United States Court of Appeals
`for the Federal Circuit
`______________________
`
`SOLUTRAN, INC.,
`Plaintiff-Cross-Appellant
`
`v.
`
`ELAVON, INC., U.S. BANCORP,
`Defendants-Appellants
`______________________
`
`2019-1345, 2019-1460
`______________________
`
`Appeals from the United States District Court for the
`District of Minnesota in No. 0:13-cv-02637-SRN-BRT,
`Judge Susan Richard Nelson.
`______________________
`
`Decided: July 30, 2019
`______________________
`
`ROBERT JAMES GILBERTSON, Greene Espel, PLLP, Min-
`neapolis, MN, argued for plaintiff-cross-appellant. Also
`represented by SYBIL LOUISE DUNLOP, DAVID WALLACE-
`JACKSON.
`
` JOHN THOMAS VITT, Jones Day, Minneapolis, MN, ar-
`gued for defendants-appellants. Also represented by
`GREGORY A. CASTANIAS, Washington, DC; PETER
`MCCREERY LANCASTER, TIMOTHY J. DROSKE, BEN DESMOND
`KAPPELMAN, Dorsey & Whitney LLP, Minneapolis, MN.
` ______________________
`
`
`

`

`2
`
`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`Before CHEN, HUGHES, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.
`
`CHEN, Circuit Judge.
`
`U.S. Bancorp and its affiliate Elavon, Inc. (collectively,
`U.S. Bank) appeal orders in the United States District
`Court for the District of Minnesota (1) denying U.S. Bank’s
`motion for summary judgment that claims 1–5 of U.S. Pa-
`tent No. 8,311,945 (’945 patent), assigned to Solutran, Inc.
`(Solutran), are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for failing to
`recite patent-eligible subject matter and (2) granting So-
`lutran’s motion for summary judgment that Solutran’s
`products infringe claims 1–5 of the ’945 patent. Solutran
`cross-appeals, arguing that the district court abused its
`discretion when it denied Solutran the ability to amend its
`complaint to include a claim for willful infringement after
`the deadline set out in the scheduling order.
`
`Because we agree with U.S. Bank that claims 1–5 of
`Solutran’s patent are invalid under § 101, we reverse.
`
`BACKGROUND
`
`A. The ’945 Patent
`
`The ’945 patent, issued in 2012, describes a system and
`method for processing paper checks. ’945 patent. The pa-
`tent explains that in the past, the payee would transport
`the check to his or her own bank to be read and processed,
`then the payee’s bank would transport the check to the
`payor’s bank, where it also would be read and processed.
`Id. at col. 1, ll. 30–39. At this point, the payor’s bank would
`debit the payor’s account and transfer the money to the
`payee’s bank, which would credit the payee’s account. Id.
`at col. 1, ll. 39–45.
`
`The Background section of the ’945 patent explains
`that the digital age ushered in a faster approach to pro-
`cessing checks, where the transaction information—e.g.,
`amount of the transaction, routing and account number—
`on the check is turned into a digital file at the merchant’s
`
`

`

`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`3
`
`point of sale (POS) terminal. Id. at col. 1, l. 51 – col. 2, l. 8,
`col. 4, ll. 51–58 (at the point of purchase, “the merchant
`keys, or applies amount captured at POS, into the terminal
`the amount of the purchase” and “passes the check through
`a MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) reader to cap-
`ture the consumer’s account number, routing number of
`the financial institution holding the account, and the check
`number”). The digital check information is sent electroni-
`cally over the Internet or other network, id. at col. 1, ll. 54–
`61, and the funds are then transferred electronically from
`one account to another. Id. at col. 2, ll. 5–8. By converting
`the check information into digital form, it no longer was
`always necessary to physically move the paper check from
`one entity to another to debit or credit the accounts. Id. at
`col. 2, ll. 1–5. But retaining the checks was still useful for,
`among other things, verifying accuracy of the transaction
`data entered into the digital file. Id. at col. 2, ll. 11–15. It
`was well-known that merchants could optionally capture a
`digital image of the check at the point of purchase. Id. at
`col. 2, ll. 61–63, col. 4, ll. 58–59, FIG. 1; see also id. at col.
`2, ll. 30–31 (“The original check can be scanned and its dig-
`ital image stored for later use . . . .”).
`
`The patent also discloses a method proposed by the Na-
`tional Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA)
`for “back office conversion” where merchants scan their
`checks in a back office, typically at the end of the day, id.
`at col. 2, l. 65 – col. 3, l. 1, “instead of at the purchase ter-
`minal,” id. at col. 5, ll. 2–4, FIG. 2. A scanner captures an
`image of the check, and MICR data from the check is stored
`with the image. Id. at col. 3, ll. 1–2. An image file contain-
`ing this information can be transferred to a bank or third-
`party payment processor. Id. at col. 3, ll. 2–4.
`
`The patent describes its invention as a system and
`method of electronically processing checks in which (1)
`“data from the checks is captured at the point of purchase,”
`(2) “this data is used to promptly process a deposit to the
`merchant’s account,” (3) the paper checks are moved
`
`

