled at the specific future date; andtendering a sale commitment to sell to the first actor an equivalent reservation item to the first reservation item at a price at least as favorable as the first price, the equivalent reservation item to be purchased as a substitute for the first reservation item,the sale commitment being presented in a form readable to the first actor.

Ex Parte Peter J. Kaehler, John L. Erickson, Leonard R. Steidel, & Peter L. Hauser, 2009-007097, 2010 WL 4780566 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 22, 2010)

claims 1-12, 19-25 rejected under 101.

1. A system for benefits management, comprising:a server including an application interface and access to a data store having one or more client files, wherein a client file includes a definable set of business rule instructions executed by a processor to manage and administer benefits and includes fund use rule instructions executed by a processor to access and apply funds to payment of claims from a plurality of accounts; anda program operable on the server to apply the definable set of business rules, wherein the instructions are executed by the processor to allow a plan sponsor to define a first defined set of the fund use rules and a plan member to define a second defined set of the fund use rules in order to define payment of at least a portion of a claim from between at least two different employee benefit accounts, dependent upon authority being granted by the plan sponsor.

Ex Parte Richard A. Darrell, APL 2009-006757, 2010 WL 3702393 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 20, 2010)

claim 18 was allowed (means for language found to have support in spec). The others were not reversed: claims 1-5, 7, 9, 11-15, 17

1. A method of presenting an image of a receipt to a consumer, comprising:electronically capturing a receipt;storing the receipt at a host computer system;receiving a request at the host computer system from a computer of the consumer to display the image of the receipt;transmitting an electronic file comprising the image of the receipt for display at the consumer computer, the electronic file further comprising programming that causes at least one purchase item included on the receipt to appear as a selectable link to obtain more detailed information about the item;receiving from the consumer computer information that defines at least one user-defined category based on product information;receiving a request at the host computer from the consumer computer to display a categorical listing of items purchased by the consumer, wherein the items are comprised by a plurality of receipts;for each of the plurality of receipts, consulting a database for product information relating to each item of the receipt;using the product information to sort the items into categories comprising the at least one user-defined category; andtransmitting a second electronic file from the host computer system to the consumer computer, wherein the file comprises a listing of the items sorted into categories comprising the at least one user-defined category based on product information

for display at the consumer computer.

Ex Parte Jimmies Earl Dewitt Jr., Frank Eliot Levine, Christopher Michael Richardson, & Robert John Urquhart, APL 2009-005534, 2010 WL 3719150 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 21, 2010)

Claims 16 and 23 were rejected under 101.

Ex Parte Ted Christian Johnson, APL 2009-006718, 2010 WL 2998170 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 29, 2010)

Claims 17-20 were rejected under 101.

Ex Parte Mary L. Comer & Izzat H. Izzat, APL 2009-006782, 2010 WL 3626532 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 16, 2010)

Claims 12-16 were allowed as under non-statutory subject matter 101. The specification disclosed computer readable media examples.

Ex Parte James R. Birle, Jr., David K. Dolan, Jeffrey N. Edwards, Yonathan Epelbaum, Frederick J. Fiddle, Emerson P. Jones, Stuart C. Kaperst, Todd K. Kaplan, Daniel Y. Kerstein, Dragomir Kolev, Richard P. Luciano, Thomas H. Patrick, Jr., Paul A. Pepe, Eric Steifman, Russell L. Stein, Brennan J. Warble, Richard J. Green, Robert Rudnick, & Frank R. Strong, 2009-010659, 2010 WL 4366518 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 1, 2010)

Claims 10-25, 35-43,52-59,62-75,84-90,92 and 95 were rejected under 101 as a new ground of rejection.

10. A financial instrument issued by a stock company and held by a holder, shares of stock of the company trading at a price, the instrument having a market price, the instrument comprising:a provision obligating the company to repay the principal according to a predetermined term;a provision making the instrument convertible into a predetermined number of shares of stock of the company at a predetermined conversion price;a provision obligating the company to make a payment to the holder with respect to passage of a time interval in the event the market price of the instrument is in a predetermined relationship to an accreted value thereof, the accreted value defined as the issue price of the instrument plus an economic accrual of a portion of a difference between the issue price and the principal amount at maturity.

Ex Parte Mikhail B. Genkin & Michael Starkey, 2009-005839, 2010 WL 5137088 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 15, 2010)

Claims 14 and 22 and claims 15-21, and 23-25 were rejected as non-statutory.

Ex Parte Miguel A. Estrada, Joseph A. Russo, & Thomas M. Spine, APL 2009-012192, 2010 WL 3389278 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 26, 2010)

claims 1-7 were rejected as a new ground for rejection. Claim 1 is illustrative:

1. A method for managing membership in a collaborative computing environment community, the method comprising:receiving identification of a selected group of end user persons to invite to join the collaborative computing community;evaluating the selected group to identify one or more invitees there from;

inviting the one or more identified invitees; andreceiving an indication from one or more invitees that the invitee wishes to join the community.

Ex Parte Victor Ng-Thow-Hing & Jianbo Peng, 2009-009095, 2011 WL 341359 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Feb. 1, 2011)

claims 1-11, 28 were allowed as statutory subject matter (101).

1. A method for producing a subject-specific skeleton from an external measurement data set and a generic skeleton, the generic skeleton comprising a plurality of parameters, the method comprising:determining a set of parameters, wherein the set includes a first parameter related to a size of a bone segment in a first dimension and a second parameter related to a size of the bone segment in a second dimension;applying, for the set of parameters, correspondence between the external measurement data set and the generic skeleton; anddetermining, for each parameter in the set, a value, by optimizing an objective function.

Ex Parte Prasad R. Vishnubhotla, 2009-008510, 2011 WL 126897 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 13, 2011) –

claims 1-7, 15-20 were rejected under a new rejection.

1. A method for integrating file system events into a database management system (DBMS), comprising:designating a file of interest;detecting a file state change event associated with the file of interest;updating a file events table of a database upon a detection of the file state change event;generating a database trigger upon a change in the file events table; andupdating the database with data from the file of interest upon receipt of the database trigger.

Ex Parte Jeffrey Morgan Alden & Daniel J. Reaume, 2010-001298, 2010 WL 5199577 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 22, 2010)

Claims 1-12 are rejected as non-statutory.

1. A method of analyzing a sub-model of a full system model, said system model representing a system, said method comprising the steps of:defining the sub-model as a collection of entities in a visual medium;determining which of the entities in the sub-model are calculation entities and which are data entities;converting the calculation entities in the sub-model that depend on entities in the full model that are not included in the sub-model into temporary data entities;identifying output entities in the sub-model, where the output entities are calculation entities that do not have an output to another entity; andvisually analyzing changes in the sub-model in response to performing the calculations for the calculation entities, wherein visually analyzing changes in the sub- model includes analyzing changes in the size of at least one data entity.

