This document explains the issues associated with obtaining software patent authorization by the United States Patent and Trademark Office as a result of the SCOTUS decision in Alice Corporation versus CLS Bank International.

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Title : Adkins Residential Home Valuation Analyzer (RHVA)
Appl. No. : 13/245,051
Applicant : Troy Morris Adkins II
Filed : September 26, 2011
TC/AU : 3695
Examiner : Mr. Ojo Oyebisi
Docket No. : ADKINS-001
Confirmation No. : 6410
June 1, 2015
Commissioner for Patents
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, VA 22313-1450
REMARKS
Sir:
In response to the Office Action of March 6, 2015, the following remarks address the
issues raised by the patent examiner in support of reauthorizing patent application
number 13/245,051.
Applicant respectfully requests that a timely Notice of Allowance be issued in this case.
Respectfully submitted,
By Troy M. Adkins II.
Troy Morris Adkins II
troy.m.adkins@gmail.com

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RESPONSE TO THE OFFICE ACTION
In the most recent Office Action, the patent examiner reviewed the amended claims submitted
by the inventor from the perspective of relying on the recent Supreme Court ruling set forth in
the case of Alice Corporation versus CLS Bank International (2014)(“Alice”). At the conclusion
of his review, the patent examiner decided that the patent application claims are directed to a
statutory class (i.e. computer), but also decided that the claims individually and as a whole are
directed to an “abstract idea” that is not patent eligible. The purpose of this response to the
Office Action is to address the issues raised by the patent examiner from an empirical
perspective, practical perspective, and legal perspective in order to obtain patent
reauthorization by the USPTO.
Empirical Perspective
From an empirical perspective, the inventor would like to first acknowledge that he has spent
more than a decade developing a financial methodology and software application that offers a
novel, useful, and non-obvious business method for conducting a price-level analysis of
residential real estate property. The inventor has also spent more than 100 hours reviewing
published patent applications and authorized patents in order to insure that he was not
infringing on a similar invention. In addition, the inventor confirmed that there is no published
literature that sets forth such inventive methodology and application. Finally, the inventor has
confirmed that there are no commercially available software applications with similar
characteristics and functionality as set forth in the patent application. With this in mind, the
inventor is confident that he has developed a unique invention.
As part of the patent examination process, the inventor has spent almost four years working
with the patent office in order to draft a patent application in a manner that is eligible for
patent authorization. Through this experience, the inventor has learned firsthand about the
issues stemming from the evolution of the U.S. patent system from the “first-to-invent” to
“first-to-file” patent authorization process, the issues surrounding the lack of “concrete”
guidance that can be provided by the USPTO in terms of confirming that an inventor can obtain
patent authorization for a computer program software patent that accomplishes a specified
business method, and the issues stemming from the Supreme Court’s lack of clarity in providing
a definition of an “abstract idea” for purposes of determining patent eligibility. This in turn has
made it very difficult for the inventor to determine whether or not a computer program
software application that provides a business method is eligible for patent claim authorization.
As a result of these problems, it is the inventor’s belief that the lack of clarity in these areas
runs contrary to the mission of the USPTO.
Given the evolution of the American economy from the industrial age to the information
technology age, the inventor believes that it is imperative for the USPTO to protect the
intellectual property rights associated with products and services that are both tangible assets
and intangible assets. In order to accomplish this goal, the inventor believes that both the
USPTO and the court system need to recognize the evolution from tangible-based applications

