The History of Software Patents

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TRADING TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL, INC. v. IBG LLC, INTERACTIVE BROKERS, LLC, FEDERAL CIRCUIT 2019 (SOFTWARE PATENTS)
By Deepak MalhotraMay 26, 2019

This decision involves Trading Technologies U.S. Patent Nos. 7,533,056; 7,212,999; and 7,904,374 covering graphical user interfaces for electronic trading.

U.S. Patent Nos. 7,533,056 and 7,212,999 disclose a user interface for an electronic trading system that allows a re-mote trader to view trends in the orders for an item, and provides the trading information in an easy to see and interpret graphical format.  U.S. Patent No. 7,904,374 discloses a display and trading method to ensure fast and accurate execution of trades by displaying market depth on a vertical or horizontal plane, which fluctuates logically up or down, left or right across the plane as the market prices fluctuate.

Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 7,212,999 is representative and recites:

A computer based method for facilitating…

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ChargePOINT, INC. v. SemaCONNECT, INC., FEDERAL CIRCUIT 2019 (SOFTWARE PATENTS)
By Deepak MalhotraMay 25, 2019

This is a software patent decision in which the court ignored a substantial amount of hardware in the patent claim and found that the claim was directed to an abstract idea and therefore invalid.  In the Alice Supreme Court decision, the main issue was whether the patentee took a well known financial method and merely automated it on a computer.  In most post-Alice decisions, the computer was largely ignored in determining whether the claim was directed to an abstract idea and therefore unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. 101, unless there was an improvement in operation of the computer.

The ChargePOINT case relates to U.S. Patent No. 8,138,715; 8,432,131; 8,450,967; and 7,956,570 for charging stations for electric vehicles. The battery…

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ANCORA TECHNOLOGIES, INC., v. HTC AMERICA, INC., HTC CORPORATION, FEDERAL CIRCUIT 2018 (SOFTWARE PATENTS))
By Deepak MalhotraJanuary 1, 2019
Ancora Technologies, Inc.’s U.S. Patent 6,411,941 is entitled “Method of Restricting Software Operation Within a License Limitation.”  The patent describes and claims methods of limiting a computer’s running of software not authorized for that computer to run.

Ancora brought this action against HTC America and HTC Corporation alleging infringement of the patent.  HTC moved to dismiss on the ground that the patent’s claims are invalid because their subject matter is ineligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C § 101.  The district court granted HTC’s motion to dismiss, concluding that the claims are directed to, and ultimately claim no more than, an abstract idea.

Claim 1 is representative and recites:

1.  A method of restricting software operation within a license for use with a computer including
an erasable, non-volatile memory area of a…

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2018 Unfavorable Software Patent Decisions -Alice Year in Review (Software Patents)
By Deepak Malhotra

Though we had a couple of positive decisions for software patents in 2018, we also had many negative decisions.  The pendulum has not yet swung firmly into pro-software patent territory.  Software patents were found to be non-statutory in the following 2018 Federal Circuit decisions:

Move v. Real Estate Alliance
The following is a representative claim of a software patent that was found to be abstract without covering more than the use of a computer for a conventional business purpose:

1. A method using a computer for locating available real estate properties comprising the
steps of:
a) creating a database of the available real estate properties;
b) displaying a map of a desired geographic area;
c) selecting a first area having boundaries within the geographic area;
d) zooming in on the first area of the…

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Berkheimer v. HP, Federal Circuit 2018 (Software Patents)
By Deepak MalhotraFebruary 11, 2018

Mr. Berheimer sued HP.  HP moved for summary judgment that claims 1–7 and 9 of U.S. Patent No. 7,447,713 are patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101, and the district court granted the motion.

