Summary of PTAB Precedential and Informative Opinions on Eligibility (posted 09/18/24)

Findings: The claims are eligible because:

Step 2A – Not an abstract idea
- Normalizing an input file, generating a jitter set of audio files, generating spectrogram frames, obtaining predicted character probabilities from a trained neural network, and decodeing a transcription of the input audio using the predicted character probability outputs “are not steps that can practically be performed mentally. Nor do we see how the claimed invention recites organizing human activity.” P. 9-10
- The claims do not recite a mathematical concept because the mathematical algorithm or formula that is disclosed in the specification is not recited in the claims. P. 10.
- Even if the claims were considered to recite a mathematical concept, the claims are not directed to an abstract idea because the alleged judicial exception is integrated into a practical application, namely, “higher performance.”
Step 2B - Significantly more
- The examiner failed to provide factual support for his conclusion that the claims do not add significantly more to the alleged judicial exception.

Findings: the claims are eligible because:

The limitations . . . recite the fundamental economic practice of derivative trading because the limitations all recite the operations that would ordinarily take place in a derivatives trading enviornment.
Claim 1 adds a delay to the execution of a transaction to allow other market participants to quote at the “best price” and to remove communication or computer hardware advantages among in-crowd market participants. These limitations integrate the recited judicial exception of derivative trading into a practical application.

Dissent:

Administrative Judge Bui dissented, stating: “These timing features themselves are not technical in nature and do not provide any 'technical solution to a technical problem' as contemplated by the Federal Circuit in DDR and Amdocs.

Ex parte Kimizuka et al. 2018-001081

Findings (citations omitted): The claims are ineligible because:

Under the broadest reasonable interpretation of claim 7, the recited determinations can be practically performed in the mind.

Ex Parte Savescu et al. (PDF)

Findings: the claims are ineligible because:

Overall, limitations (1.a) through (3) encompass steps for creating a workflow that organizes how people perform project tasks. [Therefore], the recited subject matter belongs to the group of certain methods of organizing human activity.
[The] additional limitations [i.e., a server, and a step of creating one or more project detail pages on the server]–considered in the context of claim 1 as a whole–do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
A person . . . can create a project plan and description without a server. By creating the workflows on a server and adding proejct details to web pages, the recited server merely links the abstract idea to a computer environment. In this way, the server's involvement is merely a field of use, which does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
As a whole, claim 1 is directed to an abstractidea on a server used in its ordinary capacity performing well-understood, routine, and conventional activities. For all these reasons, claim 1's limitations, considered individual and in combination, do not provide an inventive concept.

Findings: The claims are eligible because:

Step 2A, Prong 1
- The independent claims recite three mathematical formulas. [. . .] as to this idetnified concpet only, we conclude that . . . the independent claims recite an abstract idea: a mathematical concept.
Step 2A, Prong 2
- [T]he additional claims elements reflect an improvement to a technology, and thus the independent claims integrate the recited mathematical concept into a practical application.
  - The mathematical calculations . . . are “a consequence of the arrangement of” the device's coils. This analysis results in an improved reconstructed image. [Therefore], the claimed invention uses the recited mathematical equations to improve the imaging system.