NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

IN RE: ANGADBIR SINGH SALWAN,

Appellant

______________________ 

2016-2079

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. 12/587,101.

______________________ 

Decided: March 13, 2017

______________________ 

 ANGADBIR SINGH SALWAN, Potomac, MD, pro se.

NATHAN K. KELLEY, Office of the Solicitor, United 

States Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, for 

appellee. Also represented by MAI-TRANG DUC DANG,

KAKOLI CAPRIHAN. 

______________________ 

Before PROST, Chief Judge, MAYER, and MOORE, Circuit 

Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

Angadbir Singh Salwan appeals from the Patent Trial 

and Appeal Board’s (“Board”) decision affirming the 

examiner’s rejection of all pending claims of U.S. Patent 
2 IN RE: SALWAN

Application No. 12/587,101 (“the ’101 application”). 

Because we hold the claims are directed to patentineligible subject matter, we affirm. 

BACKGROUND

 Dr. Salwan is the sole inventor of the ’101 application, 

which claims methods of transferring patient health 

information, including electronic medical records (“EMR”),

in a physician to patient network. The specification 

discloses that the network can be accessed by, inter alia, 

physicians, patients, healthcare product suppliers, and 

related government agencies. Users can access the network to schedule appointments, fill out forms, watch 

educational video clips, create electronic superbills, submit insurance claims, bill patients, communicate with 

doctors and patients, transfer patient health records, 

conference by video, advertise to patients, sell healthcare 

products, and rate healthcare providers. The parties

agree that claim 1 is representative:

1. A method for transferring patient health information among healthcare user groups or patients via a network, the method comprising:

providing at least one central data storage 

configured to receive and store patient 

health data from one or more private data 

storages of healthcare user groups, at 

least one central computer program embodied in at least one computer readable 

medium or embodied in at least one central server for processing and transferring 

patient health information stored in the 

one or more central data storages, and at 

least one device for providing user authorization to access patient data stored in the 

one or more central data storages, and 

configuring the central computer program 

or the central server for:
IN RE: SALWAN 3

communicating through at least 

one computer program, which includes EMR and billing software, 

embodied in a computer readable 

medium with at least one private 

data storage storing electronic 

medical record (EMR) information 

originated, entered and controlled 

by at least one or more first 

healthcare service providers affiliated with the one or more 

healthcare user groups, including 

at least accounts information confidential for the first healthcare 

user groups, the confidential information includes at least accounts information of one or more 

insurance companies, which is at 

least used by the billing software 

to calculate patient portion of the 

bill, and clinical data generated by 

one or more service providers;

receiving from the at least one private data storage the EMR information for storing, processing and 

transmission to at least one of the 

patients, or one or more second 

healthcare user groups, wherein 

the information confidential for 

the first healthcare user groups 

including at least the accounts information of one or more insurance companies is not received and 

stored at the central data storage;

storing the received EMR information generated by the one or 

more service providers including 
4 IN RE: SALWAN

at least one of health problems, 

medications, diagnosis, prescriptions, notes written by the service 

Providers, diagnostic test results 

or patient accounts data in the at 

least one central data storage;

selectively retrieving the stored 

EMR information, generating one 

or more healthcare reports including one or more of health problem 

list, medication list, diagnoses report, prescription, diagnostic test 

result report, patient billing report; and

transmitting one or more 

healthcare reports to at least the 

second authorized healthcare user 

groups or the patient for reviewing.

On January 7, 2015, the examiner issued a Final Rejection of all pending claims (claims 1, 7, 8, 10, 13, 18, 25, 

28, 29, 32–34, 41, and 43–71). The examiner rejected all 

pending claims under (1) 35 U.S.C. § 101 for lack of 

patentable subject matter; (2) 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, for lack of written description; and (3) 35 U.S.C. 

§ 103(a) for obviousness. The examiner also rejected

claims 51, 52, 69, and 70 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second 

paragraph, for indefiniteness. 

Dr. Salwan appealed to the Board. The Board adopted the examiner’s analysis and affirmed each of his rejections. Under § 101, the Board determined that claim 1 is

“directed to the abstract idea of billing and also to a 

fundamental economic practice of calculating a patient’s 

bill.” J.A. 11. It held that the recited method steps “fail 

to transform the nature of the claim as they are directed 

to generic computer structures for storing and transfer-
IN RE: SALWAN 5

ring information.” Id. Under § 112, first paragraph, the 

Board agreed with the examiner that the specification 

fails to provide support for claim 1’s limitations that 

(1) the confidential information “is not received and stored 

at the central data storage” and (2) the EMR information 

is “entered and controlled” by healthcare user groups. 

