Financing Package Generation Patent Unpatentable Under 35 U.S.C. § 101

In a final written decision, the Board found claims of a financing package generation patent unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 101. "The underlying concept of claim 1, when viewed as a whole, simply is to receive information from a customer’s credit application, process that information, and present the processed information as potential financing packages to the dealer. Rephrased, this is the abstract idea of 'processing an application for financing a purchase.' . . . We note that processing an application for financing a purchase is a mere building block of human ingenuity, similar to the building blocks identified by the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit. . . . [W]e read the Court to say that fundamental economic concepts, by themselves, are examples of the basic tools, or building blocks, of innovation that Section 101 is not intended to protect. They are considered to be available to the public, absent a showing of the incorporation of the fundamental economic concept into a machine or method that amounts to something 'significantly more.'"

Petition for Covered Business Method Patent Review by Westlake Services, LLC d/b/a Westlake Financial Services, CBM2014-00176 (PTAB January 25, 2016, Order) (McKone, APJ)