Ex Parte Thomas Hagmann, Robert Lang, Christian Behre & Martine Clemot, 2010-002050,

– claims 1- 7, 9-18, 28, 30-39, 41-42, and 44-46 are accepted as statutory

1. A computer-based method for representing a project, comprising:[1] accessing a description of the project;[2] displaying, based on the description, a first element and a

2010 WL 5146406 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 15, 2010)

subject matter. second element of the project in a perspective representation that generally resembles a path, the perspective representation being displayed on a display device;[3] receiving a user identification identifying a user for whom the perspective representation is to be displayed on the display device;[4] based on the received user identification, marking the first element in the display of the perspective representation on the display device, the marking of the first element indicating an involvement of the identified user with the first element, and marking the second element in the display of the perspective representation on the display device, the marking of the second element indicating that the identified user is not involved with the second element; and[5] graphically indicating progress in the project in the display of the perspective representation on the display device.

Ex Parte David A. Eves & Richard S. Cole, APL 2009-005037, 2010 WL 3410877 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 25, 2010)

claims 13 and 14 are non-statutory.

Ex Parte Joshua S. Allen, Bryan M. Ellington, Bradford Austin Fisher, Robert L. Nielsen, & Jacob Yackenovich, APL 2009-012564, 2010 WL 2963752 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 22, 2010)

– claims 1-5 were rejected as non-statutory.

1. A service level agreement (SLA) breach value estimator comprising:a communicative coupling to data produced for at least one resource; and,a further communicative coupling to a user interface through which an SLA breach value estimate is proposed; and,at least one SLA breach value estimation process selected from the group consisting of an aggregated process, a specific customer process, a customer resource subset process, and a predictive process.

Ex Parte William E. Moore & Thomas D. Mccarthy, APL 2009-005163, 2010 WL 3903327 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 28, 2010)

claims 1-7, 13, 15, 16, 19, and 20 are rejected as non-statutory.

1. A method for processing a life insurance facultative case summary submission over a network between a ceding company and a reinsurer, comprising the steps of:receiving from the ceding company, over the network, the facultative case summary submission, wherein the facultative case summary submission is a summary of a corresponding case history of a facultative case; andrendering a facultative decision, by the reinsurer, whether to provide reinsurance for the facultative case based on the received facultative case summary submission, the facultative case summary submission including risk factor information for evaluating a risk in providing reinsurance for the facultative case.

Ex Parte Harold Jeffrey Goldberg & John L. Berry, APL 2009-011732, 2010

The Examiner erred in rejecting claim 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

WL 2800813 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 14, 2010) Ex Parte Michael G. Foulger, Jeremy S. Cooper, Michael Sea Luu, & Peter B. Van Gorder, 2009-007619, 2010 WL 5244744 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 22, 2010)

claims 3-6, 9, 10, and 34-37 rejections affirmed.

3. A method of generating employment market statistics from a network, comprising the steps of:(a) accessing an employment resource via the network, the employment resource comprising data;(b) matching the data to one of a plurality of employment market categories; and(c) updating at least one statistical indicator associated with the matched employment market category;wherein step (c) comprises the step of calculating a ratio of resumes associated with the matched employment market category to job listings associated with the matched employment market category.

Ex Parte Andrea Whitson & Paul J. Delia, 2009-009599, 2010 WL 4262202 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 27, 2010)

– affirmed claim 1 subject matter 101 rejection.

Ex Parte Michael J. Hardcastle, 2009-005891, 2011 WL 109089 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 6, 2011) –

Claim 1 and 26 rejections affirmed as non-statutory under 101.

1. A system for communicating a message, said system comprising:hierarchical information with respect to a plurality of message transport mechanisms; anda plurality of transport managers adapted to communicate with said message transport mechanisms for transmission of a message to a particular destination via any one of said message transport mechanisms according to said hierarchical information.

Ex Parte Scott Spenser Havlick & Donald Alois Degnan, APL 2009-004992, 2010 WL 3198429 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 10, 2010)

Claims 1-40 and 42-56 had rejections reversed.

21. A computer implemented method for presenting information associated with a trademark search for a first trademark, the method comprising:generating a graph having a first axis and a second axis utilizing a computer, wherein the point of origin of the graph comprises the intersection of the first and second axis;creating first and second goods/services descriptions, the first goods/services description being identical to the goods/services description associated with the first trademark and the second goods/services description being different than the first goods/services description;placing, utilizing a computer, the first goods/services description at a point on the first axis of the graph closest the point of origin of the graph and thereafter placing the second goods/services description at a point on the first axis of the graph away from the point of origin;creating first and second mark descriptions, the first mark description being identical to the mark description associated with the first trademark and the second mark description being different than the first mark description; placing, utilizing a computer, the first mark description at a point on the second axis of the graph closest the point of origin of the graph and thereafter placing the second mark description at a point on the second axis of the graph away from the point of

origin; andpopulating, utilizing a computer, the graph with at least one data point corresponding to a mark from the trademark search by plotting the data point using the goods/services description and the mark description associated with the mark from the trademark search.

Ex Parte Mark John Anderson, Michael S. Faunce, & Brian Robert Muras, APL 2009-002098, 2010 WL 3017260 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 30, 2010)

Claims 27-37 rejections were affirmed.

27. A computer program product for mirroring database statistics, the computer program product disposed upon a signal bearing medium, the computer program product comprising:computer program instructions that receive by a backup application of a backup computer in real time a journal entry representing a requirement for backup database statistics; andcomputer program instructions that generate by a statistics engine of the backup computer backup database statistics for a backup database in accordance with the journal entry.

Ex Parte Shiraz A. Qureshi, 2009-007392, 2010 WL 4686069 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 9, 2010) –

Claims 1-9 were affirmed rejected and the remaining 10-26 claims were extended on a new ground of rejection under 101. The official gazette of 2010 was cited. Claim 1 is representative:

1. A system for discovering I/O bus capabilities on a computer system via ACPI, comprising:an ACPI name space detailing hardware configuration in said computer system;a first ACPI interface in said ACPI name space detailing current capabilities of an I/O bus communicatively coupled to an I/O slot; anda second ACPI interface detailing a list of all capabilities of said I/O bus that supports said I/O slot.

Ex Parte Abdo Esmail Abdo, Robert Joseph Bestgen, & John David Dietel, 2009-005536, 2011 WL 319253 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 26, 2011)

Claims 17-19 were affirmed as rejected under 101.

17. A program product comprising:a relational database comprising one or more relations, each relation comprising one or more tuples on one or more attributes, andrelational database system adapted to perform a query on said relational database by evaluating join predicates in said query to determine whether a join involving a first relation and a second relation will be reductive of said first relation, identity a join involving said first and second relations that will be reductive of said first relation, and perform said query by the prior application of a look-ahead predicate based upon the second relation in the join, andsignal bearing media bearing the relational database and the

relational database system.

