Claims reciting a commonplace business method aimed at processing business information, despite being applied on a general purpose computer, are not patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Here, for example, claims drafted to include computer hardware limitations, but primarily reciting steps for leveraging the hierarchal data structures used by large companies to organize pricing information, were found to be patent ineligible as an abstract idea that has no particular concrete or tangible form or application. “All of these limitations are well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry.” This would be a good case to consult for a framework in comparing and contrasting prior cases for responding to a computer-related subject matter eligibility rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Background / Facts: The patent on appeal here from rejection at the PTO under the covered business method (“CBM”) proceedings of § 18 of the AIA is directed to a “method and apparatus for pricing products in multi-level product and organizational groups.” The patent is said to improve upon the prior art and reduce the need for large data tables by, inter alia, arranging customers (purchasing organizations) into a hierarchy of customer groups and products into a hierarchy of product groups. The claims were drafted to include computer hardware limitations but primarily recite steps for leveraging the hierarchal data structures used by large companies to organize pricing information.
Issue(s): Whether the challenged claims are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as constituting no more than an “abstract idea.”
Holding(s): Yes. Although “recogniz[ing] that any given analysis in a § 101 ‘abstract idea’ case is hardly a clear guidepost for future cases arising under § 101—each case stands on its own, and requires separate analysis by the judges who must make the decision,” the court relied primarily on comparing and contrasting the claims here with claims in previously decided cases. “[The claims] are directed to the abstract idea of determining a price, using organizational and product group hierarchies, in the same way that the claims in Alice were directed to the abstract idea of intermediated settlement, and the claims in Bilski were directed to the abstract idea of risk hedging. … Using organizational and product group hierarchies to determine a price is an abstract idea that has no particular concrete or tangible form or application. It is a building block, a basic conceptual framework for organizing information, similar to the claims involving collecting, recognizing, and storing data in Content Extraction and the claims in CyberSource. … Unlike Diehr, the claims at issue do not improve some existing technological process or solve some technological problem in conventional industry practice. Unlike DDR Holdings, the claims at issue are not rooted in computer technology to solve a problem specifically arising in some aspect of computer technology.”