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Parties Involved:
Steve Morsa
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

IN RE: STEVE MORSA,

Appellant

______________________ 

2015-1107

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. 09/832,440.

______________________ 

Decided: October 19, 2015

______________________ 

STEVE MORSA, Thousand Oaks, CA, pro se. 

NATHAN K. KELLEY, Office of the Solicitor, United 

States Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, for 

appellee Michelle K. Lee. Also represented by THOMAS W.

KRAUSE, JOSEPH GERARD PICCOLO, COKE STEWART. 

______________________ 

Before PROST, Chief Judge, NEWMAN and O’MALLEY,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Chief Judge PROST. 

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge NEWMAN. 

PROST, Chief Judge. 

This case presents the second time that this court reviews whether a publication entitled Peter Martin Associates Press Release, dated September 27, 1999 (“PMA”),

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2 IN RE: MORSA

anticipates the claimed invention.1 In the original case, 

we remanded the claims to the United States Patent and 

Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board 

(“Board”) for the Board to consider Mr. Morsa’s arguments concerning the enablement of the PMA reference. 

In re Morsa, 713 F.3d 104, 112 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (“Morsa 

I”). On remand, the Board determined that the reference 

was enabling. Appellant’s Informal Br. App. 7. Mr. 

Morsa argues that the reference was not enabling. See 

generally Appellant’s Informal Br. We disagree with Mr. 

Morsa and therefore affirm. 

BACKGROUND

Morsa I provides detailed background information regarding this case, and thus we will only briefly set forth 

the relevant background information here. Morsa I, at 

106. In Morsa I, we affirmed the Board’s rejection of 

claims 181, 184, 188-203, 206, 210-25, 228, 232-47, 250, 

and 254-68 of utility patent application No. 60/211228, as

substantial evidence supported the Board’s ultimate legal 

conclusion that the claims were obvious in light of the 

prior art. Id. However, we vacated and remanded as to

the Board’s determination that claims 2712 and 272 were 

1 This case was submitted on the briefs.

2 Claim 271 is representative and reads: 

A benefit information match mechanism comprising: 

storing a plurality of benefit registrations on 

at least one physical memory device; receiving 

via at least one data transmission device a 

benefit request from a benefit desiring seeker;

resolving said benefit request against said 

benefit registrations to determine one or more 

matching said benefit registrations; 

 

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IN RE: MORSA 3

anticipated because the Board performed an incorrect 

enablement analysis. Id. 

On remand, the Board determined that the anticipating reference, PMA, was enabled. In reaching its conclusion the Board looked to Mr. Morsa’s specification to 

determine what a person of ordinary skill in this particular field of art would know. The Board found that the 

specification showed that only “ordinary” computer programming skills were needed to make and use the 

claimed invention. The Board then determined that the 

PMA disclosure combined with what a skilled computer 

artisan would know rendered the PMA reference enabling 

and therefore anticipatory of claims 271 and 272. 

DISCUSSION

We review the Board’s legal conclusions de novo and 

the Board’s factual decisions for substantial evidence. In 

re DBC, 545 F.3d 1373, 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2008). Whether a 

prior art reference is enabling is a question of law based 

on underlying factual findings. Impax Labs., Inc. v. 

Aventis Pharm., Inc., 545 F.3d 1312, 1315 (Fed. Cir. 

2008). Thus, this court reviews the Board’s ultimate 

conclusion that a reference is or is not enabling without 

deference. Id. 

Mr. Morsa contends that the Board did not conduct a 

proper enablement analysis regarding the PMA reference. 

His chief arguments are that the Board improperly erred 

by taking official notice in its enablement analysis of 

various facts and thus generating new grounds of rejecautomatically providing to at least one data 

receiving device benefit results for said benefit 

requesting seeker; 

wherein said match mechanism is operated at 

least in part via a computer compatible network.

 

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4 IN RE: MORSA

tion; that the PMA is not enabling because it would have 

required a person of ordinary skill in the art to conduct 

undue experimentation; and that the PMA lacks several 

elements required by the claims. We find none of these 

arguments persuasive. 

