Virtually Done: Computer Visualization Patents Are Ineligible for Protection | McDermott Will & Emery
Addressing subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s finding that patents related to computer visualizations of medical scans were patent ineligible. AI Visualize, Inc. v. Nuance Communications, Inc., Case No. 22-2019 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 4, 2024) (Moore, Reyna, Hughes, JJ.)
AI Visualize asserted four related patents, each having a substantially similar specification and the same title, against Nuance Communications. The patents are generally directed at systems and methods for users to virtually view a volume visualization dataset (a three-dimensional collection of data representing the scanned area of an MRI) on a computer without having to transmit or locally store the entirety of the dataset.
Nuance moved to dismiss the case, asserting that the claims were directed to patent-ineligible subject matter and invalid under § 101. The district court applied the two-step Alice inquiry to the claims, which the parties had grouped into three representative claims:
- Claims where a web application directs the server to check what frames of a virtual view are stored locally and creates any additional frames necessary to create and display the virtual view of the medical image.
- Claims with the further requirement that any previously requested virtual view be given a unique key, which the server checks for (and displays if the key exists) prior to completing the steps of the independent claim.
- Claims without the requirement of checking to see if any images are stored locally.
In applying part one of Alice, the district court concluded that the asserted claims were directed to the abstract idea of “retrieving user-requested, remotely stored information” and not, as AI Visualize argued, to improvements in computer functionality. The district court then applied Alice step two and considered each of the three representative claims. The district court concluded that none of the claim limitations transformed the claims into patent-eligible applications of an abstract idea. Ultimately, the district court determined that all asserted claims were patent ineligible under § 101. AI Visualize appealed.
The Federal Circuit also applied the Alice analytical framework. Applying Alice step one, the Court considered whether the focus of the claimed advance was on an improvement in computer technologies, rather than the use of computers, and whether the claim limitations described a claimed advance over the prior art. The Court upheld the district court’s finding under Alice step one (i.e., that all three types of asserted claims were directed to an abstract idea) because the steps of obtaining, manipulating and displaying data, when claimed at a high level of generality, constitute an abstract concept. The Court did not agree with AI Visualize’s arguments that the creation of the virtual views is a technical solution to a technical problem because it requires the creation of “on the fly” virtual views at the client computer. In doing so, the Court refused to import details from the specification into the claims.
Applying Alice step two, the Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s finding that the asserted claims involved nothing more than the abstract idea itself and that the asserted claims did not involve unconventional technology. The Court rejected AI Visualize’s argument that the creation of virtual views transformed the claims into patent-eligible subject matter, finding that the creation of a virtual view is an abstract idea that was known in the art, as conceded in the patent specifications. Thus, the Court held that the asserted claims were patent ineligible under Alice and affirmed the district court’s dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6).
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