Source: http://patents.hdp.com/?cat=15
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 17:10:09+00:00

Document:
In In re Marco Guldenaar Holding B.V., [2017-2465](December 28, 2018), the Federal Circuit affirmed the decision of the PTAB affirming the rejection of claims 1–3, 5, 7–14, 16–18, and 23–30 of U.S. Patent Application No. 13/078,196 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for claiming patent-ineligible subject matter.
which a participant attempts to achieve a particular winning combination of subsets of the dice.
concluded that the claims were unpatentable for obviousness over U.S. Patent No. 4,247,114 over matters old and well known to dice games, applying the printed matter doctrine. The Board affirmed both rejections.
deck of playing cards was drawn to an abstract idea, to be “highly instructive.” In the present case, as in In re Smith, the claims were directed to a method of conducting a wagering game, but using dice instead of cards. with the probabilities based on dice rather than on cards.
The Federal Circuit agreed with Applicant/Appellant that the USPTO’s category of unpatentable subject matter “methods of organizing human activities” can be confusing and potentially misused, but where the decision further articulates a more refined characterization of the abstract idea (e.g., “rules for playing games”), there was no error in also observing that the claimed abstract idea is one type of method of organizing human activity.
The Federal Circuit said that abstract ideas, including a set of rules for a game, may be patent-eligible if the claims contain an inventive concept sufficient to transform the claimed abstract idea into a patent-eligible application. On appeal, Applicant/Appellant contended that the specifically-claimed dice that have markings on one, two, or three die faces are not conventional and their recitation in the claims amounts to “significantly more” than the abstract idea. The Federal Circuit said that the markings on Appellant’s dice constituted printed matter, as pointed out by the Board, and this court has generally found printed matter to fall outside the scope of §101.
player has won or lost a wager, similar to the markings on a typical die or a deck of cards. Accordingly, the recited claim limitations are directed to information. Additionally, the Federal Circuit observed that the printed indicia on each die are not functionally related to the substrate of the dice.
The Federal Circuit also rejected rejected applicant’s argument that the claimed method of playing a dice game cannot be an abstract idea because it recites a physical game with physical steps. The Federal Circuit said that the abstract idea exception does not turn solely on whether the claimed invention comprises physical versus mental steps.
claims did not recite an “inventive concept” sufficient to “transform” the claimed subject matter into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea.
In Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., v. Cepheid, [2017-1690] (October 9, 2018), the Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment of invalidity of claims of U.S. Patent No. 5,643,723 as directed to patent ineligible subject matter.
which, if present, indicate the presence of MTB (“the method claims”).
from the isolated DNA found patentineligible in Myriad” and thus are not patent-eligible. Primers necessarily contain the identical sequence of the nucleotide sequence directly opposite to the DNA strand to which they are designed to bind. The subject matter eligibility inquiry of primer claims hinges on comparing a claimed primer to its corresponding DNA segment on the chromosome—not the whole chromosome.
presence of MTB in a sample. In other words, the method claims assert that if an investigator detects a signature nucleotide from a sample, she knows the sample contains MTB. This relationship between the signature nucleotides and MTB is a phenomenon that exists in nature apart from any human action, meaning the method claims are directed to a natural phenomenon, which itself is ineligible for patenting.
In Data Engine Technologies LLC v. Google LLC, [2017-1135] (October 9, 2018), the Federal Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded, entry of judgment on the pleadings holding that the asserted claims of DET’s U.S. Patent Nos. 5,590,259; 5,784,545; 6,282,551; and 5,303,146 are ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
reciting methods for tracking changes to data in spreadsheets, were directed to the abstract idea of collecting, recognizing, and storing changed information.
Regarding the ’259, ’545, and ’551 patents, the Federal Circuit said that the claimed method does not recite the idea of navigating through spreadsheet pages using buttons or a generic method of labeling and organizing spreadsheets. Rather, the claims require a specific interface and implementation for navigating complex three-dimensional spreadsheets using techniques unique to computers.
statistical analyses of investment information, but provided additional coverage of the Reexamination claims.

References: Application No. 13
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