Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2010/07/27/2010-18424/interim-guidance-for-determining-subject-matter-eligibility-for-process-claims-in-view-of-bilski-v
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:: Interim Guidance for Determining Subject Matter Eligibility for Process Claims in View of Bilski v. Kappos
A Notice by the Patent and Trademark Office on 07/27/2010
43922-43928
Request for Comments Interim Guidance for Determining Subject Matter Eligibility for Process Claims in view of Bilski v. Kappos (Interim Bilski Guidance)
101 Method Eligibility Quick Reference Sheet
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2010-18424
The Interim Bilski Guidance is effective July 27, 2010. This guidance applies to all applications filed before, on or after the effective date of July 27, 2010. Comment Deadline Date: To be ensured of consideration, written comments must be received on or before September 27, 2010. No public hearing will be held. ADDRESSES:
Comments concerning this Interim Bilski Guidance should be sent by electronic mail message over the Internet addressed to Bilski_Guidance@uspto.gov or facsimile transmitted to (571) 273-0125. Comments may also be submitted by mail addressed to: Mail Stop Comments—Patents, Commissioner for Patents, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313-1450. Although comments may be submitted by facsimile or mail, the Office prefers to receive comments via the Internet. Start Printed Page 43923
The comments will be available for public inspection at the Office of the Commissioner for Patents, located in Madison East, Tenth Floor, 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, Virginia, and will be available via the USPTO Internet Web site, (address:
http://www.uspto.gov). Because comments will be available for public inspection, information that is not desired to be made public, such as an address or phone number, should not be included in the comments. Start Further Info
Caroline D. Dennison, Legal Advisor, Office of Patent Legal Administration, Office of the Associate Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy, by telephone at (571) 272-7729, or by mail addressed to: Mail Stop Comments—Patents, Commissioner for Patents, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313-1450, marked to the attention of Caroline D. Dennison. End Further Info
The USPTO has prepared interim guidance (Interim Bilski Guidance) for its personnel to use when determining subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101 in view of the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court (Supreme Court) in Bilski. It is intended to be used by Office personnel as a supplement to the previously issued Interim Examination Instructions for Evaluating Subject Matter Eligibility Under 35 U.S.C. 101 dated August 24, 2009 (Interim Instructions) and the memorandum to the Patent Examining Corps on the Supreme Court Decision in Bilski v. Kappos dated June 28, 2010. The Interim Bilski Guidance is based on the USPTO's current understanding of the law and is believed to be fully consistent with the decision in Bilski, the binding precedent of the Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit) and the Federal Circuit's predecessor courts. The USPTO has also posted the Interim Bilski Guidance on its Internet Web site (http://www.uspto.gov). Request for Comments The Office has received and considered the comments regarding the Interim Instructions submitted in response to the Request for Comments on Interim Examination Instructions for Evaluating Patent Subject Matter Eligibility, 74 FR 47780 (Sept. 11, 2009), 1347 Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 110 (Oct. 13, 2009). See also Additional Period for Comments on Interim Examination Instructions for Evaluating Patent Subject Matter Eligibility, 74 FR 52184 (Oct. 9, 2009), 1348 Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 42 (Nov. 3, 2009) (extending the comment period until November 9, 2009). Members of the public are invited to review the Interim Bilski Guidance (below) and provide comments. The Office is particularly interested in receiving comments in response to the following questions: 1. What are examples of claims that do not meet the machine-or-transformation test but nevertheless remain patent-eligible because they do not recite an abstract idea? 2. What are examples of claims that meet the machine-or-transformation test but nevertheless are not patent-eligible because they recite an abstract idea? 3. The decision in Bilski suggested that it might be possible to “defin[e] a narrower category or class of patent applications that claim to instruct how business should be conducted,” such that the category itself would be unpatentable as “an attempt to patent abstract ideas.” Bilski slip op. at 12. Do any such “categories” exist? If so, how does the category itself represent an “attempt to patent abstract ideas?” Interim Guidance for Determining Subject Matter Eligibility for Process Claims in view of Bilski v. Kappos (Interim Bilski Guidance)
I. Overview: This Interim Bilski Guidance is for determining patent-eligibility of process claims under 35 U.S.C. 101 in view of the opinion by the Supreme Court in Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. ___ (2010), which refined the abstract idea exception to subject matter that is eligible for patenting. A claim to an abstract idea is not a patent-eligible process. This Interim Bilski Guidance provides factors to consider in determining subject matter eligibility of method claims in view of the abstract idea exception. Although this guidance presents a change in existing examination practice, it is anticipated that subject matter eligibility determinations will not increase in complexity for the large majority of examiners, who do not routinely encounter claims that implicate the abstract idea exception. Under the principles of compact prosecution, each claim should be reviewed for compliance with every statutory requirement for patentability in the initial review of the application, even if one or more claims are found to be deficient with respect to the patent-eligibility requirement of 35 U.S.C. 101. Thus, Office personnel should state all non-cumulative reasons and bases for rejecting claims in the first Office action. Section III of this Interim Bilski Guidance provides guidance on the abstract idea exception to subject matter eligibility as set forth in Bilski, and section IV of this Interim Bilski Guidance provides guidance on factors relevant to reviewing method claims for subject matter eligibility in view of Bilski. To aid examiners in implementing this guidance, a summary sheet of factors which may be useful for determining subject matter eligibility of a method claim is provided at the end of this Interim Bilski Guidance.