The Board properly determined that the PMA reference is enabling. Enablement of prior art requires that 

the reference teach a skilled artisan—at the time of 

filing—to make or carry out what it discloses in relation 

to the claimed invention without undue experimentation. 

In re Antor Media Corp., 689 F.3d 1282, 1289-90 (Fed. 

Cir. 2012). For a prior-art reference to be enabling, it 

need not enable the claim in its entirety, but instead the 

reference need only enable a single embodiment of the 

claim. Schering Corp. v. Geneva Pharm., 339 F.3d 1373, 

1381 (Fed. Cir. 2003). 

We start first with the knowledge that a relevant 

skilled artisan would have in this case. Here, the Board

properly held that the application’s specification made 

numerous admissions as to what one skilled in the art at 

the time of the invention would have known. For example, the Board found that the specification discussed that 

central processing units and memories were “well known 

to those skilled in the art,” that central processing units 

and memories were “used in conventional ways to process 

requests for benefit information in accordance with stored 

instructions,” that the system as described in the patent 

“can be implemented by any programmer of ordinary skill 

in the art using commercially available development tools

. . . ,” and that “search routines for accomplishing this 

purpose are well within the knowledge of those of ordinary skill in the art.” Appellee’s App. 38, 40. 

We turn next to the piece of prior art that the examiner and the Board found to be anticipatory, PMA. There 

are only four basic claim limitations found in claims 271 

and 272; each of these limitations can be directly mapped 

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IN RE: MORSA 5

onto the PMA reference. First, the claims require the 

storage of benefit information. Id. at 48-49. Likewise, the 

PMA reference describes the storage of “benefits and 

services that consumers receive from public and private 

agencies” along with the storage of “benefits services, 

health risks, or anything else an agency wishes to implement via its eligibility library.” Id. at 26-27. Second, the 

claims require that there be a request for benefits. Id. at 

48-49. This correlates with the PMA’s statement that 

“consumers use the web to screen themselves for benefits, 

services, health risks, or anything else an agency wishes 

to implement via its eligibility library.” Id. at 27. Third, 

the claims require that a computer network match the 

request with benefits. Id. at 48-49. This maps onto the 

PMA’s use of the internet. Fourth, and finally, the claims 

require that results be provided to the requester. As 

stated before, the PMA reference allows “consumers [to] 

use the Web to screen themselves for benefits, services, 

health risks, or anything else an agency wishes to implement via its eligibility library.” Id. at 27. Considering 

that each limitation is found in the PMA reference, we 

agree with the Board that the PMA discloses Mr. Morsa’s 

claims. Thus, considering that the PMA reference discloses each claim limitation, and that the application’s 

specification indicates that a person of ordinary skill in 

the art is capable of programming the invention, the 

Board’s conclusion that the PMA reference is enabling is 

correct. 

Mr. Morsa’s principal argument is that the statements made by the Board appearing before the enablement analysis show reversible error as they constitute 

undesignated new grounds of rejection. We disagree. 

These statements—such as the statement that databasesearching is old and well known and thus the focus on the 

present application is not on searching databases generally, but on the specific type of data used and the specific 

searches performed—were merely descriptive. The 

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statements were not part of the Board’s enablement 

analysis and were not necessary to the Board’s conclusions. Thus, these statements do not constitute a new 

ground of rejection and do not undermine the Board’s 

conclusions. 

Mr. Morsa additionally argues that the information 

provided by PMA is not sufficient to make the claimed 

invention and thus would require undue experimentation. 

We disagree. As discussed above, the specification made 

clear that a skilled computer artisan would readily know 

how to use conventional computer equipment and how to 

program it; thus, only ordinary experimentation would be 

needed to make the claimed program. 

Finally, we do not use portions of the patent specification as prior art, but instead affirm the Board’s use of one 

section in the specification solely as it relates to the 

knowledge of a person of ordinary skill in the art. There 

is a crucial difference between using the patent’s specification for filling in gaps in the prior art, and using it to 

determine the knowledge of a person of ordinary skill in 

the art. Here, the Board did only the latter. Mr. Morsa, 

amongst other things, admitted in the specification that 

the system as described in the patent “can be implemented by any programmer of ordinary skill . . . ,” thus allowing him to avoid having to teach the public this very 

concept. Therefore, by using Mr. Morsa’s admissions, the 

Board simply held him to the statements he made in 

attempting to procure the patent. 