`

`4
`
`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`elsewhere “for scanning and image capture,” and (4) “the
`image of the check is matched up to the data file.” Id. at
`col. 3, ll. 16–46. The proffered benefits include “improved
`funds availability” for merchants and allegedly “reliev[ing
`merchants] of the task, cost, and risk of scanning and de-
`stroying the paper checks themselves, relying instead on a
`secure, high-volume scanning operation to obtain digital
`images of the checks.” Id. at col. 3, ll. 46–62. Solutran ex-
`plains that its method allows merchants to get their ac-
`counts credited sooner, without having to wait for the check
`scanning step.
`
`The court treated claim 1 as representative, which the
`parties do not dispute. See J.A. 47. Claim 1 recites:
`
`1. A method for processing paper checks, compris-
`ing:
`
`a) electronically receiving a data file containing
`data captured at a merchant’s point of purchase,
`said data including an amount of a transaction as-
`sociated with MICR information for each paper
`check, and said data file not including images of
`said checks;
`
`b) after step a), crediting an account for the mer-
`chant;
`
`c) after step b), receiving said paper checks and
`scanning said checks with a digital image scanner
`thereby creating digital images of said checks and,
`for each said check, associating said digital image
`with said check’s MICR information; and
`
`d) comparing by a computer said digital images,
`with said data in the data file to find matches.
`
`Id. at claim 1.
`
`

`

`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`5
`
`B. District Court and CBM Proceedings
`
`Solutran sued U.S. Bank in the United States District
`Court for the District of Minnesota, alleging infringement
`of claims 1–5 of the ’945 patent. U.S. Bank filed an answer
`and counterclaims alleging, inter alia, that it did not in-
`fringe and that the asserted claims were invalid under
`§ 101. U.S. Bank later filed a motion for summary judg-
`ment that the ’945 patent was invalid because it did not
`recite patent-eligible subject matter under § 101, specifi-
`cally because the claims were directed to the “abstract idea
`of delaying and outsourcing the scanning of paper checks.”
`See J.A. 50. The district court disagreed, concluding that
`the claims were not directed to an abstract idea and the
`’945 patent was therefore patent-eligible.
`
`The district court found a previous covered business
`method (CBM) review of the ’945 patent by the Patent Trial
`and Appeal Board (Board) persuasive in reaching its deter-
`mination. J.A. 52 n.5. In August 2014—two months after
`the Supreme Court issued its Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS
`Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), decision—the
`Board issued an institution decision denying the petition
`as to the § 101 challenge, concluding that claim 1 of the
`’945 patent was not directed to an abstract idea. U.S. Ban-
`corp v. Solutran, Inc., No. CBM2014-00076, 2014 WL
`3943913 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 7, 2014). The Board reasoned that
`“the basic, core concept of independent claim 1 is a method
`of processing paper checks, which is more akin to a physical
`process than an abstract idea.” Id. at *8. “Indeed, there is
`nothing immediately apparent about this basic, core con-
`cept that would indicate that it is directed to an abstract
`idea at all.” Id.
`
`The district court’s reasoning aligned with the Board’s.
`The district court focused on the physical nature of checks’
`processing and movement and accused U.S. Bank of im-
`properly construing the claim to “a high level of abstrac-
`tion.” J.A. 51–57. The district court distinguished U.S.
`
`