Section V of this Interim Bilski Guidance discusses how to make the determination of eligibility. To summarize, in order for the examiner to make a proper prima facie case of ineligibility, the examiner will evaluate the claim as a whole and weigh the relevant factors set forth in Bilski and previous Supreme Court precedent and make a determination of compliance with the subject matter eligibility prong of § 101. The Office will then consider rebuttal arguments and evidence supporting subject matter eligibility. II. Summary: The Bilski Court underscored that the text of § 101 is expansive, specifying four independent categories of inventions eligible for protection, including processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter. See slip op. at 4 (“In choosing such expansive terms * * * modified by the comprehensive ‘any’, Congress plainly contemplated that the patent laws would be given wide scope.”) (quoting Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 308 (1980)). The Court also made clear that business methods are not “categorically outside of § 101's scope,” stating that “a business method is simply one kind of ‘method’ that is, at least in some circumstances, eligible for patenting under § 101.” Id. at 10-11. Examiners are reminded that § 101 is not the sole tool for determining patentability; where a claim encompasses an abstract idea, sections 102, 103, and 112 will provide additional tools for ensuring that the claim meets the conditions for patentability. As the Court made clear in Bilski:
The § 101 patent-eligibility inquiry is only a threshold test. Even if an invention qualifies as a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, in order to receive the Patent Act's protection the claimed invention must also satisfy “the conditions and requirements of this title.” § 101. Those requirements include that the invention be novel, see § 102, nonobvious, see § 103, and fully and particularly described, see § 112.
Id. at 5. Therefore, examiners should avoid focusing on issues of patent-eligibility Start Printed Page 43924under § 101 to the detriment of considering an application for compliance with the requirements of §§ 102, 103, and 112, and should avoid treating an application solely on the basis of patent-eligibility under § 101 except in the most extreme cases. III. The Abstract Idea Exception to Subject Matter Eligibility: There are limits on the scope of patent-eligibility. In particular, the Supreme Court has identified three specific exceptions to § 101's broad patent-eligibility principles: Laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas. See id.
The Office has been using the so-called “machine-or-transformation” test used by the Federal Circuit to evaluate whether a method claim qualifies as a statutory patent-eligible process. See Interim Examination Instructions For Evaluating Subject Matter Eligibility Under 35 U.S.C. 101 dated August 24, 2009 (“2009 Interim Instructions”). The Supreme Court stated in Bilski that the machine-or-transformation test is a “useful and important clue” and “investigative tool” for determining whether some claimed methods are statutory processes, but it “is not the sole test for deciding whether an invention is a patent-eligible ‘process.’ ” Slip op. at 8. Its primary objection was to the elevation of the machine-or-transformation test—which it considered to be “atextual”—as the “sole test” for patent-eligibility. Slip op. at 6-8, 16. To date, no court, presented with a subject matter eligibility issue, has ever ruled that a method claim that lacked a machine or a transformation was patent-eligible. However, Bilski held open the possibility that some claims that do not meet the machine-or-transformation test might nevertheless be patent-eligible.