For the reasons stated above, we affirm the judgment 

of the Board as it pertains to the PMA being enabling. 

We have reviewed Appellant’s remaining arguments and 

find them unpersuasive. 

AFFIRMED

COSTS

Each party shall bear their own costs. 

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United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

IN RE: STEVE MORSA,

Appellant

______________________ 

2015-1107

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. 09/832,440.

______________________ 

NEWMAN, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

I write to attempt to stabilize the law of “anticipation,” for the court confuses the laws of anticipation and 

obviousness, and the role of enablement as applied to 

prior art references. 

“Anticipation” in patent law means that the claimed 

subject matter is not new; that is, that it was already 

known. To “anticipate” in patent law requires that a 

single reference contains all of the elements and limitations of the claim at issue, explicitly or inherently. If the 

single reference is not enabled with respect to the subject 

matter under examination, “anticipation” cannot be 

found; it is not permissible to go outside the single reference in order to find “anticipation,” unlike the protocols by 

which references are combined to show “obviousness.”

These simple rules have provided the foundation for 

examination of patentability; they have been explored and 

refined and applied without challenge to their foundation. 

This distinction between sections 102 and 103 of the 

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Patent Act should not now be blurred. This court should 

not ratify the shortcut the PTO Board took here. From 

this and other errors and imprecision, I respectfully 

dissent.

The issue of anticipation was not waived

The Board’s statement that Mr. Morsa waived the issue of anticipation before the Board is not comprehensible, for Mr. Morsa’s appeal brief to the Board states:

Independent claims 271-272 and 181, 203, 225, 

and 247 are neither anticipated nor rendered obvious by the alleged PMA . . . .

Board Brief 12 (emphasis in original). In re Morsa, 713 

F.3d 104 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (Morsa I) included the issue of 

anticipation; that was the sole issue on remand, and now 

the subject of this appeal.

Several Morsa claims were allowed in the initial examination, and were not at issue in the prior appeal to 

this court. Some Morsa claims were rejected by the Board 

on the ground of obviousness, and in Morsa I this court 

affirmed those rejections. 

The two rejected claims

Claims 271 and 272 had been rejected by the Board on 

the ground of “anticipation” by a third person’s press 

release. The press release was short on detail, and in 

Morsa I this court remanded for a determination of 

whether the disclosure in the press release was enabled. 

On remand, the Board reaffirmed its rejection for anticipation, and Mr. Morsa again appeals.

The claims demonstrate the issue, for the press release does not mention all of the steps and limitations of

the claims:

271. A benefit information match mechanism 

comprising:

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IN RE: MORSA 3

storing a plurality of benefit registrations on 

at least one physical memory device;

receiving via at least one data transmission 

device a benefit request from a benefit desiring 

seeker; 

resolving said benefit request against said 

benefit registrations to determine one or more 

matching said benefit registrations;

automatically providing to at least one data 

receiving device benefit results for said benefit requesting seeker;

wherein said match mechanism is operated at 

least in part via a computer compatible network.

272. A method of generating a benefit result list 

in real or substantially real time in response to a 

benefit match request from a benefit seeker using 

a computer network, comprising:

maintaining at least one database stored in 

and/or on an article of manufacture including a 

plurality of benefit listings;

receiving a benefit match request transmitted 

from an article of manufacture from said seeker, 

said request including said seekers criteria;

identifying using a processing device those of 

said benefit listings having criteria which generate a match with said match request;

generating automatically a message to a receiving article of manufacture to inform said seeker via said computer network of those of said 

benefits which match said seekers criteria.