`

`6
`
`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`Bank’s cited Federal Circuit and Board decisions involving
`check-related patents on the basis that the ’945 patent, in
`its view, is directed to an improved technique for pro-
`cessing and transporting physical checks, rather than just
`handling data that had been scanned from the checks. J.A.
`55.
`
`The district court concluded, in the alternative, that
`the asserted claims also recited an inventive concept under
`step two of Alice. The district court accepted Solutran’s as-
`sertion that “Claim 1’s elements describe a new combina-
`tion of steps, in an ordered sequence, that was never found
`before in the prior art and has been found to be a non-obvi-
`ous improvement over the prior art by both the USPTO ex-
`aminer and the PTAB’s three-judge panel (affirmed by the
`Federal Circuit).”1 J.A. 58. The district court also con-
`cluded that the claim passes the machine-or-transfor-
`mation test because “the physical paper check
`is
`transformed into a different state or thing, namely into a
`digital image.” J.A. 59.
`
`U.S. Bank appeals, inter alia, the § 101 ruling. So-
`lutran cross-appeals on the issue of willful infringement.
`We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).
`
`DISCUSSION
`
`Patent eligibility under § 101 is a question of law that
`may contain underlying issues of fact. Interval Licensing
`LLC v. AOL, Inc., 896 F.3d 1335, 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (cit-
`ing Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881 F.3d 1360, 1365 (Fed. Cir.
`
`
`
`1 CBM2014-00076, which this court affirmed, only
`included an obviousness challenge to the ’945 patent, as the
`§ 101 challenge had already been denied at institution. See
`U.S. Bancorp v. Solutran, Inc., No. CBM2014-00076, 2015
`WL 4698463, at *17 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 5, 2015); U.S. Bancorp
`v. Solutran, Inc., 668 F. App’x 363, 364 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
`
`

`

`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`7
`
`2018)). We review an ultimate conclusion on patent eligi-
`bility de novo. See id.
`
`The Supreme Court has held that certain categories of
`
`subject matter, including abstract ideas, are not eligible for
`patent protection under § 101. Mayo Collaborative Servs.
`v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 70 (2012). “The ‘ab-
`stract ideas’ category embodies the longstanding rule that
`an idea of itself is not patentable.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 218
`(internal brackets and quotation marks omitted). To deter-
`mine whether claimed subject matter is patent-eligible, we
`apply the two-step framework explained in Alice. Id. First,
`we “determine whether the claims at issue are directed to
`a patent-ineligible concept” such as an abstract idea. Id.
`Second, if so, we “examine the elements of the claim to de-
`termine whether it contains an ‘inventive concept’ suffi-
`cient to ‘transform’ the claimed abstract idea into a patent-
`eligible application.” Id. at 221 (internal quotation marks
`omitted) (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 72, 80). At each step,
`the claims are considered as a whole. See id. at 218 n.3,
`225.
`
`1. Step One
`
`We agree with U.S. Bank that the claims of the ’945
`patent are directed to an abstract idea, although we artic-
`ulate it a bit differently than U.S. Bank does. We conclude
`that the claims are directed to the abstract idea of crediting
`a merchant’s account as early as possible while electroni-
`cally processing a check.
`
`We have previously ruled that certain transaction
`claims performed in a particular order or sequence are di-
`rected to abstract ideas. In Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu,
`LLC, 772 F.3d 709 (Fed. Cir. 2014), the claims at issue were
`drawn to a method for distribution of copyrighted content
`over the Internet including the steps of, inter alia, receiv-
`ing media from a content provider, selecting an ad, offering
`the media to the consumer in exchange for watching the
`ad, displaying the ad, then allowing the consumer to access
`
`

