This article is Part II of a study on the patent eligibility of graphical user interfaces. Part I was published yesterday. We continue from where we left off, with overviews of a handful of Federal Circuit § 101 decisions addressing claims to graphical user interfaces and a discussion of how the three properties of specificity, technical character, and an advance over the prior art can be used to predict whether a claim meets the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 101.
D. Mobile User Interfaces
In Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Erie Indemnity Company, claim 40 of U.S. Patent No. 6,546,002 was under dispute. Particularly, this claim recites:
A system for storing and accessing user specific resources and information, the system comprising:
a network for accessing the user specific resources and information stored in a network server;
and a local device communicating with the network and having a local memory and a mobile interface, wherein the local memory also includes user specific resources and information, and the mobile interface includes pointers corresponding to the user specific resources and information that are stored either on the local device or the network server, wherein the pointers provide links to access the corresponding user specific resources and information.
At issue was the mobile interface's use of pointers. The plaintiff argued that the claim involved "a particular software-driven machine that performs specific operations to solve a problem unique to the field of computer networks." But the Court did not concur, writing:
Yet the claimed invention does not recite any particular unique delivery of information through this mobile interface. Rather, it merely recites retrieving the information through the mobile interface. Nor do the claims describe how the mobile interface communicates with other devices or any attributes of the mobile interface, aside from its broadly recited function. Thus, the mobile interface here does little more than provide a generic technological environment to allow users to access information.
Finding the claims directed to an abstract idea, the Court moved on to part two of Alice. Here, the plaintiff again focused its arguments on the mobile interface, contending that "the claims are limited to a specific use of multiple pointers to retrieve the user-specific data via a mobile interface in a network with a server and local device," thus providing users "with access to their files and data from any location irrespective of the device used."
Again, the Court disagreed, finding that "[t]he claimed mobile interface is so lacking in implementation details that it amounts to merely a generic component . . . that permits the performance of the abstract idea, i.e., to retrieve the user-specific resources," and "this interface provides no more than similar user interfaces recited in claims that we have previously held ineligible." Moreover, the Court deemed the use of pointers to retrieve information over a network as conventional activity, claimed too functionally to provide an inventive concept.
A different story played out in Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. v. LG Electronics, Inc. At issue was claim 1 of U.S. Patent. No. 8,434,020, which recites:
A computing device comprising a display screen,
the computing device being configured to display on the screen a menu listing one or more applications,
and additionally being configured to display on the screen an application summary that can be reached directly from the menu,
wherein the application summary displays a limited list of data offered within the one or more applications, each of the data in the list being selectable to launch the respective application and enable the selected data to be seen within the respective application, and
wherein the application summary is displayed while the one or more applications are in an un-launched state.
The defendant contended that the invention as claimed was directed to the abstract idea of an index. This point did not gain any traction with the Court, which found the claims "directed to a particular manner of summarizing and presenting information in electronic devices." The Court continued:
The claim further requires the application summary window list a limited set of data, "each of the data in the list being selectable to launch the respective application and enable the selected data to be seen within the respective application." This claim limitation restrains the type of data that can be displayed in the summary window. Finally, the claim recites that the summary window "is displayed while the one or more applications are in an un-launched state," a requirement that the device applications exist in a particular state. These limitations disclose a specific manner of displaying a limited set of information to the user, rather than using conventional user interface methods to display a generic index on a computer.
To back up its position, the Court looked to the patent's specification, observing that it discusses the problems associated with prior art interfaces, especially with respect to displaying information on devices with small screens. Particularly, users had to "drill down through many layers to get to desired data or functionality [which] could seem slow, complex and difficult to learn, particularly to novice users." In contrast, the claimed invention involves "[d]isplaying selected data or functions of interest in the summary window allows the user to see the most relevant data or functions without actually opening the application up." Doing so "saves the user from navigating to the required application, opening it up, and then navigating within that application to enable the data of interest to be seen or a function of interest to be activated."
Based on this understanding, the Court concluded that the claim was not abstract, and that part two of the Alice test need not be carried out because the invention was eligible.
