Barbaro Technologies, LLC v. Niantic, Inc. (N.D. Cal. 2020)

Claims for an Interactive 3D Virtual Environment Found Patent Ineligible

By James Korenchan --

In the field of computer gaming, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California recently granted Defendants' Rule 12 motion alleging that claims 1, 3, and 6 of U.S. Patent No. 8,228,325 (the '325 Patent) are invalid as claiming patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.  Plaintiff Barbaro Technologies, LLC (hereinafter "Barbaro") had contended that the video games Ingress and Pokémon Go, developed and published by Defendant Niantic, Inc. (hereinafter "Niantic"), infringed these claims.  The suit also involves U.S. Patent No. 7,373,377, of which the '325 Patent is a divisional.  However, Niantic's motion only addressed the claims of the '325 Patent.

The '325 Patent claims a computer system for providing a "three-dimensional virtual thematic environment" (abbreviated in the opinion and hereinafter as "3D VTE").  The background of the '325 Patent notes that "virtual environments, especially those present on the internet, for example, have not provided the user with a real world experience."  The '325 Patent thus aims to integrate audio, video, 2D/3D technology, and other applications or services (e.g., "mini-applications," as the '325 Patent calls them, such as word processing programs or email programs) in order to provide a virtual and real world experience to users.  More particularly, the '325 Patent describes that the 3D VTE can be a gaming environment, geographic environment, or other theme of environment in which and with which a software application can simulate real-world interaction.  For example, a user can select a city to visit and the software will integrate real-world data (e.g., satellite and street view images, 2D/3D graphics) into a 3D VTE resembling the city that the user can navigate and interact with, such as in a third or first person view.  For instance, a user might travel down a street in the simulated city and "enter" a bookstore by clicking a mouse on the virtual representation of the bookstore.  The '325 Patent lists numerous examples of real-time and real-world data that can be integrated into 3D VTEs, such as sports scores, film, news, and a "real-world geographic location of a user."

The claims at issue in this case are reproduced below:

1.  A computer system for providing a virtual thematic environment, comprising:
    at least one memory having at least one program comprising the steps of:

retrieving information for utilization with a three-dimensional virtual thematic environment, from external sources over the internet, said information including a real-world geographic location of a user within said three-dimensional virtual thematic environment; and

integrating said information into the three-dimensional virtual thematic environment, such that the three-dimensional virtual thematic environment includes said real-world geographic location displayed to the user as said three-dimensional virtual thematic environment;

    wherein the user interacts with the three-dimensional virtual thematic environment as a simulated real-world interaction, depending on the user's geographical three-dimensional movement through the three-dimensional virtual thematic environment; and
    at least one processor for running the program.

3.  The system according to claim 1, wherein said information includes real-time information.

6.  The system according to claim 1, further comprising: displaying said information to a user in a mini-application within the virtual thematic environment.

In Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l, the Supreme Court set forth a two-part test for determining whether a claim is directed to patent-eligible subject matter under § 101.  First, it must be determined whether the claim involves a judicially-excluded law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea.  If so, it must be determined whether the claim recites an inventive concept -- that is, an element or combination of elements that is sufficient to ensure that the claim is significantly more than the judicial exclusion.  But generic computer implementation of an otherwise abstract process does not qualify as significantly more, nor does an element or combination of elements that is well-understood, routine, and conventional.

In applying the first part of the Alice test, the District Court deemed claim 1 to be directed to an abstract idea of removing the disconnect between the user in the real-world and a VTE.  As noted above, and as argued by Barbaro, the prior art virtual environments allegedly did not provide users with real-world experiences, and thus the '325 Patent improves over these environments by providing a way to integrate AV, 2D/3D technology, etc. to maximize a real-world experience for users, thereby effectively removing the disconnect between the real-world user and the 3D VTE.  Barbaro also argued that its claims are analogous to those in Federal Circuit cases such as Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp.