Ex Parte David B. Sutton & Douglas E. Blasiman, 2009-005882, 2010 WL 4686078 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 17, 2010)

Claims 15-17, 19-26, and 28-46 were reversed and thus allowed as statutory subject matter.

15. A method for maintaining anonymity of a purchaser during a purchase transaction, comprising:acquiring a purchase card from a purchase card provider, the purchase card having a non-personalized cardholder name and an account number and an associated address for the purchase card provider;providing purchase transactional information from the purchaser to a retailer, wherein the purchase transactional information includes the non-personalized cardholder name

and the account number from the purchase card and the associated address; andtransacting a purchase between the purchaser and the retailer using the non-personalized cardholder name and the account number, thereby maintaining the anonymity of the purchaser.

Ex Parte Richard L. Arnoldy, 2009-010008, 2011 WL 109115 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 10, 2011) -

Claims 1, 3, 4, and 6-13 were affirmed as rejected under 101. Claim 1 is illustrative:

`

1. A system of providing ancestor information in a remembrance program which will continue automatically and extend to their genealogy for all current direct descendants, the system comprising:a) identification of one or more existent descendants who shall receive information about one or more ancestors, which shall automatically continue and extend to all future direct descendants and selection of a protocol for identification of non-existent descendants who shall automatically receive the information;b) identification of one or more future dates for receipt of the information by the one or more ancestors;c) selection of biographical or historical material about the one or more ancestors;d) associating the identified future dates with the selected biographical or historical material;e) distributing the selected biographical or historical material about the one or more ancestors to the one or more descendants on the basis of the association of the identified future dates with the selected biographical or historical material;0 identification of one or more descendants who shall receive information about one or more ancestors while the ancestors are living or deceased; andg) identification of one or more future descendants who may wish to become a donor ancestor of the remembrance program to ensure their ancestral memory to their descendantswherein the step of identification of one or more future dates for receipt of the information from the one or more ancestors comprises identification of birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and ceremonies of the one or more descendants.

Ex Parte Josephine Miu Cheng, Chi-Pei Michael Hsing, & Frank Meng, 2009-005900, 2011 WL 121761 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 12, 2011)

Claims 9, and 11-15 were affirmed as rejected under 101.

Claim 9 is illustrative:

a computer usable medium having a computer readable program…the computer readable program comprising program instructions for[]…

Ex Parte Frank S. Caccavale, Sridhar C. Villapakkam, & Skye W. Spear, APL 2009-006026, 2010 WL 2901727 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 23, 2010)

Claims 7 to 10 and 15 to 21 were affirmed as rejected under 101.

8. In a data processing system including distributed processing units, a method of analysis of performance of the data processing system, said method comprising:each of the distributed processing units accumulating performance parameters including response time measurements and workload across intervals of time, said each of the distributed processing units storing the performance parameters accumulated by said each of the

distributed processing units in an industry standard database in said each of the distributed processing units; andaccessing the industry standard databases over the data processing system to retrieve the performance parameters accumulated by the distributed processing units, and determining a measure of performance of the data processing system from the retrieved performance parameters;wherein the industry standard database is the Windows Management Instrumentation database, and the method includes said each distributed processing unit using an operating system to store the performance parameters accumulated by said each of the distributed processing units in the Windows Management Instrumentation database;wherein the measure of performance of the data processing system is a measure of metric entropy of the data processing system, and the measure of metric entropy of the data processing system is computed from the performance parameters retrieved from the industry standard database by computing an average response time over the distributed processing units, computing a histogram of the average response time over the distributed processing units, and computing the measure of metric entropy of the data processing system from the histogram.

Ex Parte George Henry Forman, 2009-013620, 2010 WL 5127465 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 13, 2010) -

claims 1, 3-6, 8, 10, 11, 38, and 39 were rejected as a new ground under 101.

1. A method of reporting the presentation of data comprising:accessing a source of data having a specific segment; andreporting, to a remote location, information regarding whether the specific segment was presented to a user, wherein reporting the information is in response to the specific segment being presented to the user.

Ex Parte Dennis J. Hill, Sandeep Malhotra, Sara E. Fiebiger, Dana Lorberg, Patrick Killian, & Andrew D. Campbell, 2010-005908, 2010 WL 5244753 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 18, 2010)

- claims 13, 15-17 were reversed and thus allowed under 101.

13. A method comprising:receiving in a computer a request for a funds transfer, the request including a destination telephone number and an originating telephone number;accessing a computer database to translate the destination telephone number into a destination payment card account number;translating the originating telephone number into a funding payment card account number;using the funding payment card account number to retrieve the name and residential address of an individual who initiated the funds transfer;routing the funds transfer to a destination financial institution computer as a payment transaction using the destination payment card account number; andtransmitting, to the destination financial institution computer, the name and residential address of the individual who initiated the funds transfer.

Ex Parte Richard D. Dettinger, Daniel P. Kolz, Richard J. Stevens, & Jeffrey W. Tenner, APL 2009-006998, 2010 WL

claims 1-20 are rejected on a new ground under 101.

1. A data processing system for retrieving data comprising: an abstract model comprising a plurality of definitions of logical fields, each definition comprising a logical field name and a mapping referencing physical data, wherein at least one logical field comprises:

3768179 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 24, 2010)

at least a first mapping referencing data in a first physical data structure;a second mapping referencing data in a second physical data structure; anda first conditional modifier allowing the logical field to be selectably mapped to the first physical data structure using the first mapping or the second physical data structure using the second mapping, depending on the presence of the first conditional modifier in an abstract query containing the at least one logical field; anda query processor configured to convert one or more abstract queries containing logical fields configured with conditional modifiers into one or more executable queries of a given query language by referencing the abstract model.

Ex Parte Nicholas David Butler, Christopher Raymond Gibson, & Christopher Edward Sharp, APL 2009-010015, 2010 WL 3728722 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 22, 2010)

claims 1-9 were reversed and thus allowed under 101.

1. A method of processing electronic assurances involving a requestor, a provider and an authority interconnected via a network, wherein the requester, the provider, and the authority are separate entities from one another, the method comprising:the provider registering with the authority, a standard for supplying a particular good or service;the requestor acquiring, from the authority, a public key having a corresponding private key, said private key being retained by the authority;the requestor sending, to the provider, a request for assurance of a standard of a particular good or service;comparing the registered standard and the requested standard for the particular good or service, and upon a valid comparison, sending an assurance document signed, with the private key, back to the requestor; andthe requestor verifying using the public key that the assurance document was validly signed, wherein the requestor can be confident that the standard in the signed assurance document has been provided by the authority.