`

`8
`
`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`the media. Id. at 714–15. We determined that the ordered
`combination of steps recited “an abstraction—an idea, hav-
`ing no particular concrete or tangible form.” Id. at 715. We
`defined the abstract idea as “showing an advertisement be-
`fore delivering free content.” Id. “Because the innovative
`aspect of the claimed invention [wa]s an entrepreneurial
`rather than a technological one,” we deemed the invention
`patent-ineligible. Id. at 722.
`
`Aside from the timing of the account crediting step, the
`’945 patent claims recite elements similar to those in Con-
`tent Extraction & Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank,
`National Ass’n, 776 F.3d 1343 (Fed. Cir. 2014). There, we
`held that a method of extracting and then processing infor-
`mation from hard copy documents, including paper checks,
`was drawn to the abstract idea of collecting data, recogniz-
`ing certain data within the collected data set, and storing
`that recognized data in a memory. Id. at 1347. We ex-
`plained that “[t]he concept of data collection, recognition,
`and storage is undisputedly well-known”; “[i]ndeed, hu-
`mans have always performed these functions.” Id. We also
`recognized that “banks have, for some time, reviewed
`checks, recognized relevant data such as the amount, ac-
`count number, and identity of account holder, and stored
`that information in their records.” Id. Here, too, the claims
`recite basic steps of electronic check processing. In its
`background, the ’945 patent explains that “there has been
`an industry transition to the electronic processing of
`checks[, including] the recordation of the data . . . pre-
`sented by the check into a digital format which can then be
`transferred electronically.” Id. at col. 1, ll. 53–57, col. 1, ll.
`61–62. It had become standard for the merchant to capture
`the check’s transaction amount and MICR data at the point
`of purchase. Id. at col. 4, ll. 52–58, FIG. 1. Further, the
`patent’s background explains that verifying the accuracy of
`the transaction information stored in the digital file
`
`

`

`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`9
`
`against the check was already common.2 Id. at col. 2, ll.
`13–15.
`
`Crediting a merchant’s account as early as possible
`while electronically processing a check is a concept similar
`to those determined to be abstract by the Supreme Court
`in Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593 (2010) and Alice. In Bil-
`ski, the Supreme Court determined that claims directed to
`“the basic concept of hedging, or protecting against risk”
`recited “a fundamental economic practice long prevalent in
`our system of commerce and taught in any introductory fi-
`nance class” and therefore “an unpatentable abstract idea.”
`561 U.S. at 611–12. In Alice, the Supreme Court deemed
`“a method of exchanging financial obligations between two
`parties using a third-party intermediary to mitigate settle-
`ment risk” to be an abstract idea. 573 U.S. at 219. The
`desire to credit a merchant’s account as soon as possible is
`an equally long-standing commercial practice.
`
`Solutran argues that the claims “as a whole” are not
`directed to an abstract idea. See, e.g., Cross-Appellant’s
`Op. Br. at 38. The ’945 patent articulates two benefits of
`its invention: (1) “improved funds availability” because the
`merchant’s account is credited before the check is scanned
`or verified; and (2) relieving merchants of the task, cost,
`and risk of scanning and destroying paper checks by out-
`sourcing those tasks. ’945 patent at col. 3, ll. 38–64. At
`oral argument, Solutran’s counsel conceded that the claims
`are not limited to an embodiment that requires outsourc-
`ing. Oral Argument at 25:36–26:09 (“Claim 1 doesn’t re-
`quire that it be done by someone other than the
`merchant . . . .”). The only advance recited in the asserted
`claims is thus crediting the merchant’s account before the
`
`
`
`2 Solutran does not contend that using a digital ra-
`ther than paper version of the check for that comparison is
`inventive.
`
`

