12:01 Tuesday

Two for Today

Today’s winner is, once again, IBM.  U.S. Patent No. 7,372,373 “Method and system to gauge and control project churn”:

 

1. A computer-implemented method to gauge and control churn of a project, comprising:

o   determining an estimated project churn, wherein project churn includes any identifiable and unplanned changes to a scope of the project;

o   identifying at least one task of the project requiring rework or modification;

o   collecting heuristic information on each task of the project requiring rework or modification in response to any potential project changes for determining the estimated project churn, wherein collecting heuristic information comprises at least one of:

§  collecting a time to complete a same or a similar task in another project;

§  sampling a plurality of times to complete the same or similar task in a plurality of other projects; and

§  surveying a plurality of experienced project managers to provide an estimated time requirement to complete the task;

o   entering at least optimistic, pessimistic and expected time requirements for reworking or modifying each task of the project requiring rework or modification in response to any potential project changes; and

o   allocating resources in response to the estimated project churn based on the collected heuristic information and the at least optimistic, pessimistic and expected time requirements for each task of the project.

 

As 101 goes, I see absolutely no difference between this claim and Halligan’s.  This claim should die under Bilski (even Comiskey – it’s just mental steps but for the words “computer implemented”).

 

And isn’t this method performed routinely by.. like…everyone who’s ever planned a project?

 

Ironic twist: IBM paid the issue fee on 10/30/08 – the day of the Bilski decision.

--

 

Here’s a more interesting case.  Assignee is Barclay’s.  It’s U.S. Patent No. 7,471,086 ”Method of protecting an initial investment value of an investment”:

 

1. A method of protecting at least a portion of an initial investment value of an investment made by one or more investors, comprising the steps of:

·         providing a regulated investment company;

·         selecting a set of put option-based instruments having a first underlying reference and a set of call option-based instruments having a second underlying reference, the first underlying reference being the same as or substantially correlated to the second underlying reference, so that the set of put option-based instruments and the set of call option-based instruments collectively meet a diversification requirement for the regulated investment company;

·         determining using an option-based instrument calculator:

o   a first value of the set of put option-based instruments at initial investment of the set of put option-based instruments; and

o   a second value of the set of call option-based instruments at initial investment of the set of call option-based instruments, so that the sum of the first value and the second value is less than the initial investment value;

·         holding positions using the regulated investment company in the set of put option-based instruments and the set of call option-based instruments, so that the sets of put option-based instruments and call option-based instruments provide the at least a portion of the initial investment value at maturity of the investment; and

·         making available the at least a portion of the initial investment value to the one or more investors upon the maturity of the investment.

 

This one is noteworthy for a few reasons:

1)      It’s the first Bilski-questionable claim I’ve seen allowed that was examined *after* the Bilski decision (NOA is dated 11/18).  But that may not mean much as this examiner appears to have been unaware of recent 101 decisions – the original, unamended claims, were even worse from a Bilski/Comiskey perspective (first steps were “registering a C corporation; electing the C corporation to be treated as a regulated investment company…”) but the only 101 rejection was under Nuijten because of the broad Beauregard claim (encompassing non-physical media).

2)      Accelerated Examination.  Filed in 8/2007, final OA in 5/2008.  Overcome with an RCE.

3)      It was filed by Charles Macedo of Amster, Rothstein & Ebenstein, who has given several presentations and papers on the 101 issue.

4)      On the merits, the only “particular machine” in there is the “option-based instrument calculator”, which the specs describes only in functional terms (the figure shows a plain box representing this calculator).  But it sounds pretty “particular”.

 

Happy new year.

Bilski Watch: Good Bad and Ugly

Lots of candidates today, but here are the winners.

 

GOOD:

This one looks to have been Bilskified pretty well.  Need the file history to see for sure, but PAIR has been down.  It's to JPMorgan:

United States Patent 7,467,109  System and method for determining eligibility and enrolling members in various programs

 

1. A computer implemented method for enrolling an individual, who has an obligation to a financial institution, in a program wherein at least some financial status information relating to the individual is known, comprising:

• providing by at least one processor a list of payment programs to a user;
• receiving, from the user, a selection of a payment program suitable to the individual's financial circumstances from the list of payment programs;
• determining by the at least one processor whether the individual is eligible to enroll in the selected payment program by performing an evaluation with a processor based at least in part upon the at least some financial status information relating to the individual;
• providing information on the selected payment program to the user based on determining whether the individual is eligible to enroll in the selected payment program;
• receiving enrollment information for the selected first program from the user;
• determining whether the enrollment information meets a set of predetermined criteria for enrolling the individual in the selected payment program by performing an evaluation with a processor on at least part of the enrollment information; and
• enrolling the individual in the selected payment program when the enrollment information meets the set of predetermined criteria and the individual accepts enrollment in the selected payment program.

 

The machine here is the computer and processor, which may or may not be 'particular' (need to look at spec and figs to evaluate), but they did a good job putting as much meat on the bones as they apparently could.

 

 

BAD:

According to Ex parte Halligan, this one is doomed.  Nice try, though.  Assigned to The Olsen Group, of Switzerland.

United States Patent 7,467,110  Method for market making

 

1. A method performed by a computer of market making in an asset trading system, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving asset price data for a first asset;

(b) receiving current system position information for the first asset;

(c) receiving quote request information for the first asset;

(d) calculating target position information for the first asset for each of one or more trading models; and

(e) calculating with the computer a bid/ask quote in response to said received quote request information, said calculation of a bid/ask quote using a hedging method and being based on said asset price data, said quote request information, said current system position information, and said target position information.

 

 

UGLY:

This one assigned is to Goldman Sachs:

United States Patent 7,467,112 Method for listing a futures contract that physically settles into a swap

 

So it has the transformation right there in the title... not sure what it means to 'physically settle'.  It's not in the claims.  I'm curious about the prosecution history (less than a year from filing to issuance), but I'll have to wait for PAIR. [UPDATE: This application was filed under the Accelerated Examination procedure. 101 is not mentioned in the prosecution history]

 

1. A method of operating an exchange, the method comprising:

listing a futures contract;

receiving an electronic signal that represents an order to buy or an order to sell the futures contract; and

upon settlement of the futures contract, requiring entry into a specified credit default index swap on a specified date against a specified counterparty, wherein

(a)(i) a long position in said futures contract entitles a holder of the long position to receive a fixed side of the specified credit default index swap on the specified date, and (ii) a short position in said futures contract entitles a holder of the short position to receive a floating side of the specified credit default index swap on the specified date; or

(b)(i) a short position in said futures contract entitles the holder of the short position to receive a fixed side of the specified credit default index swap on the specified date, and (ii) a long position in said futures contract entitles the holder of the long position to receive a floating side of the specified credit default index swap on the specified date; said specified counterparty being a clearinghouse.

 

note that the "electronic signal" probably doesn't constitute a particular machine, or an article for transformation -- it's not patentable subject matter under Nuijten.