The patent relates to digitally processing and archiving files in a digital asset management system.  The system parses files into multiple objects and tags the objects to create relationships between them. These objects are analyzed and compared, either manually or automatically, to archived objects to determine whether variations exist based on predetermined standards and rules. This system eliminates redundant storage of common text and graphical elements, which improves system operating efficiency and reduces storage costs. The relationships between the objects within the archive allow a user to…

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Core Wireless Licensing v. LG Electronics Mobilecomm, Federal Circuit 2018 (Software Patents)
By Deepak MalhotraFebruary 8, 2018

In this case, LG Electronics appealed from a district court decision denying summary judgement that claims 8 and 9 of a software patent, No. 8,713,476 and claims 11 and 13 of another software patent, No. 8,434,020 are directed to patent ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

The patents disclose improved display interfaces for electronic devices with small screens like mobile telephones. An application summary window is displayed while a software application is in an unlaunched state.

Claims 8 and 9 of the ’476 software patent depend from claim 1, which recites:
1. A computing device comprising a display screen, the computing device being configured to display on the screen a menu listing one or more applications, and additionally being configured…

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Finjan Inc., v. Blue Coat Systems, Inc., Federal Circuit 2018 (Software Patents)
By Deepak MalhotraJanuary 27, 2018

Finjan brought suit against Blue Coat for infringement of software patents directed to identifying and protecting against malware.  One of the software patents is directed to a method of providing computer security by scanning a downloadable and attaching the results of that scan to the downloadable itself in the form of a “security profile.”

Claim 1 of the patent reads:

1. A method comprising:

  • receiving by an inspector a Downloadable;
  • generating by the inspector a first Downloadable security profile that identifies suspicious code in the received Downloadable; and
  • linking by the inspector the first Downloadable security profile to the Downloadable before a web server makes the Downloadable available to web clients.

The parties agreed that “Downloadable” should be construed to mean “an executable…

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Smart Systems Innovations v. Chicago Transit Authority, Federal Circuit 2017 (Software Patents)
By Deepak MalhotraJanuary 25, 2018

The software patents in this case relate to inventions designed to allow riders to access mass transit by using existing bankcards, such as debit and credit cards, without the need for first buying dedicated fare-cards, paper tickets, or tokens.  The District Court had held that the patent claims are directed to an abstract idea and otherwise lack an inventive concept, such that they are patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.On appeal, the Federal Circuit noted that they needed to use the framework set forth in the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. Pty Ltd. v. CLS Bank International. A patent claim falls outside § 101 where (1) it is “directed to” a patent-ineligible concept, i.e., a law of…

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Visual Memory LLC v. NVIDIA Corp., Federal Circuit 2017 (Software Patents)
By Deepak MalhotraJanuary 21, 2018

This case concerned an appeal from a district court case which held that Visual Memory’s U.S. Patent No. 5.953,740 was drawn to patent-ineligible subject matter.

The patent teaches that computer systems frequently use a three-tiered memory hierarchy to enhance performance. The three tiers include: 1) a low-cost, low speed memory, such as a magnetic disk, for bulk storage of data; 2) a medium-speed memory that serves as the main memory; and 3) an expensive, high-speed memory that acts as a processor cache memory. Because the cache memory is the most expensive, it is typically smaller than the main memory and cannot always store all the data required by the processor. The memory hierarchy alleviates the limitations imposed by the cache’s size…

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Thales Visionix Inc. v. United States, Federal Circuit 2017 (Software Patents)
By Deepak MalhotraJanuary 20, 2018

Thales Visionix Inc. appealed from a Claims Court judgment that most claims of its U.S. Patent No. 6,474,159 were directed to patent-ineligible subject matter.

The patent discloses an inertial tracking system for tracking the motion of an object relative to a moving reference frame. Inertial sensors, such as accelerometers and gyroscopes, measure the specific forces associated with changes in a sensor’s position and orientation relative to a known starting position. Such sensors are used in a wide variety of applications, including aircraft navigation and virtual reality simulations. When mounted on a moving object, inertial sensors can calculate the position, orientation, and velocity of the object in 3-dimensional space, based on a specified starting point, without the need for any other…

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