`

`10
`
`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`paper check is scanned. We conclude that this is an ab-
`stract idea.
`
`This is not a situation where the claims “are directed
`to a specific improvement to the way computers operate”
`and therefore not directed to an abstract idea, as in cases
`such as Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1336
`(Fed. Cir. 2016). Solutran’s counsel acknowledged at oral
`argument that the ’945 patent’s invention did not improve
`the technical capture of information from a check to create
`a digital file or the technical step of electronically crediting
`a bank account. See, e.g., Oral Argument at 23:40–24:12
`(“So I grant you that there is not a specific technical change
`in the way the data file is constructed or in the way the
`crediting occurs . . . .”), 33:14–33:29. Nor does the ’945 pa-
`tent invention improve how a check is scanned. This is also
`not a situation where the claims are “limited to rules with
`specific characteristics” to create a technical effect and
`therefore not directed to an abstract idea, as in McRO, Inc.
`v. Bandai Namco Games America Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1313
`(Fed. Cir. 2016). To the contrary, the claims are written at
`a distinctly high level of generality.
`
`We do not agree that U.S. Bank “improperly con-
`strue[d] Claim 1 to ‘a high level of abstraction.’” J.A. 51
`(quoting Enfish, 822 F.3d at 1337). In Enfish, the district
`court and the appellees generalized the claims such that
`their characterization of the alleged abstract idea was “un-
`tethered from the language of the claims.” See Enfish, 822
`F.3d at 1337. That is not the case here; rather, both our
`characterization and U.S. Bank’s characterization are di-
`rectly tethered to the claim language. We understand that
`it may be difficult at times to determine what the correct
`level of abstraction is to characterize the claims. After all,
`“all inventions at some level embody, use, reflect, rest
`upon, or apply laws of nature, natural phenomena, or ab-
`stract ideas.” Mayo, 566 U.S. at 71. We share the Supreme
`Court’s concern that “too broad an interpretation of this ex-
`clusionary principle could eviscerate patent law.” Id. But
`
`

`

`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`11
`
`where, as here, the abstract idea tracks the claim language
`and accurately captures what the patent asserts to be the
`“focus of the claimed advance over the prior art,” Affinity
`Labs of Texas, LLC v. DIRECTV, LLC, 838 F.3d 1253, 1257
`(Fed. Cir. 2016), characterizing the claim as being directed
`to an abstract idea is appropriate. Moreover, the specifica-
`tion states, and Solutran does not dispute, that the steps of
`the claim are conventional processes for processing checks
`electronically.
`
`Contrary to Solutran’s arguments, the physicality of
`the paper checks being processed and transported is not by
`itself enough to exempt the claims from being directed to
`an abstract idea. As we explained in In re Marco Gul-
`denaar Holding B.V., 911 F.3d 1157, 1161 (Fed. Cir. 2018),
`“the abstract idea exception does not turn solely on
`whether the claimed invention comprises physical versus
`mental steps.” In fact, “[t]he claimed methods in Bilski and
`Alice also recited actions that occurred in the physical
`world.” Id. We have likewise determined that a method
`for voting that involved steps of printing and handling
`physical election ballots, Voter Verified, Inc. v. Election Sys.
`& Software LLC, 887 F.3d 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2018), and a
`method of using a physical bankcard, Smart Sys. Innova-
`tions, LLC v. Chi. Transit Auth., 873 F.3d 1364 (Fed. Cir.
`2017), were abstract ideas. And the Supreme Court has
`concluded that diagnostic methods that involve physical
`administration steps are directed to a natural law. Mayo,
`566 U.S. at 92. The physical nature of processing paper
`checks in this case does not require a different result,
`where the claims simply recite conventional actions in a
`generic way (e.g., capture data for a file, scan check, move
`check to a second location, such as a back room) and do not
`purport to improve any underlying technology
`
`The district court’s and Solutran’s reliance on the pa-
`per checks being processed in two “different location[s]” via
`two paths as preventing the claims from being directed to
`an abstract idea is also misplaced. See, e.g., J.A. 51; Cross-
`
`