Ex Parte Bartholomeus Johannes Van Rijnsoever & Cornelis Leonardus Maria Van Pul, APL 2009-006117, 2010 WL 2605146 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. June 29, 2010)

They reverse the rejection of claim 8 under § 101 but affirm the rejection of claim 9 under § 101.

Ex Parte Gardner G. Courson, Vincent J. Miraglia, Blane A. Erwin, & Patrick T. Odonnell, APL 2009-001491, 2010 WL 3803608 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 27, 2010)

– Claims 1-4 were reversred and allowed, and also claims 5-12 were reversed and thus allowed under 101.

1. A tool for developing litigation discovery materials, the tool comprising:an entry field available on a plurality of views not directly related to discovery to request collection of discovery requests;a menu for gathering discovery related information in response to a request using said entry field;storage of discovery related information gathered from said menu;form discovery materials; anda discovery production mechanism to combine stored discovery related information and form discovery materials

to produce discovery items for use in the litigation.

Ex Parte Christopher M. Tobin, Philip Michael Abram, Marc Beckwitt, Gregory D. Gudorf, Kazuaki Iso, Brian Raymond, & Brian M. Siegel, APL 2009-001987, 2010 WL 3728711 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 22, 2010)

Claims 23-28 rejections were affirmed.

23. An apparatus for displaying supplemental information particular to a user regarding displayed web pages for the user, the apparatus comprising:a link assessment module, for identifying a particular product displayed in a first web page using a device that displays the first web page to the user and determining, with the device, whether an entry corresponding to the particular product displayed on the first web page is contained in a database on the device, wherein the database comprises supplemental information particular to a user and correlates the supplemental information to each of a plurality of products, and wherein the database is separate from the first web page and the first web page is ordinarily devoid of the supplemental information; anda supplemental information display module, in communication with the link assessment module, for displaying supplemental information correlated to the particular product along with and separate from the first web page if it is determined that the database contains an entry for the particular product.

Ex Parte Udo Klein, 2009-006727, 2010 WL 5276908 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 23, 2010)

Claim 1-16 were rejected on a new ground of rejection under 101.

1. A method for name searching within an employee records database comprising:receiving a full name as a text string;searching an employee records database for an exact match of the full name;forming a first selection group of names from the employee records database using an exact searching algorithm which determines an extent to which portions of a first size of the names of the employee records database match portions of the first size of the text string,forming a second selection group of names from the first selection group using a fuzzy searching algorithm which determines an extent to which portions of a second size of the names of the first selection group match portions of the second size of the text string, wherein the second size is smaller than the first size;displaying the second selection group as a ranked list of names; andallowing a selection of a name from the displayed ranked list of names.

Ex Parte Todd Rothermel, 2009-006181, 2010 WL 4789632 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 23, 2010) -

Claims 14-18 are rejected on a new ground of rejection under 101.

14. A computer-readable medium, comprising:a first code segment for providing a graphical user interface to a database storing a plurality of files, including engineering documents and drawings, with a plurality of different file formats, each of said plurality of files being stored as a series of components;a second code segment for accessing said engineering documents and drawings;a third code segment for managing an engineering document;a fourth code segment for managing a discussion;

a fifth code segment for managing a form;

a sixth code segment for managing time; anda seventh code segment means for viewing geospatially, according to geospatial attributes, engineering textual data including at least one of a business, a project, a task, a document, and/or a person.

Ex Parte Chip Maxson & Shawn Fitzpatrick, APL 2009-006314, 2010 WL 3297770 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 13, 2010)

– claims 1-9 were reversed and thus allowed under 101

1. A reseller program utilizing a computer network for allowing a plurality of Customers to register one or more domain names via a registrar web site, comprising:A) means for accepting a plurality of Resellers into a reseller program, wherein each Reseller has at least one reseller web site;B) means for creating a registrar web site for registering domain names with an appropriate Registry web site;C) means for allowing a plurality of reseller web sites to register one or more domain names for one or more customers via the registrar web site; andD) means for collecting a fee from each Reseller web site that registers a domain name for a Customer via the registrar web site.

Ex Parte Michael Youngil Ha, Chris Helzer, Douglas A. Hyslop, & Salman Yusuf, 2009-008031, 2010 WL 5132680 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 14, 2010)

Method claims 1, 3, and 5-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to patent ineligible subject matter

1. A method for frequency planning in a wireless cell network, the method comprising the acts of:assigning a first frequency channel to a first cell; andassigning a second frequency channel to a second cell, wherein the second frequency channel is offset from the first frequency channel by one-half of the first frequency channel;wherein the offset is 12.5 kHz and the first and second cells are located geographically adjacent to each other.

Ex Parte Michel Buri, APL 2009-008463, 2010 WL 2605156 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. June 29, 2010) –

claims 3, 8, and 9 were affirmed as rejected under 101:

3. An operating center for managing a group of individual distributed databases comprising:a first interface for communicating with a subscriber management system;a second interface for communicating with the data bases;a conversion unit for converting between physical address and logical address of the data bases;a main data base including an image of each of the databases;wherein the operating center is configured to perform the steps ofreceiving a conditional updating command from the subscriber management system via the first interface, the updating command including a condition;determining which databases satisfy the conditional updating command by means of the images of said databases; andtransmitting the conditional updating command to the databases that satisfy the condition according to the protocol supported by them, whereby the databases are updated.

Ex Parte Christopher Martin, 2009-004223, 2010 WL 4670597 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 15, 2010) –

Claim 29 is rejected on new grounds under 101.

Claim 29 begins:

A memory storing program instructions for causing a data processor to

Ex Parte Gerhard Hilkemeyer, Mickey Iqbal, Robert Laurence Johanns, Vernon Lenzini, Robin Mccubbin, & Patrick Francis Trees, 2009-013832, 2010 WL 4875648 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 23, 2010) –

Claims 10 and 11 were affirmed as rejected under 101.

10. A computer program product to estimate the cost of distributing software updates, said program product comprising:first program instructions to estimate a cost associated with distributing said software updates to a remote distribution site, and then distributing said updates from said remote distribution site to said customer based on a type of customer tool used to download said updates from said remote distribution site;second program instructions to receive a selection from an operator whether to push or pull subsequent updates to a customer from said remote site, and determine a cost for distributing said subsequent updates based on said selection; andthird program instructions to allow said operator to change one or more customer requirements, identify rules affected by said change, and recompute the cost of said ESD associated with the identified rule affected by said change

Ex Parte Kentaro Toyama & Ron Logan, 2009-006527, 2010 WL 4719117 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 18, 2010)

rejection of claims 26-30 under § 101.

Ex Parte John Phenix, APL 2009-002724, 2010 WL 2852267 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 19, 2010) –

Claims 1, 3-5, 7-9 were reversed and thus not rejected under 101.

