Fox Corporation has successfully defended itself in a patent suit filed in Delaware by a company that accused the owner of FOX Broadcasting Co. of patent infringement.
At issue is a platform used within the company designed to optimize scheduling and the airing of National Football League games on its stations by regional selectivity.
U.S. District Judge Gregory B. Williams, based in Delaware, on Tuesday (9/19) approved Fox’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Recentive Analytics Inc. that alleged certain Fox products infringe four U.S. patents.
Williams was told by Fox that the claims of the patents-insuit do not claim patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Two patents are directed to methods for generating network maps — television schedules used by FOX for NFL game selection by region. Before the use of these “Network Map Patents,” as Recentive sees it, conventional techniques were “static and incapable
of responding to changing conditions.” The patented process allows dynamic updating of the network map based on changing conditions and optimizing the scheduling process using machine learning techniques.
The other two patents — “Machine Learning Training Patents” are directed to optimizing event schedules and consider “competing events, expenses, ticket prices, weather, performer availability, venue availability, etc.”
With the 2014 decision in Alice Corp. Pty. v. CLS Bank Int’l. by the Supreme Court establishing a two-step framework for determining patent-eligibility under § 101, Williams ruled, “Recentive has not provided any proposed claim construction or an explanation of why any proposed claim construction would alter the § 101 analysis.”
It then judged that the Network Map Patents and the Machine Learning Training Patents “are directed to the abstract ideas of producing network maps and event schedules, respectively, using known generic mathematical techniques.”
Williams explained, “Recentive makes three arguments to differentiate the patents-in-suit from those patents previously found to claim patent-ineligible subject matter. First, Recentive argues that machine learning algorithms are unique since they process information differently from how the human brain could or would. Second, Recentive argues that humans could not perform the patented processes, because the data
and algorithms are too complex. Third, Recentive analogizes to the Federal Circuit decision in McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am. Inc., 837 F.3d 1299 (Fed. Cir. 2016), wherein the patents-in-suit were directed to a concrete application of mathematical rules, not the rules themselves. Each of these arguments fails … Because machine learning is algorithmic in nature, the Court finds that the patents-in-suit are directed to an abstract idea.”
With the Alice Corp. case fundamental to the decision, a second step was needed for the Court to render its decision. And, when it did so, Williams was unable to identify any transformative inventive concept present in the patentsin-suit.
