The PTAB recently relied on the Federal Circuit’s decision in Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp. in refusing to institute a Covered Business Method review of a patent for a system for managing personal electronic information. Apple, et al. v. Mirror World, CBM 2015-00019. The patent claimed using a time-ordered stream (sequence of documents) as a storage model and stream filters to organize, locate, summarize, and monitor incoming information. Paper 12 at 2.

The PTAB found that the claimed method was directed to a financial product based on embodiments of the patent that describe using the claimed method to manage a stock portfolio or to track checking and savings accounts. Id. at 6. The PTAB also found that the technological invention exclusion does not apply. Id. at 7.

However, relying on the recent Enfish decision, the PTAB found that the claimed method did not recite an abstract idea. Id. at 15. In so finding the PTAB faulted Petitioner's argument for failing to analyze the claims as a whole. Id. at 15. The PTAB went on to analyze the claimed method under the second step of the Alice test and found that it too was not met. Id. at 16. The PTAB found that, like the claims in DDR Holdings, the challenged claims are necessarily rooted in computer technology. Id. at 17.