Case: 20-1061 Document: 58 Page: 1 Filed: 09/08/2020
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
ANGADBIR SINGH SALWAN,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
ANDREI IANCU, UNDER SECRETARY OF
COMMERCE FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
AND DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES
PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2020-1061
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Virginia in No. 1:18-cv-01543-LMB-
TCB, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema.
------------------------------------------------------------
ANGADBIR SINGH SALWAN,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
ANDREI IANCU, UNDER SECRETARY OF
COMMERCE FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
AND DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES
Case: 20-1061 Document: 58 Page: 2 Filed: 09/08/2020
2 SALWAN v. IANCU
PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2020-1301
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Virginia in No. 1:18-cv-01543-LMB-
TCB, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema.
______________________
Decided: September 8, 2020
______________________
ANGADBIR SINGH SALWAN, Bethesda, MD, pro se.
MAI-TRANG DUC DANG, Office of the Solicitor, United
States Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, for
defendant-appellee. Also represented by KAKOLI
CAPRIHAN, THOMAS W. KRAUSE; KIMERE JANE KIMBALL, Of-
fice of the United States Attorney for the Eastern District
of Virginia, United States Department of Justice, Alexan-
dria, VA. Also represented by FARHEENA YASMEEN
RASHEED, Office of the Solicitor, United States Patent and
Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, in 2020-1061.
______________________
Before O’MALLEY, REYNA, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Angadbir Singh Salwan (“Salwan”) appeals the United
States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia’s
grant of summary judgment in an action brought under 35
U.S.C. § 145. Salwan v. Iancu, No. 1:18-CV-1543, 2019 WL
4144308 (E.D. Va. Aug. 30, 2019). For the foregoing rea-
sons, we affirm the district court’s decision.
Case: 20-1061 Document: 58 Page: 3 Filed: 09/08/2020
SALWAN v. IANCU 3
BACKGROUND
Salwan is listed as the inventor on U.S. Patent Appli-
cation No. 15/188,000 (“the ’000 application”). The ’000 ap-
plication, titled “Physician to Patient Network System for
Real-Time Electronic Communications & Transfer of Pa-
tient Health Information,” discloses “a private [and] secure
infrastructure for independently practicing physicians and
patients for real-time electronic communication [and]
transfer of patient health information.” J.A. 276. The ap-
plication contemplates exchange of patient health infor-
mation, including electronic medical records data (“EMR”)
data and billing data, between physicians, patients, and
healthcare product manufacturers. Claim 1 is representa-
tive:
1. An EMR computing system for exchanging pa-
tient health information among healthcare user
groups or the healthcare user group and patients
over a network, the system comprising:
a central computer program embodied in a com-
puter readable medium or embodied in a central
server and a central database storing patient EMR
data for access by authorized users, the central
computer program configured to:
communicate through at least one com-
puter program, which includes EMR and
billing software, with at least one private
database for a healthcare user group, the
database comprising at least patient EMR
and billing data, and accounting data con-
fidential for the healthcare user group;
receive from the at least one private data-
base EMR data including at least one of
health problems, medications, diagnosis,
prescriptions, notes written by a
healthcare service provider, diagnostic test
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4 SALWAN v. IANCU
results or patient accounts data for storing
in the central database, wherein the
healthcare user group’s confidential ac-
counts data including one or more insur-
ance companies accounts data, is not
received;
selectively retrieve the stored EMR data,
generate one or more healthcare reports in-
cluding one or more of health problem list,
medication list, diagnoses report, prescrip-
tion, diagnostic test result report, patient
billing report; and
transmit one or more healthcare reports to
an authorized healthcare user group or the
authorized patient for reviewing.
J.A. 296.
The ’000 application claims priority to Salwan’s U.S.
Patent Application No. 12/587,101 (“the ’101 application”),
which similarly disclosed and claimed methods of transfer-
ring patient health information in a physician-to-patient
network, similarly accessible by “physicians, patients,
healthcare product suppliers, and related government
agencies.” In re Salwan, 681 F. App’x 938, 939 (Fed. Cir.
2017) (“Salwan I”). During prosecution, the examiner re-
jected the claims of the ’101 application as directed to pa-
tent ineligible subject matter. The Patent Trial and Appeal
Board (“the Board”) affirmed the rejection and we affirmed
the Board’s decision. Id. at 941.
As to the prosecution of the ’000 application at issue in
this case, the examiner likewise rejected the pending
claims as directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. The
Board affirmed the examiner’s rejections and denied Sal-
wan’s request for rehearing. Rather than appeal directly
to this court, Salwan filed this action against the United
States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) in the
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SALWAN v. IANCU 5
Eastern District of Virginia, pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 145.
The parties agreed to proceed on the administrative record
and filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The dis-
trict court granted the USPTO’s motion and denied Sal-
wan’s motion, determining that the Board had properly
concluded that the claims of the ’000 application were di-
rected to patent ineligible subject matter. In reaching this
conclusion, the court noted that the claims at issue in this
case “relate[] to underlying subject matter nearly identical
to” that in the ’101 application, and that “[t]he conclusions
in Salwan I with respect to the ’101 Application apply with
equal force here.” Salwan, 2019 WL 4144308, at *5.
Salwan moved to amend the district court’s judgment
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59. While this mo-
tion was pending, Salwan filed another motion, this time
seeking recusal of the district court judge and requesting
reassignment to a new judge based on alleged false state-
ments in the court’s opinion. J.A. 528–29. The court de-
nied Salwan’s recusal motion and Salwan filed a notice of
appeal (Case No. 20-1061). Subsequently, the district court
denied Salwan’s Rule 59 motion and Salwan filed another
notice of appeal challenging the court’s summary judgment
decision, and alleging, once again, that the district court
judge, Judge Brinkerma, was biased against him (Case No.
