REVERSED
1600 Biotechnology and Organic Chemistry
Ex Parte Cleuziat et al GRIMES 103(a) JAMES C. LYDON
1700 Chemical & Materials Engineering
Ex Parte Musch et al ROBERTSON 102(b) BAYER MATERIAL SCIENCE LLC
2100 Computer Architecture and Software
Ex Parte Long DANG 102(e) QUARLES & BRADY LLP
Ex Parte Simmen DANG 102(e)/103(a) GATES & COOPER LLP
Ex Parte Hurley STEPHENS 103(a) DOCKET CLERK
3600 Transportation, Construction, Electronic Commerce, Agriculture, National Security, and License & Review
Ex Parte Stabel et al KERINS 103(a) LERNER GREENBERG STEMER, LLP
3700 Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing, and Products & Designs
Ex Parte Francis McCOLLUM 102(b)/103(a) WHITHAM, CURTIS & CHRISTOFFERSON & COOK, P.C.
Ex Parte Zhang et al LEBOVITZ 103(a) FAEGRE & BENSON LLP
Ex Parte Schlosser SCHEINER 102(b)/103(a) JOHN W. CARPENTER
Ex Parte Miyamoto et al STAICOVICI 102(b)/103(a) SUGHRUE MION, PLLC
BILSKI AFFIRMED 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b)
3600 Transportation, Construction, Electronic Commerce, Agriculture, National Security, and License & Review
Ex Parte Myr LORIN 112(1)/112(2)/101 RATNER PRESTIA
Cf. Ex parte Langemyer, 89 USPQ2d 1988 (BPAI 2008) (informative):
Nominal recitations of structure in an otherwise ineligible method fail to make the method a statutory process. See Benson, 409 U.S. [63,] 71-72. As Comiskey recognized, “the mere use of the machine to collect data necessary for application of the mental process may not make the claim patentable subject matter.” Comiskey, 499 F.3d at [1365,] 1380 (citing In re Grams, 888 F.2d 835, 839-40 (Fed. Cir. 1989)). Incidental physical limitations, such as data gathering, field of use limitations, and post-solution activity are not enough to convert an abstract idea into a statutory process. In other words, nominal or token recitations of structure in a method claim do not convert an otherwise ineligible claim into an eligible one. To permit such a practice would exalt form over substance and permit claim drafters to file the sort of process claims not contemplated by the case law. Cf., Flook, 437 U.S. [584,] 593 (rejecting the respondent's assumption that “if a process application implements a principle in some specific fashion, it automatically falls within the patentable subject matter of § 101,” because allowing such a result “would make the determination of patentable subject matter depend simply on the draftsman's art and would ill serve the principles underlying the prohibition against patents for ‘ideas' or phenomena of nature.”). In this case, we decline to allow clever claim drafting to circumvent the principles underlying the Supreme Court's interpretation for “process.” The only recitation of structure is in the nominal recitation in the preamble citing a “method executed in a computer apparatus.” This recitation is so generic as to encompass any computing system, such that anyone who performed this method in practice would fall within the scope of these claims. Thus, the recitation of a computer apparatus in the preamble is not, in fact, a limitation at all to the scope of the claim, and the claim is directed, in essence, to the method performed by any means. As such, we fail to find that this recitation alone requires the claimed method to include a particular machine such that the method qualifies as a “process” under § 101. We will not allow such a nominal recitation in the preamble to convert an otherwise ineligible claim into an eligible one.
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
1600 Biotechnology and Organic Chemistry
Ex Parte Lewis et al SCHEINER 103(a)/obviousness-type double patenting OBLON, SPIVAK, MCCLELLAND, MAIER & NEUSTADT, L.L.P.
Ex Parte Zlokovic GRIMES 112(1)/112(2)/103(a) NIXON & VANDERHYE, PC
2400 Networking, Mulitplexing, Cable, and Security
Ex Parte Busi et al LUCAS 103(a) SUGHRUE MION, PLLC