`

`12
`
`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`Appellant’s Op. Br. at 39–40, 42–43, 46, 48–49. The claims
`on their face are broad enough to allow the transaction data
`to be captured at the merchant’s point of purchase and the
`checks to be scanned and compared in the merchant’s back
`office. The location of the scanning and comparison—
`whether it occurs down the hallway, down the street, or
`across the city—does not detract from the conclusion that
`these claims are, at bottom, directed to getting the mer-
`chant’s account credited from a customer’s purchase as
`soon as possible, which is an abstract idea.
`
`2. Step Two
`
`We disagree with the district court that the ’945 patent
`claims “contain a sufficiently transformative inventive con-
`cept so as to be patent eligible.” See J.A. 60. Even when
`viewed as a whole, these claims “do not, for example, pur-
`port to improve the functioning of the computer itself” or
`“effect an improvement in any other technology or tech-
`nical field.” See Alice, 573 U.S. at 225. To the contrary, as
`the claims in Ultramercial did, the claims of the ’945 patent
`“simply instruct the practitioner to implement the abstract
`idea with routine, conventional activity.” 772 F.3d at 715.
`As we noted above, the background of the ’945 patent de-
`scribes each individual step in claim 1 as being conven-
`tional. Reordering the steps so that account crediting
`occurs before check scanning (as opposed to the other way
`around) represents the abstract idea in the claim, making
`it insufficient to constitute an inventive concept. Id. Any
`remaining elements in the claims, including use of a scan-
`ner and computer and “routine data-gathering steps” (i.e.,
`receipt of the data file), have been deemed insufficient by
`this court in the past to constitute an inventive concept.
`Content Extraction, 776 F.3d at 1349 (conventional use of
`computers and scanners); OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com,
`Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (routine data-
`gathering steps).
`
`

`

`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`13
`
`To the extent Solutran argues that these claims are pa-
`tent-eligible because they are allegedly novel and non-ob-
`vious, see Cross-Appellant’s Op. Br. at 49, 52, 54–55, 63,
`67, we have previously explained that merely reciting an
`abstract idea by itself in a claim—even if the idea is novel
`and non-obvious—is not enough to save it from ineligibil-
`ity. See, e.g., Synopsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp., 839
`F.3d 1138, 1151 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“[A] claim for a new ab-
`stract idea is still an abstract idea.” (emphasis in original)).
`
`Solutran also argues on appeal that its claims pass the
`
`machine-or-transformation test—i.e., “transformation and
`reduction of an article ‘to a different state or thing.’” See
`Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 70 (1972). While the
`Supreme Court has explained that the machine-or-trans-
`formation test can provide a “useful clue” in the second step
`of Alice, passing the test alone is insufficient to overcome
`Solutran’s above-described failings under step two. See
`DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245,
`1256 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (“[I]n Mayo, the Supreme Court em-
`phasized that satisfying the machine-or-transformation
`test, by itself, is not sufficient to render a claim patent-eli-
`gible, as not all transformations or machine implementa-
`tions infuse an otherwise ineligible claim with an
`‘inventive concept.’”).
`
`In any respect, we disagree with Solutran that the
`claims pass the test. Solutran reads the analysis in In re
`Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 962–63 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc),
`which the Supreme Court explicitly declined to follow, as
`supporting its argument that “scanning . . . paper checks
`with a digital-image scanner to create images of the
`checks” alone passes the machine-or-transformation test.
`See Appellant’s Op. Br. at 65 (relying on discussion of In re
`Abele, 684 F.2d 902 (C.C.P.A. 1982) in In re Bilski, 545 F.3d
`at 962–63). Regardless of whether our Bilski opinion’s
`analysis of Abele is still sound in view of recent Supreme
`Court opinions, Solutran’s check-scanning argument di-
`rectly conflicts with Content Extraction. Merely using a
`
`

`

`14
`
`SOLUTRAN, INC. v. ELAVON, INC.
`
`general-purpose computer and scanner to perform conven-
`tional activities in the way they always have, as the claims
`do here, does not amount to an inventive concept. See Con-
`tent Extraction, 776 F.3d at 1348–49; Ultramercial, 772
`F.3d at 716–17.
`
`Because the claims of the ’945 patent recite the ab-
`stract idea of using data from a check to credit a merchant’s
`account before scanning the check, and because the claims
`do not contain an inventive concept sufficient to transform
`this abstract idea into a patent-eligible application, the
`claims are not directed to patent-eligible subject matter un-
`der § 101. We therefore need not review U.S. Bank’s alter-
`native § 103 argument or Solutran’s cross-appeal relating
`to a potential willful infringement claim. We have consid-
`ered the parties’ remaining arguments and find them un-
`persuasive. Accordingly, we reverse.
`
`REVERSED
`
`