The Board agreed with the examiner that the claim 

limitation in claims 69 and 70, “computing the quality of 

services,” is not supported by the specification. The Board 

incorporated the examiner’s analysis for rejecting all 

pending claims for obviousness under § 103(a). Lastly, 

under § 112, second paragraph, the Board agreed with the 

examiner that (1) the limitation “the patient appointment 

request” in claims 51 and 52 is indefinite for lack of 

antecedent basis, and (2) the limitation “feedback” in 

claims 69 and 70 is indefinite because it fails define the 

scope of the claim with reasonable certainty.

Dr. Salwan appeals and we have jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A). Because we conclude that all 

pending claims are directed to patent-ineligible subject 

matter, we do not reach the merits of Dr. Salwan’s arguments as to the Board’s rejections under §§ 103 and 112.

DISCUSSION

We review the Board’s determination that claims are 

directed to patent-ineligible subject matter de novo. In re 

Ferguson, 558 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2009). Section 101 provides that anyone who “invents or discovers 

any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or 

composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof” may obtain a patent. 35 U.S.C. § 101. To 

determine whether claims are patent eligible under § 101, 

we apply the Supreme Court’s two-step test articulated in 

Alice Corp. Party v. CLS Bank International, 134 

S. Ct. 2347 (2014). First, we determine whether the 

claims are directed to a patent-ineligible concept: laws of 

nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas. Id. 
6 IN RE: SALWAN

at 2354–55. If so, we then proceed to the second step and 

“examine the elements of the claim to determine whether 

it contains an ‘inventive concept’ sufficient to ‘transform’ 

the claimed abstract idea into a patent-eligible application.” Id. at 2357 (quoting Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. 

Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 72–73, 79–80 (2012)). 

The Supreme Court has explained that “the mere recitation of a generic computer cannot transform a patentineligible abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.” 

Id. at 2358.

At Alice step one, we hold that the claims are directed 

to the abstract idea of billing insurance companies and 

organizing patient health information. Representative 

claim 1 recites storing, communicating, transferring, and 

reporting patient health information in a network. 

Among these steps, claim 1 recites using billing software 

to calculate a patient’s bill based on EMR and insurance 

information. It specifies that account information of 

insurance companies is not shared, whereas EMR information—which includes, inter alia, medications, diagnoses, and test results—is received, stored, and selectively 

retrieved to generate reports. This describes little more 

than the automation of a “method of organizing human 

activity” with respect to medical information. Alice, 134 

S. Ct. at 2356.

Dr. Salwan argues that the claims are not directed to 

an abstract idea because the calculation of a patient’s bill 

and the transfer of patient EMR are not theoretical concepts. He argues the claims recite practical applications 

that are employed in a multi-billion dollar medical billing 

industry. But while these concepts may be directed to 

practical concepts, they are fundamental economic and 

conventional business practices. Under the Supreme 

Court’s precedent in Alice, such concepts are often held to 

be abstract. See, e.g., id. at 2356 (holding the concept of 

intermediated settlement is an abstract idea directed to a

“fundamental economic practice long prevalent in our 
IN RE: SALWAN 7

system of commerce”) (citation omitted); Content Extraction and Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, Nat. 

Ass’n, 776 F.3d 1343, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (explaining 

claims directed to “the mere formation and manipulation 

of economic relations” and “the performance of certain 

financial transactions” have been held to involve abstract 

ideas). 

At Alice step two, we agree with the Board that the 

recited method steps “fail to transform the nature of the 

claim as they are directed to generic computer structures 

for storing and transferring information.” J.A. 11. Considering the claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, the claims merely implement longknown practices related to insurance billing and organizing patient health information on a generic computer. 

Dr. Salwan himself argues that the inventive aspect of 

the claims overcomes the exchange of patient health 

information “using fax machines, or sending paper documents by postal mail, which was inefficient, costly and 

time consuming.” Appellant’s Br. 37; see also 

’101 application at ¶¶ 110–113 (identifying as “main 

objectives of the present invention” the ability to enable 

electronic communication of tasks “currently done manually using paper, phone and fax machine”). Given that 

the claims are directed to well-known business practices, 

the claimed elements of a generic “network,” “computer 

program,” “central server,” “device,” and “server for processing and transferring” are simply not enough to transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention. 

See Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358. Dr. Salwan’s reference to 

features recited by the dependent claims—such as video 

conferencing, patient appointment scheduling, patient 

registration forms, health-related advertisements, and 

allowing physicians to create handwritten EMR—does not 

alter our conclusion. We have considered Dr. Salwan’s 

remaining arguments regarding patent eligibility and 

conclude they are without merit.
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CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Board’s decision is affirmed. 

AFFIRMED

COSTS

No costs.