E. Support for Tabs and Change Tracking in Spreadsheets
Examples of claims directed to spreadsheets that fell on both sides of § 101 can be found in Data Engine Technologies LLC v. Google LLC. Under dispute were U.S. Patent Nos. 5,590,259, 5,784,545, 6,282,551, and 5,303,146. For purposes of the Alice analysis, the Federal Circuit divided the patents into two groups: the '259, '545, and '551 patents in one and the '146 patent in the other.
The patents of the first group are directed to tabbed interfaces in spreadsheets. With priority dates going back to 1992, these patents allege improvements over spreadsheets (at the time) that did not use tabbed interfaces. In the words of the Court:
In contrast to conventional electronic spreadsheets, the method claimed in the Tab Patents includes user-familiar objects, i.e., paradigms of real-world objects which the user already knows how to use such as notebook tabs. In this manner, complexities of the system are hidden under ordinary, everyday object metaphors, providing a highly intuitive interface—one in which advanced features (e.g., three-dimensionality) are easily learned.
In essence, the invention involves tabs familiar to anyone who has used a modern spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel. According to the patents, this interface has several advantages. Notably, "instead of finding information by scrolling different parts of a large spreadsheet, or by invoking multiple windows of a conventional three-dimensional spreadsheet, the present invention allows the user to simply and conveniently 'flip through' several pages of the notebook to rapidly locate information of interest."
In what may have been a determinative move, the plaintiff submitted several articles from popular magazines (e.g., PC World and InfoWorld) at the time of the invention lauding the advantages of new spreadsheet software packages that used tabs. The articles noted that managing the complexity of large spreadsheets had long been a problem for users, and existing, non-tabbed spreadsheets would have data and results distributed in an unorganized fashion. The introduction of tabbing elegantly solved this problem.
Claim 12 of the '259 patent, which was representative of that patent and claims of the '545 patent, recites:
In an electronic spreadsheet system for storing and manipulating information, a computer-implemented method of representing a three-dimensional spreadsheet on a screen display, the method comprising:
displaying on said screen display a first spreadsheet page from a plurality of spreadsheet pages, each of said spreadsheet pages comprising an array of information cells arranged in row and column format, at least some of said information cells storing user-supplied information and formulas operative on said user-supplied information, each of said information cells being uniquely identified by a spreadsheet page identifier, a column identifier, and a row identifier;
while displaying said first spreadsheet page, displaying a row of spreadsheet page identifiers along one side of said first spreadsheet page, each said spreadsheet page identifier being displayed as an image of a notebook tab on said screen display and indicating a single respective spreadsheet page, wherein at least one spreadsheet page identifier of said displayed row of spreadsheet page identifiers comprises at least one user-settable identifying character;
receiving user input for requesting display of a second spreadsheet page in response to selection with an input device of a spreadsheet page identifier for said second spreadsheet page;
in response to said receiving user input step, displaying said second spreadsheet page on said screen display in a manner so as to obscure said first spreadsheet page from display while continuing to display at least a portion of said row of spreadsheet page identifiers; and
receiving user input for entering a formula in a cell on said second spreadsheet page, said formula including a cell reference to a particular cell on another of said spreadsheet pages having a particular spreadsheet page identifier comprising at least one user-supplied identifying character, said cell reference comprising said at least one user-supplied identifying character for said particular spreadsheet page identifier together with said column identifier and said row identifier for said particular cell.
The Court quickly concluded that the invention as claimed was "directed to a specific method for navigating through three-dimensional electronic spreadsheets" rather than an abstract idea. Relying on the teachings of the specification that prior art spreadsheet technology was not user-friendly, the Court found that the claimed method "provides a specific solution to then-existing technological problems" that were unique to computers. Particularly, the tabbed interface offers "a highly intuitive, user-friendly interface with familiar notebook tabs for navigating the three-dimensional worksheet environment." The Court also seemed persuaded by the contemporaneous articles lauding the benefits of the tabbed interface. As a consequence, both the '259 and '545 patents were found to be eligible.