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(e.g. calculators) to intangible-based applications (e.g. cloud-based software applications). It is
the inventor’s belief that both categories of inventions need to be patent-eligible in order for
the patent system to protect vital intellectual property that will drive prosperity for the U.S. in
the future.
The ability to deliver products and services via software applications, particularly through the
Internet cloud allows commerce to be conducted much more economically, efficiently, and
effectively than what can be accomplished by selling tangible machines from brick-and-mortar
stores. Therefore, the inventor believes that it is imperative for the USPTO to provide
intellectual property protection in this area in order to foster an environment of innovation and
invention. Moreover, the USPTO still accepts thousands of patent applications that fall within
the software application and business methods categories, and they publish such patent
applications on the Internet. Therefore, inventors are led to believe that such patent
applications are eligible for patent authorization. If such inventions are not patent eligible, the
USPTO needs to provide explicit guidance to inventors so that they do not file patent
applications with the USPTO. Moreover, the USPTO should not publish such proprietary
information if it is not patent-eligible material. By following these recommendations, the
USPTO can save inventors the use of their time and resources and not run the risk of
inappropriately disclosing patent-ineligible intellectual property in a manner that runs contrary
to the mission of the USPTO.
Practical Perspective
From a practical perspective, the inventor believes it is important to explain the concept and
application of computer science in order to provide the specific clarity that is required for the
USPTO to understand that the invention disclosed in the patent application is a “concrete
invention” that is patent eligible, rather than an abstract invention that is classified as a patent
ineligible “abstract idea.” The inventor believes this position is necessary because explicit
guidance in this area has not been provided by the court system, which in turn has limited the
amount of guidance that can be provided to inventors by the USPTO.
At the most basic level, computer science is a discipline that spans both theory and practice.
Computer science requires thinking both in “abstract” terms and in “concrete” terms. At the
“abstract” level, computer science can be seen as a science of problem solving. Problem solving
requires precision, creativity, and careful reasoning. At the “concrete” level, computer
scientists must be able to develop solutions for problems and verify that the solutions are
correct. Getting computers to do what you want them to do requires intensive hands-on
experience. Therefore, it is the inventor’s belief that the application of computer science from
the “abstract” problem solving arena to the “concrete” development of a verified solution to a
problem via a software application is the manner in which “abstract” concepts are transformed
into patent eligible material. The importance of this type of thinking and understanding cannot
be overstated.

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In terms of computer science, the terms “concrete” and “abstract” are used to suggest
how practical or impractical an idea might be. In this context, “concrete” ideas are those that
have relevance to action (e.g., a recipe is “concrete” because it states how to cook a dinner,
whereas a differential equation is “abstract” because it is not tied to action in this way). This
connection to action offers the inventor a way to make “abstract” ideas “concrete” by showing
their relevance to action. For example, chemistry can be connected to cooking or medicine and
mathematics can be connected to computer science or construction. This concept is very
important for the patent examiner to understand, because it provides the foundation that is
necessary for both the legal community and the business community to support the
classification of a software application that performs a business method as patent-eligible
material.
Legal Perspective
From a legal perspective, the complexity of evaluating computer-related patent claims can be
found in the federal circuit court of appeals case for DDR Holdings, LLC, (“DDR”) which was
decided December 5, 2014. The opinion for the court was filed by Circuit Judge Chen. The DDR
case is the first United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision to uphold the
validity of computer-implemented patent claims since the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice
Corporation v. CLS Bank International (“Alice”). The legal decision for DDR Holdings is relevant
to the debate about whether software and business methods are patentable subject matter
under Title 35 of the United States Code §101. The Federal Circuit applied the framework
articulated in “Alice” to uphold the validity of the patents on webpage display technology at
issue in DDR Holdings.
In “DDR,” the case is of most significance to the inventor for its discussion of 35 U.S.C. §101 and
the concept of an unpatentable abstract idea as it applies to software and business methods.
In this discussion, the Federal Circuit applied the two-step test for patentability set forth
in “Alice” to determine that “DDR’s” patent claims are directed to patent-eligible subject
matter. The court considered whether the patent claims were directed to a patent-ineligible
“abstract idea.” However, since the U.S. Supreme Court has not defined “abstract ideas,” Judge
Chen did not reach a clear answer to this question. Instead, Judge Chen opted to ground his
opinion in the more perceptible nature of eligibility, should the analysis proceed to step two,
without deciding whether that step is actually necessary. Accordingly, it is the inventor’s
position that the patent examiner can also use the framework set forth by Judge Chen in the
“DDR” decision in order to authorize the inventor’s patent application. With that said, the
inventor believes that he has developed a patentable invention based on current patent law.