1. A computer implemented method for comparing a first object and a second object in an object-oriented operating system comprising the steps of:(a) determining whether the first object is equal to the second object; and if said objects are not equal:(b) obtaining one or more methods from said first object and said second object;(c) determining whether the one or more methods from said first object are equal to the one or more methods from said second object; and(d) recursively performing steps (b) and (c) until all of the methods for the first object and the second object have been obtained;(e) generating a document comprising a listing of differences between the methods;(f) transforming the document into a humanreadable form; and(g) displaying the human-readable form to a user.

Ex Parte Mark Huth, Philip G. Rourke, & Craig M. Gates, 2009-010643, 2011 WL 121753 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 12, 2011)

claims 29-31 were reversed as not directed to patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and thus allowable subject matter.

Ex Parte Mark D. Lillibridge & Kave Eshghi, 2009-006962, 2011 WL 109091 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 10, 2011)

– claim 26 was affirmed as non-statutory.

26 begins:

a tangible computer-readable medium having a computer

program stored thereon…

Ex Parte Gary R. Bradski, 2009-006219, 2010 WL 5146397 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 15, 2010) –

claims 1-30 are affirmed as rejected under 101. 1. A method comprising:

developing a supervised classifier;determining a non-binary affinity measure between two data points using said supervised classifier; andusing said non-binary affinity measure to enable a computer to provide a visualization of the relationship between data points.

Ex Parte Satoshi Tanaka, Yasutaka Maeda, & Shinichi Takaku, 2009-005688, 2010 WL 4860333 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 24, 2010)

Claims 1-6 and 8-14 are affirmed as rejected as non-statuory.

1. A computer program product comprising program instructions recorded on a computer readable medium, wherein upon execution on a computer, said program instructions decidewhether to make a loan to an applicant, said program instructions comprising:[1] first program instructions to determine credit risk of said applicant;[2] second program instructions to compute a default probability of said applicant over time based on said credit risk;[3] third program instructions for computing a sum of expected profit from said loan, said sum of expected profit being equal to interest of said loan minus costs of said loan and minus a loss amount, said loss amount based in part on said default probability;[4] fourth program instructions for determining whether said sum of expected profit is at least a minimum profit value; andresponsive to said fourth program instructions for determining whether said sum of expected profit is at least a minimum profit value, [5] fifth program instructions for making a record that said loan shall be made to said applicant.

Ex Parte Todd Griffith & Robert Ross, APL 2009-006664, 2010 WL 3719119 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 21, 2010)

– Claims 39, 40, 42-51, and 53-60 are reversed and thus allowed as statutory.

39. A knowledge system for solving a problem identified by a user, the knowledge system comprising:a display device;an interactive development environment (“IDE”) comprising a graphical user interface (“GUI”) presented on the display device for enabling a user to enter and modify a collection of knowledge data comprising a plurality of knowledge data elements defining strategy for solving the identified problem, wherein the IDE causes each of the knowledge data elements to be represented on the display device by an object having at least one visual characteristic indicative of a type of the represented knowledge data element and further causes a relationship between related knowledge data elements to be graphically represented on the display device by a link between the objects representing the related knowledge data elements;a knowledge engine for converting the collection of

knowledge data to an internal format;a database for storing the collection of knowledge data; andmeans for processing the converted collection of knowledge data to solution and providing the solution to a user.

Ex Parte Gopal B. Avinash, 2009-005218, 2010 WL 5146394 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 15, 2010) –

claims 28 and 29 is reversed and the subject matter is statutory. Claims:

recite a computer memory device

Ex Parte Sviatoslav Karavansky, 2009-011332, 2010 WL 4315313 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 29, 2010)

– Claims 25-48 were reversed and thus allowed as statutory.

25. Method of compiling Dictionaries for inputting into the memories of electronic speech-recognition devices, method that is characterized by the following features:by assuming the name Linguographic, in order to be distinguished from the traditional lexicographic method of compiling dictionaries;by using for the compiling of said Dictionaries five linguographic characteristics of signals' classifications that are applied to the vocabulary of the American English language (or to the vocabulary of any language);by using the sequence of sounds in the Sound Alphabet for defining the sequence of first, second, subsequent and final linguographic characteristics of signals' classification in said Dictionaries;and by applying to each signal in said Dictionaries the encoded grammatical information to be decoded in the special Decoding Chapter.

Ex Parte Vincent Formale, Markus Koestler, Jamie Randolph, Geetika Shinde, Andree Taylor, Gerald Tieskoetter, & Lagray Wells, 2009-007225, 2010 WL 5387506 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 22, 2010) –

Claims 2, 3 and 6-10 were reversed as statutory.

Ex Parte Jill Macdonald Boyce, APL 2009-004653, 2010 WL 3593829 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 13, 2010)

claim 18 and 19-20 recites patent-eligible subject matter and the rejction is reversed.

Ex Parte Karl-Heinz Baumann, Lutz Quarg, & Alfred Schnabel, 2010-001055, 2010 WL 5132686 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 14, 2010)

claims 1-8 are affirmed as rejected under 101.

1. A method for restraining occupants of a vehicle in the event of an impact against an obstacle by dissipating kinetic energy of a vehicle occupant, comprising the steps of:sensing a possible vehicle impact;applying a force that acts in a direction of the impact to the vehicle occupant before first contact between the vehicle and the obstacle; andsetting the force over an entire braking distance before first contact between the vehicle and the obstacle so that a constant accelerations acts on the vehicle occupant to dissipate kinetic energy uniformly.

Ex Parte Changwoo Jung, Seongsoo Yim, & Jaekeun Lee, APL 2009-008915, 2010 WL 3658001 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 17, 2010)

Claims 1 and 2 are reversed and thus allowable under 101.

1. Method for purchasing and authenticating an electronic ticket, comprising the steps of:a) receiving a ticket request from a user system and generating an electronic ticket image data including a ticket identifier in response to the request;b) encrypting the generated electronic ticket image data and sending them to the user system;c) forwarding the encrypted electronic ticket image data from the user system to an associated user wireless communication terminal;d) decrypting the encrypted electronic ticket image data and displaying them on a screen of the terminal; ande) checking the validity of the ticket by reading the electronic ticket image data displayed on the screen of the terminal.

Ex Parte Murali Krishna Punaganti Venkata & Franklin Reynolds, APL 2009-007302, 2010 WL 3934573 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 6, 2010)

Claims 8-14 were affirmed as rejected under 101.