Ex parte Bilski, No. 2002-2257, slip op. at 46-49 (B.P.A.I. Sept. 26, 2006) (informative), http://www.uspto.gov/​ip/​boards/​bpai/​decisions/​inform/​fd022257.pdf. Following Bilski, such an approach remains proper. A claim that attempts to patent an abstract idea is ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101. See slip op. at 13 (“[A]ll members of the Court agree that the patent application at issue here falls outside of § 101 because it claims an abstract idea.”). The abstract idea exception has deep roots in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence. See id. at 5 (citing Le Roy v. Tatham, 55 U.S. (14 How.) 156, 174-175 (1853)).
Bilski reaffirmed Diehr' s holding that “while an abstract idea, law of nature, or mathematical formula could not be patented, ‘an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection.’ ” Id. at 14 (quoting Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 187 (1981)) (emphasis in original). The recitation of some structure, such as a machine, or the recitation of some transformative component will in most cases limit the claim to such an application. However, not all such recitations necessarily save the claim: “Flook established that limiting an abstract idea to one field of use or adding token postsolution components did not make the concept patentable.” Id. at 15. Moreover, the fact that the steps of a claim might occur in the “real world” does not necessarily save it from a section 101 rejection. Thus, the Bilski claims were said to be drawn to an “abstract idea” despite the fact that they included steps drawn to initiating transactions. The “abstractness” is in the sense that there are no limitations as to the mechanism for entering into the transactions.
The following guidance presents factors that are to be considered when evaluating patent-eligibility of method claims. The factors include inquiries from the machine-or-transformation test, which remains a useful investigative tool, and inquiries gleaned from Supreme Court precedent. While the Supreme Court in Bilski did not set forth detailed guidance, there are many factors to be considered when determining whether there is sufficient evidence to support a determination that a method claim is directed to an abstract idea. The following factors are intended to be useful examples and are not intended to be exclusive or limiting. It is recognized that new factors may be developed, particularly for emerging technologies. It is anticipated that the factors will be modified and changed to take into account developments in precedential case law and to accommodate prosecution issues that may arise in implementing this new practice.Start Printed Page 43925
IV. Evaluating Method Claims for Eligibility: Where the claim is written in the form of a method and is potentially a patentable process, as defined in 35 U.S.C. 100(b), the claim is patent-eligible so long as it is not disqualified as one of the exceptions to § 101's broad patent-eligibility principles; i.e., laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas.
(2) The extent to which the claim is so abstract and sweeping as to cover both known and unknown uses of the concept, and be performed through any existing or future-devised machinery, or even without any apparatus.Start Printed Page 43926
If the factors indicate that the method claim is not merely covering an abstract idea, the claim is eligible for patent protection under § 101 and must be further evaluated for patentability under all of the statutory requirements, including utility and double patenting (§ 101); novelty (§ 102); non-obviousness (§ 103); and definiteness and adequate description, enablement, and best mode (§ 112). Section 101 is merely a coarse filter and thus a determination of eligibility under § 101 is only a threshold question for patentability. Sections 102, 103, and 112 are typically the primary tools for evaluating patentability unless the claim is truly abstract, see, e.g.,
If the factors indicate that the method claim is attempting to cover an abstract idea, the examiner will reject the claim under § 101, providing clear rationale supporting the determination that an abstract idea has been claimed, such that the examiner establishes a prima facie case of patent-ineligibility. The conclusion made by the examiner must be based on the evidence as a whole. In making a rejection or if presenting reasons for allowance when appropriate, the examiner should specifically point out the factors that are relied upon in making the determination. If a claim is rejected under § 101 on the basis that it is drawn to an abstract idea, the applicant then has the opportunity to explain why the claimed method is not drawn to an abstract idea. Specifically identifying the factors used in the analysis will allow the applicant to make specific arguments in response to the rejection if the applicant believes that the conclusion that the claim is directed to an abstract idea is in error.
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6. The method of claim 4 wherein said energy provider seeks a swap receipt to cover the marginal weather-driven cost.Start Printed Page 43927
7. The method of claim 4 wherein the energy price is determined by the steps of:
b. Dependent claim(s) [1] when analyzed as a whole are held to be ineligible subject matter and are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the additional recited limitation(s) fail(s) to establish that the claim is not directed to an abstract idea, as detailed below: [2] 1. In bracket 2, provide an explanation as to why the claim is directed to an abstract idea; for instance, that the additional limitations are no more than a Start Printed Page 43928field of use or merely involve insignificant extrasolution activity; e.g., data gathering. The explanation needs to be sufficient to establish a prima facie case of ineligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101.