PTAB Utilizes Enfish to Find Claim Directed to Bit Slipping is Directed to Patent-Eligible Subject Matter

Takeaway: The PTAB issued a decision overturning an Examiner's rejections of method claims directed to bit slipping as being directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. The Examiner rejected the method claims at issue as being directed to an abstract idea under step one of the Alice/Mayo framework. In overturning the Examiner's rejection, the PTAB utilized the decision in Enfish v. Microsoft to find that the claims were directed to improving the functioning of a computer. (Ex parte Carvalho, Appeal 2015-001076, PTAB July 6, 2016)

Details:

Ex parte Carvalho
Appeal 2015-001076; Application No. 12/283,652; Technology Center 2600
Decided: July 6, 2016

In a decision released on July 6, 2016, a PTAB panel found method claims directed to "bit slipping according to information regarding aligning of words" as directed to patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Claim 14, which is illustrative of the subject matter rejected as directed to patent-ineligible subject matter, recites:

14. A method comprising:

aligning words to a desired word boundary, wherein each of the words has a plurality of bits;

receiving from a word aligner, by a bit slipper, information regarding the aligning; and

slipping bits of the words, wherein total delay due to the aligning and the slipping is constant for all phases of a recovered clock signal,

wherein the aligning and the slipping are performed by a transceiver system.

The Examiner rejected claim 14 as being directed to patent-ineligible subject matter because claims 14 was "a mere statement of a general concept," and that its recitation of a "transceiver system," a "recovered clock signal," and the functions of aligning and slipping are insufficient to make the claim patent eligible. More specifically, the Examiner found that claim 14 was directed to the abstract idea of "bit slipping according to information regarding the aligning of words."

The PTAB disagreed with the Examiner and cited the recent Federal Circuit decision in Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp.,_F.3d_, No. 2015-1244, 2016 WL 2756255, (Fed. Cir. May 12, 2016) for its support. Specifically, the PTAB explained that Enfish looked to "improvements in computer-related technology, including software improvements, are not inherently abstract, and thus, it is 'relevant to ask whether the claims are directed to an improvement to computer functionality versus being directed to an abstract idea, even at the first step of the Alice analysis'" to find the claims at issue in Enfish as directed to patent-eligible subject matter.

The PTAB then explained that the rejected method claims were directed to "an improvement in the functioning of a computer (i.e., eliminating word aligner latency delay uncertainty) and not to the addition of general-purpose computer components to a fundamental economic practice or mathematical equation." To support this decision, the PTAB looked to the specification of Appellant's application to justify that the claims were directed to the improvement in the functioning of a computer. More specifically, the PTAB identified that the specification taught how prior art systems would introduce "a Deserializer/Word aligner latency uncertainty." The PTAB then contrasted the deficiencies of the prior art with the solutions set forth in the specification. Specifically, the PTAB cited that, in an embodiment, the invention "solves this problem of latency uncertainty by using a bit slipper so that the total delay from word aligning and bit slipping is constant for all recovered clock phases, which 'allows for having a fixed and known latency between the receipt and transmission of bits for all phases of parallelization by the deserializer.'"

As such, the PTAB found that claims at issue were not directed to an abstract idea under step one of the Alice/Mayo framework but instead were directed to patent-eligible subject matter because the claims were directed to an improvement in the functioning of the computer.

Takeaway:  This a useful decision by the PTAB illustrating how to rebut an Examiner's rejection under step one of the Alice/Mayo framework. For example, Applicants and practitioners may contemplate including prior deficiencies to illustrate the technological improvements and benefits of the invention in order to align the claims at issue with the decision in Enfish (illustrating that claims are directed to improving the functioning of the computer).