8. A service discovery system, comprising:a first service discovery agent coupled to receive service discovery queries in a user format and coupled to transform the user formatted service discovery queries into a plurality of formats each dependent upon a plurality of respective service discovery protocols, wherein the plurality of service discovery protocols include a local service discovery protocol operating via a local network and a remote service discovery protocol operating via an Internet host; anda second service discovery agent coupled to receive service discovery queries from the first service discovery agent and in response, to provide service discovery responses to the first service discovery agent, wherein the second service discovery agent is coupled to access services discovered by the first service discovery agent.

Ex Parte Bruce S. Harrison, Xiaohui He, & Martin R. Hannes, 2009-007083, 2010 WL 4138398 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 19, 2010)

Claims 31-36 are affirmed as rejected under 101.

Ex Parte Christopher Michael Abernathy, Kurt Alan Feiste, David Scott Ray, David Shippy, & Albert James Van Norstrand Jr., 2009-008085, 2011 WL 341355 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 31, 2011) –

Rejections on claims 19 and 20 under 101 were sustained. Claim 19 is representative:

19. A computer program product comprising:a computer usable medium having computer usable program code for a distributed flush mechanism, the computer program product comprising:computer usable program code for receiving an instruction in a first execution unit in a plurality of execution units;computer usable program code for determining, before completing execution of the instruction, if the instruction causes an instruction flush;computer usable program code for issuing a flush vector from the first execution unit to each other execution unit in the plurality of execution units in response to a determination that the instruction causes the instruction flush; andcomputer usable program code for flushing younger instructions based on the flush vector.

Ex Parte Victor Chan, Mark W. Hubbard, Jacob Vandergoot, & Tony C. Woo, APL 2009-002112, 2010 WL 3316934 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 20, 2010)

– Claims 1-11 are reversed as statutorily A-OK. Claim 1 is representative:

1. A component based data processing system comprising:a plurality of content repositories, each of the content repositories conforming to a uniform data structure, but having different values for fields of the data structure;a business context service;a runtime environment configured for coupling to the business context service;a component based application supported by the runtime environment, the component based application comprising at least one component comprising business logic and data access logic; and,repository mapping logic coupled to the component based application and business context service, the repository mapping logic comprising program code enabled to map at least one of the content repositories to the data access logic based upon a context for a transaction received from the business context service.

Ex Parte Fabio Giannetti, 2009-007347, 2010 WL 4913952 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 29, 2010) -

Claims 12-15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.

Ex Parte Vijay Rangarajan, Dalit Sagi, & William N. Eatherton, APL 2009-006443, 2010 WL 3738306 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 23, 2010)

Claims 1-10 are reversed as statutory subject matter under 101.

1. A computer-readable medium tangibly encoded thereon a data structure, the data structure comprising:a first search node;a first child array including a first internal node and a second search node; anda first leaf array including a plurality of first leaf array entries;wherein the first search node includes a pointer to the first child array;wherein the first internal node includes a pointer to the first leaf array; andwherein the second search node includes a pointer to one of the plurality of first leaf array entries.

Ex Parte Bill J. Bonstetter & Susan J. Fronk, 2009-009600, 2011 WL 285168 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 25, 2011)

Claims 26-30 are affirmed as rejected under 101.

26. A method for identifying competencies (soft skills) required for superior performance for a given job comprising:[1] generating a surveybased on inputfrom people familiar with the given job;[2] giving the survey tothe high performing incumbents in the given job andthe people familiar with the given job for response;[3] compiling responses to the survey; and[4] generating a reportthat characterizes required competencies (soft skills)for the given jobbased on the responses to the survey.

Ex Parte Rod A. Cherkas, Devin W. Breise, Jeffrey H. Brown, & Elizabeth S. Cabrera, 2009-011287, 2010 WL 4219765 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 25, 2010)

Claims 1-20 were affirmed as rejected under 101.

1. A computer implemented method of determining the consequences of an investment transaction to a potential total future tax liability of a user, the method comprising:[1] storing for the user a tax profilecontaining tax return data for at least one tax year of the user,wherein the tax profile combines and stores actual and forecasted tax data particularized to the user,wherein the tax profile associated with the user is stored in accessible form in a tax profile database;[2] accessing the tax profile of the userto obtain tax return informationrelevant to determining the user's total tax liability in a current tax year;[3] providing the userwith the potential total future tax liability of the user based on a proposed brokerage transaction,wherein the potential total future tax liability of the user is computed usingthe actual and forecasted tax data andthe tax return information of the user from the tax profile.

Ex Parte Victor S. Chan, Lev Mirlas, & Danny Yiu, 2009-014824, 2010 WL 5462145 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 29, 2010)

– Claims 1-7 and 22 were reversed as statutorily acceptable under 101.

1. For a client/server system having at least a client including a graphical user interface to display a content of virtual hosted stores to a user, the virtual stores being stored in databases managed by a database management system in a resource manager, the graphical user interface being operatively connected to an application server having a business logic module to select the content to be displayed, a method of managing the content of the hosted virtual stores comprising the steps of:creating a profile store which servers as a template and upon which the hosted stores are formatted;designating one or more e-marketing spot in the hosted stores;setting up a marketing campaign for the hosted stores; andcreating one or more campaign initiatives in the profile store for the content to be displayed in the hosted stores.

Ex Parte Min-Cheol Hong, APL 2010-005214, 2010 WL 3719143 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 21, 2010)

– Rejection of claims 27-42 under 101 were sustained. Claim 27 is illustrative:

27. A method of filtering an image, comprising:determining a filter strength based on whether a block including a pixel to be filtered is intra-coded; andfiltering the pixel to be filtered using a filtering methodology that adjusts a degree of filtering based on the determined filter strength and a difference value, the difference value being based on the pixel to be filtered and a neighboring pixel.

Ex Parte Harold A. Ludtke, Steven G. Goldstein, David G. Longendyke, & Philip M. Abram, APL 2009-

Examiner erred in rejecting claim 64 under § 101.

001989, 2010 WL 3285423 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 18, 2010) Ex Parte Brian Lora, Frank Brick, Steven Horan, Randy Whitehead, Steve Siegel, & Dan Lewis, APL 2009-005752, 2010 WL 3073061 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 5, 2010)

claims 50-60 rejections were affirmed.

Ex Parte David Bonnell & Mark Sterin, APL 2009-006442, 2010 WL 3611755 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 14, 2010)

- Claim 37 has a new ground of rejection under 101.

Claim 37:

[a] storage medium which stores program instructions … executable by a programmable control device to implement a method…

Ex Parte Daniel Prohaska & Thomas Prohaska, 2009-001098, 2010 WL 4264557 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 28, 2010)

claims 1-3, 5, 6, 11-21, 24-33, 36-60, 63-67 are rejected on new grounds.

