Followers of the USPTO’s updated patent eligibility guidance issued this past July will note that the PTO rebuffs the calls for examiners to provide evidence proving up any assertion of an abstract idea. The Office places great weight on the fact that in the Bilski case no evidence of an abstract idea was provided to the US district court. The Office reasons therefore that the appellate courts — which are charged with merely reviewing the record below — could not have based their Bilski decisions on any evidence of an abstract idea.
Here is a link to an interesting article that describes the ways that new evidence can be considered on appeal: [Link].