Alice Flyover

Alice Lesson #14: If possible, add an airplane to your claims.

U.S. Patent No. 8,965,812 Evaluating commodity conditions using aerial image data Assignee: Archer Daniels Midland Co. Issued: February 24, 2015 1. A method for evaluating the condition of an agricultural commodity and forecasting the production thereof in a geographical region of interest, the method comprising: identifying one or more geographical regions of interest, wherein the geographical region of interest comprises a plurality of different locations that historically have been sites for production of the agricultural commodity; obtaining an aircraft equipped with an image data acquisition system capable of collecting data; tasking an aircraft to fly along a travel route that is developed so that the aircraft travels across the regions of interest wherein the travel route is based on the consideration of historical data regarding production of a specified crop in one or more of the regions of interest; tasking the aircraft to fly along the travel route over the plurality of different locations and having the aircraft collect a plurality of sequential image data over the plurality of different locations crossed over by the travel route; using an image processing device to analyze the collected image data to determine at least one of a type and a condition of one or more commodities in the geographical region of interest; and forecasting the production of the agricultural commodity in the geographical region of interest based on the determined type and condition.

Commentary: "Enough is enough! I have had it with these m--------ing claims on these m--------ing planes!" Following a post-Alice rejection in September 2014, ADM added the bold language, which persuaded the examiner.  Here is the successful argument:

Figure 3 of the patent illustrates the winning formula: 

 

My suggestion to those trying to patent hedging algorithms, insurance calculators, automated bingo games, or any other 'business method' that has fallen victim to Alice: do it in the air. Remember - we've seen some success up there before.