1. A method of conducting transactions, comprising:a first entity providing a first type of service to a second entity; the first entity referring the second entity to a third entity for performing a first benefit for the second entity, the first entity not accepting fees for referring the second entity to the third entity and further not performing the first benefit for the second entity; the third entity performing the first benefit for the second entity, the third entity accepting fees from the second entity for providing the first benefit; and the third entity compensating the first entity for the first type of service the first entity provides to the second entity from fees the third entity charges the second entity for providing the first benefit.

Ex Parte Matthew D. Walker, Adrian R. Thurlow, & Stephen M. Webster, APL 2009-011213, 2010 WL 2638013 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. June 30, 2010)

Claims 10, 12, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for nonstatutory subject matter.

Recite language “computer readable medium encoded with computer executable instructions.”

Ex Parte David Brenner, David Cranfill, & Michael Caine, APL 2009-004281, 2010 WL 2963735 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. July 26, 2010)

claim 1-22 non-statutory matter affirmed.

1. An audio file stored in a computer readable medium, the audio file including definitions for one or more instruments,wherein the one or more instrument definitions are each exclusively associated with a corresponding one of one or more light groupings, where each light grouping includes one or more light sources.

Ex Parte Diane C. Thornton, Michael S. Hess, & Rickey Howard Johnson, 2009-005502, 2011 WL 96240 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 7,

The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 19-27 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is affirmed and the Examiner's decisions rejecting claims 1-9

1. A drawing conversion management and assignment system, comprising:receiving logic of a computer system operable to receive notification of completion of a land base drawing file that is associated with a plat corresponding to a parcel of land represented by the land base drawing file;

2011) under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is reversed.

a database coupled to the receiving logic, operable to create a drawing conversion job record associated with the completed land base drawing file, the drawing conversion job record indicating that the plat corresponding to the completed land base drawing file is tasked to be converted into a new drawing format;assignment logic of the computer system coupled to the database and operable to assign the drawing conversion job record to a draftsman and to instruct the database to record the assignment, the drawing conversion job involving creation of a new drawing file based on at least information depicted in the land base drawing file and a prior plat of the parcel of land represented by the land base drawing file; andcompletion logic of the computer system coupled to the database and operable to receive a request to close the drawing conversion job record from the draftsman, and to instruct the database to mark the drawing conversion job record as closed to indicate that the plat has been redrawn in the new drawing format.

Ex Parte Craig L. Reding & Christopher Helbling, 2009-007305, 2011 WL 341353 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Feb. 1, 2011)

Claim 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as a new ground, being drawn to non-statutory subject matter.

Ex Parte Andreas Arning, Frank Leymann, Dieter Roller, & Roland Seiffert, APL 2009-013969, 2010 WL 3803857 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Sept. 27, 2010)

Rejection of Claims 10 to 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is affirmed.

Ex Parte Pramod Gopinath, Darpan Dinker, Mahesh Kannan, & Suveen R. Nadipalli, 2009-004710, 2010 WL 4780586 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 22, 2010)

rejection of claim 29-32 were affirmed.

30. A tangible, computer accessible medium storing program instructions computer executable to implement a distributed data system client configured to:subdivide a data object stored by a distributed data system into a plurality of sub-elements;encode information identifying one of the plurality of sub-elements of the data object and a new value of the one of the plurality of sub-elements in a message requesting an update to the data object, wherein the message does not include a new value of the entire data object;send the message requesting the update to the data object to the distributed data system.

Ex Parte Cullen E. Bash, Chandrakant D. Patel, Ratnesh K. Sharma, & Abdlmonem Beitelmal, 2009-007202, 2010 WL 5199590 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 20, 2010)-

claims 26 and 27 are reversed and not rejected under 101.

Claim 26: [a] tangible computer readable storage medium on which is embedded one or more computer programs…comprising a set of instructions….

Ex Parte Youji Kohda, Soichi Nishiyama, Koichi

Rejection of claims 1, 6-10, and 23-26 was

1. An online sales promotion method used in a system to purchase a product over a network, said method comprising:

Murakami, & Takaya Fujita, 2009-006262, 2010 WL 4780565 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 22, 2010)

overcome. associating cart identification information with a first user;receiving, from the first user, designation information of a third party product provider which the first user permits to view the cart identification information and to view product information which the first user associates with the cart identification information, and which provides a product related to the viewed product information as well as additional information related to the viewed product information, said third party product provider not having permission to view the cart identification and product information before receipt of the designation information;associating and storing the designation information with the cart identification information;receiving product information on said product from the first user;associating said product information with the cart identification information;notifying said third party product provider associated with said cart identification information of said cart identification information and product information in accordance with a receipt of designation information of said third party product provider or a receipt of said product information;receiving additional information regarding the product identified by said product information, and the cart identification information, from said third party product provider;determining whether the received additional information is from the third party product provider which the first user permits to view the cart identification information and to view the product information associated with the cart identification information;

associating said received additional information with said cart identification information according to the determination result; andnotifying said first user of said received product information and additional information.

Ex Parte Eric Lawrence Barsness & John Matthew Santosuosso, 2009-007719, 2011 WL 345446 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Feb. 2, 2011)

Claim 13 and 16-20 was reversed as statutory under 101.

Ex Parte Leroy R. Valley, 2010-001361, 2011 WL 345442 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Jan. 31, 2011) –

Rejected claims 1-7 were sustained as rejected under 101. Claim 1 is representative:

1. A method for managing health services, comprising:receiving a patient identifier that identifies a patient;receiving a caregiver identifier that identifies an individual performing a health service;receiving a service identifier that identifies the health service performed for the patient;associating the patient identifier with the caregiver identifier and the service identifier; andstoring the patient identifier, the caregiver identifier, and the service identifier in a data processing system.

Ex Parte Ulrich A. Muller, Claims 1, 4-9, 20, and 1. A method of option creation for an asset that has a value

Richard B. Olsen, & Jonathan Robert Buchanan, 2010-004360, 2010 WL 4961689 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Dec. 3, 2010)

21 were reversed as now statutorily acceptable.

that varies over time, comprising the steps of:(a) viewing on a computer screen connected to a computer a graphical display that shows the values of the asset over time;(b) drawing a zone on the graphical display, wherein said zone is located in an area of the display that corresponds to asset values in a future time period and wherein the asset values and time period encompassed by said zone represent a proposed option on the asset;(c) receiving a price quote for the proposed option computed using the asset values and time period encompassed by the zone; and(d) specifying a stake for said option.

Ex Parte Rand J. Monteleone, Judith Shaffer, & Mark Penny, APL 2009-004989, 2010 WL 3448888 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 30, 2010)

claims 14-19 were reversed as statutorily allowed.

Ex Parte David Bonnell & Mark Sterin, 2009-006442, 2010 WL 4546680 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Nov. 11, 2010)

affirmed that claim 37 recites non-statutory subject matter under § 101.