The Court was not convinced, instead asserting that the claimed computer system, memory, and processor are "standard" components, and that "[t]he claims demonstrate the improvement offered by the '325 Patent is directed at a result—integrating the real and virtual worlds—rather than at any particular method of achieving it."  The Court noted that the claimed computer system, memory, and processor are "standard" components, and that the claimed steps can be performed using any combination of existing technologies.  Neither the claims nor the patent specification, in the Court's view, elaborated on how to integrate real-world information into the 3D VTE.  In particular, the Court said:

[T]he claims of the '325 Patent are not directed to the means or method of the claimed invention. They are focused on the result: allowing the user to "interact[] with the [3D VTE] as a simulated real-world interaction, depending on the user's geographical three dimensional movement through the [3D VTE]."  '325 Patent at 42: 53–56.  The specification of the '325 Patent recites dozens of embodiments of the claimed result, accomplished by a variety of existing technologies, as discussed above, but does not purport to make any improvements to them.

The Court also distinguished the asserted claims over those in Enfish and other cases.  The Court pointed out that, in Enfish for instance, the court found that the claims about a database management system were not directed to any form of storing tabular data, but rather to a specific self-referential table.  The Court here further noted that, unlike the specific sensor configuration/method and the specific improvements to computer memory claimed in Thales Visionix Inc. v. United States and Visual Memory LLV v. NVIDIA Corp., respectively, the claimed invention here provided no such improvement to computer technology or specific configuration/method for achieving its desired result.

Instead, the Court analogized the asserted claims to Federal Circuit cases pointed to by Niantic, such as Electric Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A., In re Morsa (finding claims for customizing information based on user information and other specific data to be abstract), and Move, Inc. v. Real Estate All. Ltd. (finding claims about displaying real estate properties based on a user-selected area of a map were directed to an abstract idea of collecting, organizing, manipulating, and displaying data and were "devoid of any implementation details").

The Court concluded its part one analysis stating that the claims are directed to an abstract idea because "computers are simply invoked as a tool for solving a problem that has predated them: integrating real-world information about a user into a virtual model."

Regarding part two of the Alice test, Barbaro had argued that integrating real-world information into a virtual world such as a video game solves a uniquely technical problem.  But the Court was quick to note that the concept of building models of real-world locations, and integrating the user's location or a user avatar into such models "long predates computers," and that the framing of Barbaro's argument "ignores the fact that computer games were not the original virtual worlds" (emphasis in original).  And as we've seen before in § 101 cases, this Court found the lack of technological details in the claims and specification -- that is, any details beyond mere instructions to apply a "pre-Internet abstract idea" using generic computer components -- to be fatal to the claims' validity.

Thus, the Court found the asserted claims to be patent ineligible under § 101.

Barbaro Technologies, LLC v. Niantic, Inc. (N.D. Cal. 2020)
Order Granting Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings by District Judge Seeborg

Comments

[skeptical]

Lacking enablement is a 112 issue.

Implausible utility (IF the lack is SO severe) is a 101 issue.

The Common Law remains confused on this distinction.

[Jim Demers]

Skeptical correctly notes that §112 would have been the pre-Alice basis for invalidating these claims, but why bother with all the technical arguments and dueling experts when SCOTUS has turned §101 into a weapon that can blow up a patent regardless of the adequacy of the spec, or the invention's novelty, non-obviouness, and utility?

[skeptical]

Mr. Demers,

You alight upon both the power and the criticism of what the judicial branch has REWRITTEN the statutory law of 35 USC 101 into:

It is an UNKNOWABLE IN ADVANCE (and as we have seen, heavily panel dependent) "I know it when I see it" unmoored power of judicial edict entirely disassociated with anything remotely cogent to the actual writing of 35 USC and the two aspects captured there: that the innovation may be phrased (AT the choice of the innovator rather than a judge - even as this may offend the sense of the court and their ultra vires watchdog attitude towards 'Scriviners'), and that the innovation have utility within the Useful Arts.

ANYTHING else is simply muckery.