Tying Claimed Technological Advancements to Specific Technological Methods Is a Winning POV on Patent Eligibility

CONTOUR IP HOLDING LLC v. GOPRO, INC.

Before Reyna, Prost, and Schall. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Summary: Claims are patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 where the written description discloses improving technology through specific technological means and the claims reflect that improvement.

Contour filed two lawsuits in the Northern District of California, accusing several of GoPro’s point-of-view (“POV”) digital video cameras of infringing Contour’s patents. GoPro argued on summary judgment that the asserted claims were patent ineligible under § 101. The district court agreed with GoPro. The court found under Alice step one that the representative claim was directed to the abstract idea of “creating and transmitting video (at two different resolutions) and adjusting the videos’ settings remotely” and under Alice step two that the claim recited only functional, results-oriented language without indication that the physical components are behaving in any way other than their basic, generic tasks. Contour appealed to the Federal Circuit.

The Federal Circuit reversed. The Federal Circuit held that the claims were “directed to a specific means that improves the relevant technology” rather than an abstract idea at Alice step one. The district court has construed the claims such that they were limited to a particular way “that a camera processor might generate multiple video streams of varying quality for wireless transmission.”  The court noted that this mechanism was described in the specification as improving POV camera technology, and held that the claims “thus require specific, technological means … that in turn provide a technical improvement.”  The court also rejected GoPro’s argument that the claims were directed to ineligible subject matter because they “simply employ known or conventional components that existed in the prior art.” “[T]hat alone does not necessarily mean the claim is directed to an abstract idea.” 

Editor: Sean Murray