In contrast, claim 1 of the '551 patent was struck down under § 101. This claim recites:
In an electronic spreadsheet for processing alphanumeric information, said . . . electronic spreadsheet comprising a three-dimensional spreadsheet operative in a digital computer and including a plurality of cells for entering data and formulas, a method for organizing the three-dimensional spreadsheet comprising:
partitioning said plurality of cells into a plurality of two-dimensional cell matrices so that each of the two-dimensional cell matrices can be presented to a user as a spreadsheet page;
associating each of the cell matrices with a user-settable page identifier which serves as a unique identifier for said each cell matrix;
creating in a first cell of a first page at least one formula referencing a second cell of a second page said formula including the user-settable page identifier for the second page; and
storing said first and second pages of the plurality of cell matrices such that they appear to the user as being stored within a single file.
When compared to claim 12, this claim "generically recites associating each of the cell matrices with a user-settable page identifier and does not recite the specific implementation of a notebook tab interface." Therefore, claim 1 is "not limited to the specific technical solution and improvement in electronic spreadsheet functionality that rendered representative claim 12 of the '259 patent eligible . . . [i]nstead, claim 1 . . . covers any means for identifying electronic spreadsheet pages." Thus, the claim was deemed abstract. Under part two of Alice, the Court found that the elements of "partitioning cells to be presented as a spreadsheet, referencing in one cell of a page a formula referencing a second page, and saving the pages such that they appear as being stored as one file . . . merely recite the method of implementing the abstract idea itself."
Unlike those of the first group, the '146 patent is "directed to methods that allow electronic spreadsheet users to track their changes." In the prior art, spreadsheets "provided little or no tools for creating and managing such a multitude of [what-if] scenarios." This resulted in users having to "resort to manually creating separate copies of the underlying model, with the user responsible for tracking any modifications made in the various copies."
The solution provided by the '146 patent is "an electronic spreadsheet system having a preferred interface and methods for creating and tracking various versions or scenarios of a data model." The invention "includes tools for specifying a capture area, that is, a specific set of information cells to be tracked and an Identify Scenario tool for automatically determining changes between a captured parent or baseline model and a new scenario."
Claim 1 of the '146 patent recites:
In an electronic spreadsheet system for modeling user-specified information in a data model comprising a plurality of information cells, a method for automatically tracking different versions of the data model, the method comprising:
(a) specifying a base set of information cells for the system to track changes;
(b) creating a new version of the data model by modifying at least one information cell from the specified base set; and
(c) automatically determining cells of the data model which have changed by comparing cells in the new version against corresponding ones in the base set.
The Court rapidly concluded that the claim was directed to the abstract idea of "collecting spreadsheet data, recognizing changes to spreadsheet data, and storing information about the changes" because "[t]he concept of manually tracking modifications across multiple sheets is an abstract idea." Further, the Court found that the claimed invention does not improve spreadsheet technology in a specific, non-abstract fashion. Moving on to step two of Alice, the Court stated that there was nothing more in the claims aside from "simply stating the abstract idea while adding the words 'apply it.'"
Again this case demonstrates how fine a line exists between eligible and ineligible claims to a graphical user interface. Here, the valid claims explicitly recited navigation of a tabbed spreadsheet interface, were specific in doing so, and were supported by statements in their specification regarding the technological problems solved thereby. This latter point was bolstered by extrinsic evidence from contemporaneous publications. On the other hand, the invalid claims were broader and not specific to navigating a tabbed interface. Despite evidence that all claims under review were directed to an improvement in spreadsheet technology, the claims ultimately found invalid were viewed by the Court as conceptual rather than concrete, most likely due to their relative lack of specificity.
IV. Conclusion
Based on the detailed case law analyses provided above, a few recommendations regarding the eligibility of graphical user interfaces can be made. First, like all inventions, claims to graphical user interfaces are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. There is no categorical inclusion or exclusion of these types of claims. Second, to be eligible, at least some aspect of the claim must be specifically recited to address a technical improvement over the prior art. Each of the claims discussed above that failed the Alice test lacked at least one of these three factors. In order to establish that an invention is such an improvement, it can be helpful to disclose in the specification or perhaps in a later declaration, the problems with the prior art and how the claimed invention overcomes these problems using a technical solution.
Even with this framework, not all marketable inventions are going to be found eligible under § 101. But focusing on the innovative displaying of data -- whether a particular layout, workflow, real-time updating, or involving adaptation to screen size -- with claims drawn to specific embodiments is almost certain to help improve your odds of a favorable outcome.
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On the Patent Eligibility of Graphical User Interfaces: Part II - JD Supra
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