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Step 1 Derived from the “Alice” court decision: Determine if patent claims are tied to an
“Abstract idea”
As an initial matter, the court must determine whether the claims at issue are directed to a
patent ineligible concept. At this step, the court observed that distinguishing between a
patentable invention and an “abstract idea” "can be difficult, as the line separating the two is
not always clear." Judge Chen acknowledged that the invention could be characterized as an
“abstract idea,” such as "making two e-commerce web pages look alike," but also noted that
the asserted patent claims do not recite a mathematical algorithm, nor do they recite a
fundamental economic or longstanding commercial practice." The court reviewed several
Supreme Court cases useful in identifying claims directed to abstract ideas. However, the
Federal Circuit Court never offered a precise definition of an unpatentable "abstract idea" nor
did it explicitly decide whether the patent claims are directed to such ineligible subject matter.
Instead, the court concluded that, even stipulating any of the characterizations of the alleged
“abstract idea” put forth by defense counsel and the dissent, the patent claims still contain an
inventive concept sufficient to render them patent-eligible under step two of the “Alice”
analysis.
Before addressing the issue from the perspective used by Judge Chen to reach his decision in
the “DDR” case, the inventor would like to provide more insight that he has gleaned throughout
the patent examination process in order to make his case for patent reauthorization. In looking
at financial-related patent claims that have been authorized by the USPTO for almost 40 years,
it appears that inventions that perform financial calculations on a tangible machine (calculator)
are eligible for patent protection. The following patents illustrate this point:
 General purpose calculator with capability for performing yield-to-maturity of a
bond calculation - US 3946218 A (~1976)
 Computer for calculating compound interest - US 4486849 A (~1984)
 Retirement and financial planning calculator apparatus and methods - US
8069103 B1 (~2011)
While the three authorized patent cases listed above perform financial calculations of varying
complexities, none of the financial calculations made by these inventions are nearly as complex
as the financial calculations set forth in the inventor’s patent application. Therefore, it is logical
to conclude that the only issue keeping the inventor’s patent application from being authorized
by the USPTO is the fact that the invention is designed as an intangible cloud-based software
application, rather than as a tangible hand-held calculator device. With this in mind, the
inventor believes that at a minimum, the patent claims could be revised to illustrate a unique
hand held tangible device such as a proprietary calculator, and likely receive patent protection
as an eligible invention. Accordingly, it is the inventor’s belief that the following universal
patent examiner’s amendments would make the claims in the patent application eligible for
patent protection:

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A method of calculating A computer-implemented method for
conducting a price-level analysis of residential real estate property…;
providing a pre-programmed calculator for the computer, the computer
having a display screen with a series of pre-programmed input switches;
entering an annual household income amount, …;
calculating…
The inventor believes that this type of recommended amendment to the patent claims is the
first tactical approach that could be undertaken in order to allow the invention to receive
patent protection. With that said, it is also the inventor’s belief that revising the claims in the
patent application to change the invention from an intangible cloud-based software application
(which has been built, has been tested, and is completely operational) to a tangible calculator
machine would not be taking advantage of the low cost, highly powerful computer processing
power readily available through the internet cloud. Therefore, from the inventor’s perspective,
while it appears that such a tactical approach would facilitate the ability to receive patent
protection, it also appears that the court system and the USPTO have put in place a rationale
and process that promotes the curtailment of innovation and invention, and have established
an environment that curtails the development of inventions that function in an economical,
efficient, and effective manner.
A second tactical approach proposed by the inventor would be to reassess the claims set forth
in the patent application as patent-eligible material. As mentioned in the first tactical approach
above, it appears that the USPTO has a policy of granting patent authorization to manual
(tangible) calculators that perform mathematical calculations. However, the inventor believes
that such patents are awarded based on the financial calculation capabilities that have been
programed into the machine, rather than the buttons, switches, casing, and display system that
encompasses the scope of the invention. With this thought process in mind, it is the inventor’s
belief that his invention should not be evaluated based on the input window for the cloud-
based software application that he has developed, or the output window for the software
application that displays the analytical results, but rather the unique calculations that have
been programed into an inventive computer system that transforms raw data into a set of
calculated financial conclusions that allows prospective home buyers to make a prudent home
purchase decision.

