CAFC Approves Alice Step Two Inquiry in Alice Step One
“[W]e recognize that it may be necessary for us to analyze conventionality both at step one and step two. For example, to determine if a claim is directed towards a longstanding human practice or to determine the claimed advance in the prior art.” – CAFC opinion
The U.S. Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit (CAFC), today issued a precedent decision affirming a court’s ruling that patent claims relating to “receiving meta- The CAFC rejected the patent owner’s argument that the district courts improperly conducted an Alice step two investigation at Alice step one. Judge Reyna authored this opinion.
The patent holder, Broadband, ITV, Inc., (BBiTV), filed a lawsuit against Amazon in the Western District of Texas, claiming infringement of five general patents covering electronic programming guides for TV. Four of the five patents belong to the same family, and they all claim priority over the same patent (represented as U.S. Patent No. The U.S. Patent No. 10,028,026, which represents the four patents in the same family, claims priority to that patent. One of them is unrelated, but covers similar technology. 9,973,825). The district court agreed and granted summary judgment to Amazon based on separate analyses under Alice v. CLS Bank of each of the ‘026 and ‘825 patents. The district judge agreed and granted Amazon summary judgment based on separate analyses of each of these patents under Alice v. CLS Bank. BBiTV cited the CAFC’s Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. decisions. LG Elecs., Inc., v. 880 F.3d. 1356, 1361(Fed. Cir. Cir. LLC v. Google LLC, 906 F.3d 999, 1011 (Fed. Cir. Cir. In Core Wireless, Federal Circuit held that claims relating to “a particular manner of summarizing information in electronic devices”, were not abstract. In Data Engine, Federal Circuit held that claims relating to “a specific method for navigating three-dimensional electronic worksheets” were also not abstract. However, explained the CAFC, with respect to BBiTV’s claims:
“Unlike the claims in Core Wireless or Data Engine, the ‘026 patent family claims are not directed to an improved structure or function of a user interface. The claims are directed at a program guide which is a form of user interface. Core Wireless and Data Engine require an improved structure or function that is missing here. The court rejected BBiTV’s argument that the templates provided a specific structure similar to Core Wireless and Data Engine. Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2016), the court noted it has “observed that steps one and two are ‘plainly related’ and patent eligibility may ‘involve overlapping scrutiny of the content of the claims.'” The opinion explained:
“This is not to say that the steps may be conflated or that a particular step may be disregarded. The step one analysis doesn’t require us to ‘exclude any possibility that any particular innovative means are to be located somewhere in the claim.’ Id. The CAFC wrote that the district court’s decision that the claimed templates are “merely a generic environment” and their use is “a routine and traditional practice” at Alice step 1 “does not change the outcome at Step One because the claims do not provide a technological solution for template technology or an improved server.” “To put it another way, analyzing conventionality at step one for the claimed content management system is appropriate to determine what the claims are directed towards.”
BBiTV argued that three aspects of the claim transformed them into something more than an abstract idea. However, the CAFC rejected each of these arguments. The CAFC concluded that these aspects were “claim elements or combination of claim elements” that are routine, traditional or well-understood and, therefore, “cannot transform” the claims. At step two, the CAFC agreed with the district court’s analysis of the intrinsic record and said BBiTV’s arguments that the claims are transformative again merely restate the abstract idea.
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Eileen McDermott
Eileen McDermott, Editor-in Chief of IPWatchdog.com is a veteran IP and legal journalist. Eileen McDermott is a veteran IP journalist and has held editorial and management positions at
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