{"id":1231,"date":"2016-09-23T23:09:58","date_gmt":"2016-09-24T03:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1231"},"modified":"2016-09-28T08:59:48","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T12:59:48","slug":"stripped-of-excess-verbiage-claim-directed-to-streaming-media-to-cell-phones-in-an-abstract-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1231","title":{"rendered":"Stripped of Excess Verbiage, Claim Directed to Streaming Out-of-Region Media to Cell Phones in an Abstract Idea"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v. DirecTV, LLC<\/em>, [2015-1845, 2015-1846, 2015-1847, 2015-1848] (September 23, 2016), the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the Complaint for patent infringement for failure to state a claim, because U.S. Patent
\nNo. 7,970,379 was directed to an abstract idea. \u00a0The patent was directed to\u00a0to streaming\u00a0regional broadcast signals to cellular telephones\u00a0located outside the region served by the regional broadcaster.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit began with the “abstract idea” stage of the two-stage framework device by the Supreme Court to determine patentability under Section 101. \u00a0The \u201cabstract idea\u201d stage requires focus on the claimed advance over the prior\u00a0art to determine if the “claim\u2019s character as a whole\u201d is\u00a0directed to excluded subject matter.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit said that the concept of providing out-of-region access to regional
\nbroadcast content is an abstract idea, as that term\u00a0is used in the section 101 context. It is a broad and\u00a0familiar concept concerning information distribution that\u00a0is untethered to any specific or concrete way of implementing\u00a0it. \u00a0The Federal Circuit further noted that\u00a0rhere is nothing in the claims directed\u00a0to how to implement out-of-region broadcasting on a\u00a0cellular telephone. Rather, the claims were drawn to the idea
\nitself.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit noted that the claims were limited to cellphones, but\u00a0merely limiting the field of use\u00a0of the abstract idea to a particular existing technological\u00a0environment does not render the claims any less abstract. \u00a0The Federal Circuit further noted that the idea underlying the inventions in this case was akin\u00a0to the ideas underlying the claims in several of this\u00a0court\u2019s recent cases. \u00a0Although the technology at issue differed\u00a0from that involved in TLI<\/em> and Ultramercial<\/em>, the Federal Circuit found the analysis\u00a0of the \u201cabstract idea\u201d step in those cases instructive, as\u00a0the patent involves\u00a0the conveyance and manipulation of information using\u00a0wireless communication and computer technology.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit distinguished DDR Holdings<\/em> as\u00a0requiring doing something to<\/strong><\/em> a web
\npage, not simply doing something on<\/strong><\/em> a web page. \u00a0The patent in suit was not directed to a\u00a0technological problem, it\u00a0claims the general concept of out-of-region delivery of
\nbroadcast content through the use of conventional devices,\u00a0without offering any technological means of effecting that\u00a0concept. \u00a0The Federal Circuit also distinguished Enfish<\/em>\u00a0as related to\u00a0an improvement to computer functionality itself, while the claims in the patent in suit were not directed to an improvement in cellular\u00a0telephones but simply to the use of cellular telephones as\u00a0tools in the aid of a process focused on an abstract idea.<\/p>\n

As to the second stage of the analysis, the Federal Circuit\u00a0found no \u201cinventive concept\u201d that transforms\u00a0the abstract idea of out-of-region delivery of regional\u00a0broadcasting into a patent-eligible application of that\u00a0abstract idea. The Federal Circuit said that the claim simply recites the use of generic\u00a0features of cellular telephones, such as a storage medium\u00a0and a graphical user interface, as well as routine functions, such as transmitting and receiving signals, to\u00a0implement the underlying idea, and that was not enough.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v. DirecTV, LLC, [2015-1845, 2015-1846, 2015-1847, 2015-1848] (September 23, 2016), the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the Complaint for patent infringement for failure to state a claim, because U.S. Patent No. 7,970,379 was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1233,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}