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In the event the patent examiner does not agree with the first two tactical approaches, the
inventor believes that the rationale used by Judge Chen to skirt the determination of the
invention as an “abstract idea” is also a viable option. Using this third tactical approach, the
responsibility of making an explicit determination about whether or not the claimed invention
is a patentable invention can be determined by illustrating that the patent claims pertain to an
inventive concept that would make the invention patent eligible.
Step 2 Derived from the “Alice” court decision: Determine if patent claims pertain to an
inventive concept
In step two, the court must: "consider the elements of each claim — both individually and as an
ordered combination — to determine whether the additional elements transform the nature of
the claim into a patent-eligible application of the ‘abstract idea.’ This second step is the search
for an ‘inventive concept,’ or some element or combination of elements sufficient to ensure
that the claim in practice amounts to ‘significantly more’ than a patent on an ineligible
concept."
In spite of the business-related nature of the claims in the “DDR” case (retaining or increasing
website traffic) and the fact that they could be implemented on a generic computer, the court
highlighted that the claims did not simply take an abstract business method from the pre-
internet world and implement it on a computer. Instead, the claims addressed a technological
problem ‘particular to the internet’ by implementing a solution specific to that technological
environment and different from the manner suggested by routine or conventional use within
the field.
The majority opinion characterized the problem as "the ephemeral nature of an Internet
‘location’ and the near-instantaneous transport between these locations made possible by
standard communication protocols. The majority distinguished this problem, which they found
was ‘particular to the Internet,’ from the circumstances inherent in the ‘store within a store’
schemes—in traditional ‘brick and mortar’ warehouse stores with cruise vacation package
kiosks, visitors to the kiosk are still inside the warehouse store when making their kiosk
purchases.” Judge Chen thus found that “the claimed solution is necessarily rooted in
computer technology in order to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm of
computer networks.”
The DDR court differentiated the claims of the patent from those that "merely recite the
performance of some business practice known from the pre-Internet world along with the
requirement to perform it on the Internet." Instead, the court explained, the patent claims
"address the problem of retaining website visitors that, if adhering to the routine, conventional
functioning of Internet hyperlink protocol, would be instantly transported away from a host's
website after clicking on an advertisement and activating a hyperlink." Because the invention

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"overrides the routine and conventional sequence of events ordinarily triggered by the click of a
hyperlink," it did not employ mere ordinary use of a computer or the Internet.
Further, the court held, the claims included additional features that limit their scope so as to
not preempt every application of any of the abstract ideas suggested by the plaintiff. Viewed
individually and as an ordered combination, the “DDR” court concluded that the claims these
aspects of the invention established an "inventive concept" for resolving an Internet-centric
problem and were therefore directed to patent-eligible subject matter.
The inventor believes that the claims set forth in the patent application address a technological
problem "particular to the internet" by implementing a solution specific to that technological
environment and different from the manner suggested by routine or conventional use within
the field. In this case the patent claims disclose a unique method for conducting a price-level
analysis of residential real estate property. Existing computer technology will not accomplish
this goal without a computer system being designed and programmed to tell it what to do. To
accomplish this goal, the unique financial methodology outlined in the patent claims has been
incorporated into a software application in order to create a table of financial factor multiples
as illustrated below. The manner in which this factor multiples are calculated and used in the
table is different from the standard use of computer applications.
At the individual claim level, the software application employs an inventive approach to a
comprehensive methodology that is not available via a traditional computer. First, the
invention uses the financial methodology outlined in the patent claims in order to calculate the
factor multiple relationship that triangulates mortgage loan interest rates with the percentage
of pre-tax household income amounts that represent the largest amount of money that should
be spent in order to repay the principal and interest costs for a mortgage loan. Said table is
generated for a very wide range of scenarios, as illustrated in the table above. With this
information, the software application can reverse engineer the inventive analytical process in
order to answer a host of questions that prospective home buyers can use in order to make a
prudent home purchase decision.