20-1031). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §
1295(a)(4)(C). Given the overlap between the two appeals,
we address them together.
DISCUSSION
In reviewing the grant of a motion for summary judg-
ment we apply the law of the regional circuit in which the
district court sits. AbbVie Deutschland GmbH & Co., KG
v. Janssen Biotech, Inc., 759 F.3d 1285, 1295 (Fed. Cir.
2014). The Fourth Circuit reviews the grant of a summary
judgment motion de novo, “applying the same standard
that the district court was required to apply.” Calloway v.
Lokey, 948 F.3d 194, 201 (4th Cir. 2020). In a Section 145
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6 SALWAN v. IANCU
action where, as here, the parties agree to proceed on the
administrative record, the district court reviews the
Board’s decision under applicable Administrative Proce-
dures Act (“APA”) standards. Hyatt v. Kappos, 625 F.3d
1320, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2010), aff’d and remanded, 566 U.S.
431 (2012). Under the APA, the Board’s legal conclusions
are reviewed de novo and its factual findings are reviewed
for substantial evidence. HTC Corp. v. Cellular Commc’ns
Equip., LLC, 877 F.3d 1361, 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2017).
Salwan challenges the district court’s conclusions re-
garding patent-eligibility of his rejected claims and the
court’s denial of his recusal motion under 28 U.S.C. 455(a).
We address each in turn.
A.
Absent a “genuine issue of material fact regarding
whether the claim element or claimed combination is well-
understood, routine, conventional to a skilled artisan in the
relevant field,” whether a claim recites patent eligible sub-
ject matter “can be decided on summary judgment as a
matter of law.” Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881 F.3d 1360, 1368
(Fed. Cir. 2018).
We agree with the USPTO that our review of the dis-
trict court’s decision on the patent eligibility of Salwan’s
claims must parallel our decision in Salwan I. In Salwan
I, applying the Alice two-step framework, we concluded
that Salwan’s application was directed to “a method of or-
ganizing human activity with respect to medical infor-
mation.” Salwan I, 681 F. App’x at 941 (internal
quotations omitted). Under Alice Step One, we concluded
that the claims at issue were directed to “the abstract idea
of billing insurance companies and organizing patient
health information.” Id. at 940. And, under Alice Step
Two, we determined that the inclusion of terms like a ge-
neric “network,” “computer program,” and “central server,”
are insufficient to transform an abstract idea into a patent-
eligible invention. Id. at 941.
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SALWAN v. IANCU 7
Comparing the claims of the ’101 application at issue
in Salwan I, and the claims of the ’000 application at issue
here, reveals that both sets of claims are directed to com-
munication of patient health information over a physician-
patient network and both sets of claims require receipt and
storage of patient health information data. The claims at
issue in both applications read on organizing human activ-
ity with respect to medical information, i.e., abstract pro-
cesses that can be performed by an individual.
Any additional claim limitations, moreover, do not
transform the abstract idea into patent-eligible subject
matter. Salwan I is again instructive. The claims in the
’000 application recite additional method steps identical to
the ones in the ’101 application. In Salwan I, we stated,
“[g]iven that the claims are directed to well-known busi-
ness practices, the claimed elements of a generic ‘network,’
‘computer program,’ ‘central server,’ ‘device,’ and ‘server for
processing and transferring’ are simply not enough to
transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible inven-
tion.” Id. (citing Alice Corp. Pty. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S.
208, 223 (2014)). Here, too, Salwan’s claims merely recite
well-known process related to organizing patient health,
insurance, and billing information, and add the require-
ment of implementing them on a computer. Thus, like in
Salwan I, we conclude that the recited method steps do not
transform the abstract idea into patent-eligible subject
matter.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court on this point.
B.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), “[a]ny justice, judge, or mag-
istrate of the United States shall disqualify himself in any
proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be
questioned.” The Fourth Circuit reviews a district judge’s
refusal to recuse for abuse of discretion. United States v.
DeTemple, 162 F.3d 279, 283 (4th Cir. 1998). As the Su-
preme Court has explained, “judicial rulings alone almost
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8 SALWAN v. IANCU
never constitute a valid basis for a bias or partiality mo-
tion.” Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 (1994).
On appeal, Salwan contends the district court judge
made six materially false statements in deciding the sum-
mary judgment motion against him, which warrant her
recusal. 1 Absent a “display [of] deep-seated favoritism or
antagonism . . . mak[ing] . . . fair judgment impossible,”
however, a judge’s opinions based on the record do not con-
stitute a basis for a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 455. Liteky,
510 U.S. at 555. While Salwan may disagree with the
judge’s characterizations of the record and conclusions
based thereon, that does not turn the judge’s findings into
antagonistic “false statements.” Our agreement with the
district court’s rulings firmly underscores this conclusion.
We find no abuse of discretion in the denial of Salwan’s mo-
tion for recusal.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s opinion is
affirmed.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
The parties shall bear their own costs.
1 We note that Salwan has a history of accusing ju-
dicial officers and court personnel of bias against him upon
entry of a dissatisfying decision, most recently, in this very
case upon denial of his motion for an oral hearing. See ECF
No. 27; see also Order, Salwan v. Iancu, No. 20-1301 (Fed.
Cir. July 27, 2020).