Weisner v. Google LLC

Background

Sholem Weisner sued Google LLC in a patent-infringement case. The caption also identifies Shmuel Nemanov as an involuntary party. The order concerns claims involving the ’839, ’667, and ’068 patents, as well as claims involving the ’202, ’905, and ’911 patents.

Motion and Analysis

The defendant moved to dismiss. The court stated that the defendant had shown that the claims of the ’839, ’667, and ’068 patents were substantially the same as the claims of the ’202 patent and were subject to the same infirmities. But at the pleading stage—the stage when the court accepts plausible allegations as true and draws reasonable inferences for the plaintiff—the court could not determine whether the ’839, ’667, and ’068 patent claims differed materially from the ’905 and ’911 patent claims.

The court also discussed an earlier ruling in the case. It had previously dismissed Weisner’s infringement claims involving the ’905 and ’911 patents, but the Court of Appeals reversed. The appellate court held that, despite the abstract nature of the patent claims, Weisner had sufficiently alleged an “inventive concept” under the second part of the framework from Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International. The court described that concept as prioritizing searches based on visits to a location and overriding the routine sequence ordinarily triggered by clicking a hyperlink.

Ruling and Next Steps

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss, without prejudice to renewal at a later and appropriate stage of the litigation. The court directed the defendant to file an answer by September 3, 2024, and ordered the parties to attend a September 26, 2024 status conference to plan a hearing concerning interpretation of the patent claims. The Clerk was directed to terminate ECF No. 25.