No More Ripples from Pebble Tide; Data Output Patents Found to be Abstract, Invalid

Over the past year, Pebble Tide LLC has asserted its two patents against an array of companies – from banks and insurance companies to entertainment conglomerates – alleging that the defendants infringe patents related to capturing and outputting digital content to an output device. While many of these cases settled quickly, a couple defendants moved to dismiss the complaint and argued that the patents were directed to patent ineligible subject matter.

Chief Judge Leonard P. Stark of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware agreed with the defendants and dismissed Pebble Tide's complaints. At step one of the Alice inquiry, the court found that the asserted claims were directed to the abstract idea of outputting data from one device to another instead of being directed to a specific improvement in computer functionality or an implementation of a solution to a technological problem.

The court relied on ChargePoint to support the determination that transmitting data from one device to another is an abstract idea. The court further found that Pebble Tide's asserted claims lacked technical details to explain how the claimed invention's components perform their recited functions and, instead, merely "describe those components in purely functional terms."

At step two of the Alice inquiry, Pebble Tide claimed that the asserted patents contained inventive concepts – namely the "pervasive output process which may be a result of the interplay of the job object process and the device object process." The court disagreed, saying that this purported inventive concept could not save the patents, and provided examples of what was actually in the patents. For instance, the claimed "information apparatuses" referred generally to "computing devices," not something inventive.

Pebble Tide also argued that the claimed components were arranged in a special ordered combination, which was also an inventive concept. The court again disagreed, finding that the claims only use functional language and that "nothing in the claims or the specification details how this purported combination achieved the touted results of solving the [purported] problem."

The court finally noted that it considered Pebble Tide's proposed claim constructions and found that the asserted claims are not patent eligible even if the court assumed that those constructions were correct.

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The representative asserted patent claim is below:

A system for outputting output data, comprising:

an information apparatus that includes a digital capturing device for capturing digital content, at least one wireless communication module for wireless communication, and at least one processor, the at least one processor directs the at least one wireless communication module to:
establish a wireless communication connection with one or more servers over a network that includes the Internet, the one or more servers being distinct devices from the information apparatus;

transmit, over the wireless communication connection, a device object that includes device information related to the information apparatus, from the information apparatus to the one or more servers; and

provide, over the wireless communication connection, the digital content captured by the digital capturing device of the information apparatus, from the information apparatus to the one or more servers;

server software executable at the one or more servers, the one or more servers include at least a network communication interface for network communication, and the one or more servers include memory for storing at least part of the digital content received from the information apparatus;

client software executable at a client device, the client device is a distinct device from the information apparatus and from the one or more servers, wherein the client device includes:

one or more wireless communication units for wireless communication,

an output device for outputting output data; and

one or more processors for executing at least part of the client software, wherein the client software provides, via the one or more wireless communication units of the client device, one or more job objects to the one or more servers over the network, the one or more job objects including at least one of security information or identification information for accessing the one or more servers, and the one or more job objects further include subscription information for accessing the one or more servers;

wherein the server software further:

receives, via the at least one network communication interface, the digital content from the information apparatus;

stores, in the memory of the one or more servers, at least part of the received digital content;

generates, at the one or more servers, output data for output at the client device, the output data is related to at least part of the digital content received by the one or more servers from the information apparatus, and the generating of the output data is related, at least partly, to at least a portion of the device object received by the one or more servers from the information apparatus; and

provides, via the at least one network communication interface of the one or more servers, at least part of the output data, from the one or more servers to the client device, for outputting at least part of the digital content received from the information apparatus, the providing of at least part of the output data is subsequent to the one or more servers having received the one or more job objects from the client software at the client device; and

wherein the client software further:

receives, via the one or more wireless communication units of the client device, at least part of the output data from the one or more servers, and the receiving of the at least part of the output data is subsequent to the client device having provided the one or more job objects to the one or more servers over the network; and

outputs at least part of the output data, received at the client device, at the output device associated with the client device.

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