The Board recognized that some of the claim steps are not 

described in the press release. The Board solved this 

dilemma by taking what it called “Official Notice” of the 

missing subject matter. And my colleagues solve this 

dilemma by finding the missing subject matter in the 

Morsa specification by stating that since the specification 

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states that a person skilled in the art would know how to 

“implement” the claimed system, that person would have 

“knowledge” to fill the gaps in the prior art. However, we 

are directed to no disclosure in the prior art of all the 

claim elements and steps. “Anticipation” is not established in accordance with law.

“Official Notice” is not anticipation

The Board took “Official Notice” that the claim steps 

missing from the press release must have been performed. 

However, the law of patent “anticipation” is not so permissive. The law “requires the presence in a single prior 

art disclosure of all elements of a claimed invention 

arranged as in the claim.” SynQor, Inc. v. Artesyn Technologies, Inc., 709 F.3d 1365, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2013). This 

presence must be found as fact, and when missing elements are stated to be “necessarily present, or inherent, 

in the single anticipating reference,” Schering Corp. v. 

Geneva Pharm., 339 F.3d 1373, 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2003), “the 

mere fact that a certain thing may result from a given set 

of circumstances is not sufficient to establish inherency.” 

Scaltech Inc. v. Retec/Tetra, L.L.C., 178 F.3d 1378, 1384 

(Fed. Cir. 1999). 

The Board’s “Official Notice” of the existence of undisclosed steps and claim elements is not an acceptable 

substitute for examination and citations of prior art and 

reasoning, in the rigors and high stakes of innovation and 

patenting. The Board failed, for example, to show that 

the undisclosed features were inherently present in the 

database referred to in the cited press release. Instead, 

the Board took “Official Notice” of how “databases” function without showing that the database in the press 

release necessarily was the same as the database in the 

Morsa claims or even the same as “databases” generally. 

This is insufficient to establish either inherent description 

or inherent enablement of the explicitly claimed subject 

matter.

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The majority compounds the Board’s error by rewriting the claims to match the reference. Maj. Op. at 5. The 

press release does not say how the system operates, only 

the final result. The Board called it “Official Notice” of 

how databases work. Such an assumption is not prior art, 

and cannot be the basis of “anticipation.”

The applicant’s specification is not prior art

An inventor’s statement in the patent application that 

a particular step may be performed by procedures known 

to persons of skill in the field of computer programming 

does not place that step in the context in which the inventor used it into the prior art.

The panel majority fills the gaps in the press release 

by referring to Morsa’s statement that various steps of his 

invention may be conducted by procedures known to 

persons of skill in computer-implemented methods. The 

issue on remand was not whether Morsa enabled his

invention, indeed, that was not challenged by the PTO. 

However, Morsa’s enablement of his invention does not 

enable the prior art press release, or fill gaps needed to 

anticipate the Morsa system. “The standard for what 

constitutes proper enablement of a prior art reference for 

purposes of anticipation under section 102, however, 

differs from the enablement standard under section 112”

whereby the claimed invention must be enabled by the 

disclosure in the specification. Rasmusson v. SmithKline 

Beecham Corp., 413 F.3d 1318, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2005).

Enablement of the prior art must come from prior 

art

“[A] patent claim ‘cannot be anticipated by a prior art 

reference if the allegedly anticipatory disclosures cited as 

prior art are not enabled.’” Verizon Servs. Corp. v. Cox 

Fibernet Va., Inc., 602 F.3d 1325, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2010) 

(quoting Amgen Inc. v. Hoechst Marion Roussel, Inc., 314 

F.3d 1313, 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2003)).

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The question on the Morsa I remand was whether the 

subject matter of the press release is enabled by the 

description in the press release: “[The] reference must . . . 

enable one skilled in the art to make the anticipating 

subject matter.” PPG Indus., Inc. v. Guardian Indus. 

Corp., 75 F.3d 1558, 1566 (Fed. Cir. 1996). My colleagues 

use the information in the Morsa specification to enable 

the press release. That is improper. The gaps in the prior 

art cannot be filled by the invention at issue; it is improper to transfer Mr. Morsa’s teachings into the press release

in order to enable the press release. 

These flaws confound the laws of anticipation and obviousness and enablement, defying precedent, and adding 

to the complexities of patenting. The issues should be 

decided on the correct law. Thus I respectfully dissent.

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