Court Opinion

ID: 9911606
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-20 16:01:37.918331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:51:36.161956
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-1418    Document: 24     Page: 1    Filed: 12/20/2023

         NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                 IN RE: SAUL ELBAUM,
                         Appellant
                  ______________________

                        2023-1418
                  ______________________

     Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
 Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. 16/987,031.
                   ______________________

                Decided: December 20, 2023
                  ______________________

    SAUL ELBAUM, Potomac, MD, pro se.

     MONICA BARNES LATEEF, Office of the Solicitor, United
 States Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, for
 appellee Katherine K. Vidal. Also represented by MICHAEL
 S. FORMAN, AMY J. NELSON, FARHEENA YASMEEN RASHEED.
                  ______________________

    Before REYNA, HUGHES, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
 PER CURIAM.
      Saul Elbaum applied for a patent that would allow re-
 tail stores to offer products at lower prices than internet
 stores. The examiner issued a final rejection finding claims
 23–36 of U.S. Patent Application No. 16/987,031 ineligible
 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Case: 23-1418     Document: 24     Page: 2    Filed: 12/20/2023

 2                                              IN RE: ELBAUM

 The Patent Trial and Appeal Board affirmed. Because we
 conclude that the Board correctly found claims 23–36 are
 ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101, we affirm.
                               I
     Mr. Elbaum filed Patent Application No. 16/987,031 ti-
 tled “A Retail Store That Also Sells Internet Items.” The
 patent application is directed to methods allowing tradi-
 tional retail stores to compete with internet stores by offer-
 ing the same products in store at lower prices. Claim 23 is
 representative:
     23. A method of enabling a person to find an item for
     sale from a seller via the internet and to acquire that
     item at a lower price from the same seller via a walk-
     in store comprising:
         a) finding an item for sale from a seller via the in-
         ternet;
         b) viewing the website of a walk-in store to see if
         the item is available for sale via the website of the
         walk-in store despite the item not being stocked in
         the walk-in store;
         c) buying the item from the walk-in store via the
         website of the walk-in store;
         d) enabling the walk-in store to retain a portion of
         the payment for taxes, expenses and profit, and to
         forward the balance of the payment to the seller of
         the item;
         e) enabling the seller of the item to identify the
         walk-in store from which that payment was re-
         ceived; and
         f) enabling the seller of the item to ship the item.
Case: 23-1418    Document: 24      Page: 3    Filed: 12/20/2023

 IN RE: ELBAUM                                              3

 S. Appx. 1 42. The examiner rejected claims 23–36 under 35
 U.S.C. § 101 and rejected claims 23–27 and 29–36 as obvi-
 ous over prior art references Oayda 2 and Walker 3, and
 claim 28 as obvious over Oayda, Walker and Townsend. 4
 The Board affirmed the examiner’s rejections. Mr. Elbaum
 sought rehearing, but the Board denied the request.
    Mr. Elbaum now appeals. We have jurisdiction under
 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A).
                              II
      Patent eligibility is a question of law that may contain
 underlying issues of fact. In re Marco Guldenaar Holding
 B.V., 911 F.3d 1157, 1159 (Fed. Cir. 2018). “We review the
 Board’s legal decisions de novo and its factual determina-
 tions for substantial evidence.” Fanduel, Inc. v. Interactive
 Games LLC, 966 F.3d 1334, 1343 (Fed. Cir. 2020). Substan-
 tial evidence “means such relevant evidence as a reasona-
 ble mind might accept as adequate to support a
 conclusion.” Id. (citing Consol. Edison Co. v. N.L.R.B., 305
 U.S. 197, 229 (1938)).
                              A
     We apply the Supreme Court’s two-step framework to
 determine patent eligibility. See Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v.

     1   “S. Appx.” refers to the Supplemental Appendix
 filed with the Director’s response brief.
      2  U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/
 0117744 A1 (PCT filed June 2, 2014, published April 28,
 2016).
      3  U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/
 0178071 A1 (filed July 7, 1999, published November 28,
 2002).
      4  U.S.    Patent     Application    Publication No.
 2010/0063891 A1 (filed Sept. 26, 2008, published March 11,
 2010).
Case: 23-1418     Document: 24      Page: 4    Filed: 12/20/2023

 4                                               IN RE: ELBAUM

 CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 217 (2014). First, we deter-
 mine whether the claim is directed to a “patent-ineligible
 concept,” such as an abstract idea. Id. If so, we 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 221
 (quoting Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs.,
 Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 72, 79–80 (2012)). If the elements involve
 “well-understood, routine, [and] conventional activity pre-
 viously engaged in by researchers in the field” they do not
 constitute an inventive concept. Mayo, 566 U.S. at 72–73.
      Under Alice step one, the Board found that representa-
 tive “claim 23 recites managing sale transaction activity by
 paying a transaction fee for sales of non-stocked items,”
 which is a method of organizing human activity, and thus,
 an abstract idea. S. Appx. 12–13. We agree. In a case in-
 volving another one of Mr. Elbaum’s patent applications,
 we reviewed similar claims and held that they were patent
 ineligible under § 101. In re Elbaum, No. 2021-1719, 2021
 WL 3923280, at *1 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 2, 2021) (non-preceden-
 tial). There, the claim “recite[d] a method for enabling an
 internet seller to pay a finder’s fee to a retail store when a
 customer finds the internet seller’s product through adver-
 tising in the retail store.” Id. at *2. We held that such a
 claim is directed to an abstract idea as it is directed to mere
 formation and manipulation of economic relations. Id. (cit-
 ing Content Extraction & Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo
 Nat’l Ass’n, 776 F.3d 1343, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2014)). Similarly
 here, the claim is directed to an abstract idea—managing
 commercial and legal interactions—not eligible for patent
 protection.
     Under Alice step two, the Board reviewed the addi-
 tional claim elements and found that “each step does no
 more than require a generic computer to perform generic
 computer functions;” and that even as an ordered combina-
 tion, “the computer components . . . add nothing that is not
 already present when the steps are considered separately.”
Case: 23-1418     Document: 24       Page: 5   Filed: 12/20/2023

 IN RE: ELBAUM                                                5

 S. Appx. 17. We agree with the Board that nothing in the
 claim recites an inventive concept to transform the abstract
 idea into patent-eligible subject matter. The claim uses ge-
 neric computer functions to manage commercial sale trans-
 action activities by paying a transaction fee for sales of non-
 stocked items. See Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec
 Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1315 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (holding that
 claims did not satisfy Alice step two because they used “ge-
 neric computers to perform generic computer functions”).
     Mr. Elbaum argues that representative claim 23 is eli-
 gible because it has “practical steps,” namely allowing
 sellers to make sales in other states without filing tax re-
 turns in those other states by retaining a portion of the
 payment for taxes and forwarding the balance to the seller.
 Appellant’s Br. 5–8. However, even if Mr. Elbaum is correct
 that the claimed method provides a practical solution to a
 problem faced by online sellers, the utility of an abstract
 idea is insufficient to confer patent eligibility. See Genetic
 Techs. Ltd. v. Merial L.L.C., 818 F.3d 1369, 1380 (Fed. Cir.
 2016). Thus, we hold that the claim does not include an in-
 ventive concept that would render it patent-eligible.
     Because we agree with the Board that the claims are
 not patent-eligible, we affirm. 5
                         AFFIRMED
                             COSTS
 No costs.

     5   Because we affirm the Board’s finding of ineligibil-
 ity, we need not reach the Board’s determinations of obvi-
 ousness.