Ex Parte Christoph T. Corvin, APL 2009-009415, 2010 WL 3214564 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 12, 2010)

56-60 were rejected on a new ground under 101.

claim 56 recites “[a] program” which comprises “a machine readable medium” and “machine readable code disposed on the medium.”

Ex Parte Vincent Dureau, APL 2009-007211, 2010 WL 3389299 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Aug. 23, 2010) -

the non-statutory subject matter rejection of claims 26 to 32 is reversed.

“computer readable storage medium,”

Ex Parte Harald Schiller, 2009-010960, 2011 WL 365599 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Feb. 2, 2011)

claim 19 rejection was affirmed as unstatutory under 101.

“data carrier”

Ex Parte Yuliy Baryshnikov, 2009-009672, 2011 WL 396453 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Feb. 3, 2011)

Entered a new rejection ground for claims 1-9 and 18.

1. A method for determining relative positions of nodes of a network, comprising:receiving a temporal sequence of measurements of a selected local environmental condition from each of a plurality [sic, of] sensor nodes;determining an amount of correlation between the measurements of the selected local environmental condition received from two or more of the sensor nodes; andestimating distances between the two or more of the sensor nodes based on the determined amount of correlation.

Ex Parte Clifford R. Jack & Peter C. Obrien, 2009-015192, 2011 WL 486179 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Feb. 7, 2011)

Claims 1-34 rejections reversed. Quoted RCT v. Microsoft

1. A method of classifying tissue in a magnetic resonance image, the method comprising:(a) acquiring a magnetic resonance image of a region of interest;(b) constructing a pixel intensity histogram of the magnetic resonance image; and(c) applying a statistical regression analysis to the histogram to determine a pixel intensity threshold value for segmenting the histogram into at least two regions, wherein at least one of the regions is representative of a tissue of interest.

Ex Parte Charles P. De Saint-Aignan & Fernando Salazar, 2009-008408, 2011 WL 478685 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Feb. 8, 2011)

Rejection of claims 1-10, 12-19, and 21-27

1. A method for maintaining integrity of course data during offline utilization of a learning management system, the method comprising:determining when a student attempts to access a course object from a host server in an online access mode for offline utilization thereby creating an offline access mode for that student;implementing a set of procedures for monitoring the course object when the student attempts to access the course object from the host server; anddetermining if the course object is still in the offline access mode; andpreventing the student from accessing the course object from the host server while the course object is in the offline access mode.

Ex Parte Paul Blair, Rex Lieurance, & Diane Robertson, 2009-014964, 2011 WL 533573 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Feb. 14, 2011)

Claims 1-13, 15, and 18-28 rejections were reversed

1. A method for performing a money transfer transaction via a wireless communication device, said method comprising:[1] receiving an initial access request for a money transfer transaction from a user via a wireless communication device,wherein the wireless communication device is associated with at least one pre-paid payment source account;[2] receiving personal identification information from the user via the wireless communication device, wherein at least a portion of said personal identification information is automatically provided based on user profile information associated with the wireless communication device account;[3] verifying personal identification information based at least in part on the user profile information associated with the wireless communication device account;[4] receiving money transfer instructionsfrom the user via the wireless communication device,wherein the money transfer instructions include at least the amount of the money transfer transaction, the recipient of the money transfer transaction, and the destination of the money transfer transaction;[5] verifying the status of the at least one pre-paid payment source account associated with the wireless communication device and determining if the amount of the money transfer

transaction requested may be charged against the pre-paid payment source account associated with the wireless communication device account;[6] authorizing the money transfer transaction if the at least one pre-paid payment source account associated with the wireless communication device may be charged the requested amount or declining the money transfer transactionif the at least one pre-paid payment source account associated with the wireless communication device may not be charged the requested amount;

[7] charging the at least one pre-paid payment source account associated with the wireless communication device at least the amount of the money transfer transaction if the money transfer transaction is authorized; and [8] transmitting information concerning the money transfer transaction to a money transfer facilitator for completion of the money transfer transaction; and[9] making a cash payment available to the recipient at a retail location associated with the money transfer facilitatorin proximity to a location of the recipient.

Ex Parte Christoph Lessmoellmann, Orit Harel, Noam Tamarkin, Ami Heitner, & Ziv Holzman, 2009-014353, 2011 WL 514301 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Feb. 11, 2011)

Claims 1-20 rejections were affirmed

1. A method of implementing a value-added service (VAS) in a warehouse management system, comprising:[1] configuring the warehouse management system by defining the VAS prior to receiving sales orders,the VAS definition comprising instructions to execute the VAS and a VAS type indicator;[3] upon receiving a sales order,determining if the VAS is required for the sales order; and[3] if the VAS is required for the sales order,monitoring execution of the VAS for the sales order using a procedure determined to be appropriate based on the VAS type indicator for the VAS being executed.

Ex Parte Stephen J. Brown, 2009-012201, 2011 WL 478694 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Feb. 8, 2011)

Claims 1-8, 10-16, and 18 rejections were reversed

10. A method for providing customized health information to an individual, said method comprising the steps of:(A) generating a questionnaire comprising 14(i) one or more questions for determining an expression of risk for said individual,(ii) a first number of answer options to each of said questions and(iii) one or more follow-up actions, wherein said expression of risk concerns at least one of a physical condition of said individual, a mental condition of said individual, and a behavior of said individual;(B) associating each of said answer options with one of a second number of values representing a level of risk,wherein said second number is greater than said first number;(C) transferring said questionnaire from a server to an apparatus,

wherein said apparatus is(i) associated with said individual and(ii) remotely located from said server;(D) accessing a database in a storage medium, said database containing model information relating to(i) an aspect of care,(ii) said expression of risk and(iii) said level of risk;(E) generating a profile for said individual based on one or more of said aspects of care, responses to said questions,said expression of risk and said levels of risk associated with said individual; and(F) sending health related information to said individual based on said profile, wherein data relating to said physical condition of said individual comprises patient information from one or more medical claims received by said server from a medical claims paying organization associated with said individual.

Ex Parte Leon A. Pintsov & Andrei Obrea, 2010-002561, 2011 WL 533575 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Feb. 11, 2011)

Claims 1-7 and 9-24 rejections are affirmed

1. A method for providing a Mailer, Post or Recipient with detailed information regarding attributes of mail entities, said method comprising the steps of:(A) determining values of a plurality of attributes during preparation taken at two different points of time and during delivery taken at two different points of time of the mail entity;(B) determining unique identity information present on a mail entity;(C) detecting values of the plurality of attributes which are outside of expected ranges;(D) classifying the attributes which are outside of expected ranges; and(E) communicating the attributes which are outside of expected ranges to the mailer using the unique identity information as a reference to a mailer and a post to allow the mailer, the post and a recipient to distinguish between mailer processing defects of the mail entities and errors caused by faulty post equipment or faulty recipient process.