District Court Granted Dismissal Because The Patent Recited A Patent-Ineligible Abstract Idea Of Processing And Transmitting Data

• Published date: 11 April 2022
• Subject Matter: Intellectual Property, Patent
• Law Firm: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
• Author: Mr C. Brandon Rash and Brooks J. Kenyon

Chief Judge Lynn in the Northern District of Texas recently granted a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss a complaint alleging patent infringement because the claim-at-issue recites patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. ' 101. The patent is directed to transmitting data wirelessly from data sensors. The court found that the claim recites the abstract idea of processing and transmitting data.

Plaintiff Magnacross LLC sued OKI Data Americas, Inc. for infringing U.S. Patent No. 6,917,304. The claim-at-issue recites a method of wirelessly transmitting data through a communications channel from at least two data sensors to a data processing means. The method includes the step of division of the channel into sub-channels having unequal data carrying capacities, and transmitting the data through the sub-channels from the data sensors, which require substantially different data rates for data transmission.

The court analyzed eligibility using the U.S. Supreme Court's two-step Alice framework. In step one, the court determines whether the claims are "directed to" a patent-ineligible concept, such as an abstract idea. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208, 217 (2014). If they are, the court proceeds to step two and considers "the elements of each claim both individually and 'as an ordered combination' to determine whether the additional elements 'transform the nature of the claim' into a patent-eligible application." Id.

Addressing step one, the court found that the claim "describes nothing beyond the division of the channel and allocating sensor data to sub-channels." The court noted that the Federal Circuit has recognized that claims directed to gathering, processing and transmitting data are directed to an abstract idea; and the court determined that the claim is similar to claims held ineligible in Two-Way Media Ltd. v. Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, 874 F.3d 1329 (Fed. Cir. 2017). In Two-Way Media, the claims recited a method of transmitting packets of information over a network with a series of abstract steps ("converting," "routing," "controlling," "monitoring" and "accumulating records") using "result-based functional language."

The court found that, like in Two-Way, the claim recites functional language ("division," "transmitting" and "allocating") without any means for achieving the purported technological improvement and without any guidance on the kind of structure or how the division is to be achieved. The court reasoned that...