Fed Circ reverses 101 invalidation of Uniloc patent
Uniloc has prevailed in its appeal against LG Electronics, after the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the invalidation of the company’s Bluetooth network patent under section 101 of US patent law.
The decision means Uniloc’s patent infringement claims against LG are back on at the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
Patent assertion entity Uniloc sued LG for infringing the Bluetooth patent in 2018, but judge Lucy Koh ruled last year that the patent covered ineligible subject matter.
The patent describes a system that enables quicker communication between devices connected on a shared Bluetooth network.
A Bluetooth system comprises a primary station, like a smartphone, which sends out ‘inquiry messages’ to look for other devices to connect to. The primary station then ‘polls’ connected devices for information or data to exchange over the network.
Normal Bluetooth systems alternate between ‘inquiring’ and ‘polling’, resulting in a delay. Uniloc said its patent covers an invention which adds an extra data field, allowing for both of these processes to happen simultaneously.
According to Koh, Uniloc’s patent covered the abstract idea of “additional polling in a wireless communication system”, and did not demonstrate any “inventive step” required to be eligible for patent protection.
Based on these findings, Koh granted LG a motion to dismiss Uniloc’s infringement suit.
The Federal Circuit has now reversed this decision, finding that the claims cover a patentable improvement in computer functionality.
LG had successfully argued at the district court that while an improvement in the function of a Bluetooth network was eligible for patent protection, the Uniloc claims as they were actually written were not.
According to LG, the patent did not expressly detail the reduced delay, or latency, experienced with the claimed invention, as opposed to traditional Bluetooth systems.
“To the extent LG argues that the claims themselves must expressly mention the reduced latency achieved by the claimed system, LG is in error. Claims need not articulate the advantages of the claimed combinations to be eligible,” the Federal Circuit decision said.
In its now reversed decision, the district court had found the patent to be ineligible under section 101 of US patent law. A US Patent and Trademark Office report issued last month found that rejections of patent applications under section 101 declined rapidly last year, after the office issued updated guidance to examiners in January 2019 on how to interpret the rules on patent eligibility.
Courts and patent examiners have been divided on what is patent eligible in the US since the US Supreme Court’s Alice v CLS ruling in 2013, which produced the so-called Alice test of eligibility.
The USPTO’s January 2019 guidance contains nearly 50 examples of inventions that it considers eligible under Alice, while the Federal Circuit relies on its own extensive case law on patent eligibility.
Uniloc’s infringement suit against LG will now be sent back to the district court.