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The inventive nature of the software application allows prospective home buyers to determine
the level of underpricing or overpricing of homes in their community, by using two unique
analytical perspectives. From the first analytical perspective, the software application is
designed to read the input data submitted by the prospective home buyer and to scan the row
headings (mortgage loan interest rates) in the table and find the appropriate variable entered
into the software application by the user of the invention. Then, the software application scans
across the table and finds the appropriate factor multiple that represents the relationship
between the pre-tax household income amount and the home price level amount. With this
information, the software application finds the appropriate column heading that represents the
justified percentage of household income amount. This amount is then compared against the
largest percentage of pre-tax household income that the prospective home buyer believes
should be spent in order to repay the principal and interest costs for a mortgage loan. The
spread between these two amounts represents the level of underpricing or overpricing of
homes in the community.
From the second analytical perspective, the software application is uniquely designed to read
input data submitted by the prospective home buyer and to scan the column headings
(percentage of pre-tax household income amounts) and find the appropriate variable entered
into the software application by the user of the invention. Then, the software application scans
down the table and finds the appropriate factor multiple that represents the relationship
between the pre-tax household income amount and the home price level amount. With this
information, the software application finds the appropriate row heading that represents the
justified mortgage loan interest rate. This amount is then compared against the prevailing cost
of debt for a 30-year fully amortized fixed rate mortgage loan that is available in the
prospective home buyer’s community. The spread between these two amounts represents the
level of underpricing or overpricing of homes in the community.
The inventive analytical methodology also uses the calculated factor multiples to allow the
prospective home buyer to determine the largest amount of money that should be spent in
order to purchase a home, and the amount of household income that would need to be earned
on an annual basis in order to be able to afford to purchase a specific home. Both of these
calculations use the proprietary methodology that is outlined in the patent claims.
The proprietary methodology and process outlined in the patent claims is not available through
existing technology and can only be used by prospective home buyers that use the invention, or
by understanding the methodology and applying it manually via a laborious and time
consuming process. Given the unique methodology and application, the inventor believes that
the patent claims should be authorized because they are directed toward a technical goal that
is currently not offered by any computer networks or financial calculators in existence, they
make analytical calculations that are far beyond what can be conceptualized or calculated by

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prospective home buyers, the invention provides information in a timely and cost effective
manner, and because the analytical results provided by the invention allow prospective home
buyers to make a prudent home purchase decision.
At the collective claim level, the software application employs an inventive approach that is not
available through a conventional computer. In essence, the software application creates a
unique cloud-based financial calculator that facilitates the ability to make complex calculations
that pertain to the price-level of residential real estate property. Such calculations require the
design capabilities of a financier and the production capabilities of a computer programmer
that is capable of building a calculator using multiple programming languages. Each of these
languages has to work in concert with one another in order for the invention to function
properly. With this in mind, the inventor believes that the claims should be authorized,
because they are directed toward a technical goal that is currently not offered by any computer
networks or financial calculators in existence, and can only be made by using the scope of the
invention.
Conclusion
The purpose of this response to the Office Action is to explain why the patent application
should be authorized as a non-provisional utility patent. The inventor believes that he has
developed a patent-eligible invention that does not recite a mathematical algorithm or recite a
fundamental economic or longstanding commercial practice, and that the patent claims contain
an inventive concept sufficient to render them patent-eligible under step one or step two of the
“Alice” analysis, as applied by the presiding judge in the opinion for the Federal Circuit Court for
the “DDR” court ruling. Moreover, the inventor believes that his patent claims have been
written in a restrictive manner, with a limited scope and application that does not preempt
technological advances or future inventions.
In closing, the inventor requests that the USPTO take into consideration the fact that the patent
application was filed prior to the Court decisions for the “Alice” and “DDR” cases. Therefore,
the inventor believes that his patent application should be evaluated based on the laws and
precedents in place at the time the patent application was submitted, rather than basing the
merits of authorizing the patent on the subsequent rulings in “Alice” and “DDR,” which were
unknown to the inventor at the time of the patent filing. Finally, the inventor requests that the
patent examiner take into consideration that there is a significant amount of uncertainty in the
current patent law with regard to the merits of authorizing software applications that perform
a business method as patent-eligible material. Given this current level of uncertainty, it is the
inventor’s belief that the patent application should be authorized, and that any future patent
infringement issues be handled in a future court of law. With this in mind, the applicant
respectfully requests that a timely Notice of Allowance be issued in this case.