Covered Business Method Patent Held Invalid under 35 USC 101 and Alice.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) has issued a Final Written Decision of the invalidity of an Internet-related patent under the subject matter restrictions of 35 U.S.C. 101.

In Bank of America, N.A., PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. and PNC Bank, N.A, vs. Intellectual Ventures I LLC, the PTAB found claims 1-23 of U.S. Patent No. 7,603,382 B2 (“the ‘382 patent”) to be unpatentable as directed to patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101 and Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2355 (2014) as being directed to an “abstract idea.”

A sample claim of the challenged patent is as follows:

1.  A system for providing web pages accessed from a web site in a manner which presents the web pages tailored to an individual user, comprising:an interactive interface configured to provide dynamic web site navigation data to the user, the interactive interface comprising:a display depicting portions of the web site visited by the user as a function of the web site navigation data; anda display depicting portions of the web site visited by the user as a function of the user’s personal characteristics.

In arriving at its decision, the Board considered the following arguments on the part of the Patent Owner:

1. that the claims of the ‘382 patent are not “directed to ‘an idea itself, a mathematical formula or algorithm, a fundamental economic practice long prevalent in our system of commerce, or a method of organizing human activity.'”
2. that the claims of the ‘382 patent “do not preempt the alleged abstract idea and are transformed by an inventive concept.” That claims 1-6 and 16-23 user the claimed interactive interface to provide tailored content based upon the user’s personal characteristics and the user’s website navigation data.
3. That the ‘382 patent is not a covered business method patent because the claims are directed to a technological invention.
4. That Section 101 is not a proper ground upon which a covered business method patent review may be maintained.

The Board based its decision regarding argument 1 on the recent U.S. Supreme Court holding in Alice, setting out a two-step test for patentability of an abstract idea. Key to this step 1 was a statement by the Patent Owner’s expert, who testified that “the patent is described at what may appear to be a fairly high abstract level.” In responding to argument 2, the Board held that the limitations of the claims do not contain an “inventive concept” to “transform” the claimed abstract idea into patentable subject matter. Key to this step was, again, testimony of the Patent Owner’s expert that “the ‘382 patent lacks implementation details because it is written at a ‘fairly high abstract level.’” The Board distinguished the ‘382 patent from the Federal Circuit’s decision in DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245 (Fed. Cir. 2014). In responding to argument 3, the Board held that in at least claim 11 “there is no technological feature in that claim that is novel and unobvious.” Finally, in regard to argument 4, the Board held that Section 101 is a proper ground for instituting a Covered Business Method patent proceeding.