Cellspin Soft, Inc. v. Fitbit LLC

Background

Cellspin Soft, Inc. filed seven patent-infringement actions against Fitbit, Inc., Moov, Inc., Nike, Inc., Under Armour, Inc., Fossil Group, Inc., Misfit Inc., Garmin International, Inc., Garmin USA Inc., Nikon Inc., and Nikon Americas, Inc. Cellspin asserted U.S. Patent Nos. 8,738,794, 8,892,752, and 9,749,847. The patents concern automatically acquiring data from a Bluetooth-enabled capture device, transferring it through a Bluetooth-enabled mobile device, and publishing it to internet services.

The defendants moved for summary judgment, asking the court to rule that the asserted claims were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because they claimed patent-ineligible subject matter. Summary judgment is a ruling made when the evidence shows that no reasonable jury could find for the opposing party on a material issue.

The court had previously ruled at the motion-to-dismiss stage that the claims were directed to the abstract idea of acquiring, transferring, and publishing data and multimedia content. The Federal Circuit affirmed that conclusion but reversed the earlier finding that the claims lacked an inventive concept, because Cellspin’s allegations of unconventional claim elements had to be accepted as true at that earlier stage. The Federal Circuit sent the case back for further proceedings.

Legal standard

For a claim directed to an abstract idea, the second step of the patent-eligibility analysis asks whether the claim contains an “inventive concept”—claim elements that, individually or in combination, add enough beyond the abstract idea to make the claim patent eligible. The court explained that generic computer technology, conventional activity, a result stated without implementation details, or merely applying an abstract idea in a particular field generally cannot provide that concept.

The court also explained that whether a claim combination supplies an inventive concept is a legal question. Whether particular elements were well-understood, routine, and conventional may involve factual disputes. Such disputes can prevent summary judgment when they are material to the eligibility analysis.

Analysis

Two-step, two-device structure

Cellspin argued that it was unconventional, as of December 28, 2007, to separate data capture and publication between two devices connected through a wireless paired connection. The court found that the earlier manual process already used two devices—a digital camera and a personal computer—to capture and publish data separately. It concluded that replacing the cable with a wireless Bluetooth connection and replacing the personal computer with a mobile device did not provide an inventive concept.

The court also found that wireless communication and pairing were abstract or generic, and that the record showed Bluetooth pairing was conventional. It granted summary judgment that this structure did not provide an inventive concept.

Pairing before data transfer

Cellspin separately argued that establishing the paired connection before sending data was inventive. The court rejected that argument, reasoning that Bluetooth’s conventional definition of pairing involved exchanging a key before or during connection establishment. The court concluded that pairing before data transfer was part of the conventional Bluetooth process and granted summary judgment on this alleged inventive concept.

HTTP at an intermediary device

Cellspin argued that using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP, at the intermediary mobile device while transferring data was unconventional. The defendants showed that HTTP itself was known, but the court found that they did not show that applying HTTP at an intermediary device was conventional. Cellspin presented expert evidence that the conventional process in 2007 generally used end-to-end HTTP from the data-capture device, while mobile phones acted as passive modems.

The court denied summary judgment on this issue. It clarified that the ruling concerned using HTTP at an intermediary device, not necessarily the additional description that data was “in transit.”

Attaching user information at the intermediary device

Cellspin argued that attaching user information at the intermediary mobile device before sending data to a website was unconventional. The court found that the defendants offered no evidence showing that this particular arrangement was well-known, routine, or conventional. The court distinguished patent eligibility from obviousness, explaining that evidence suggesting the arrangement might have been an obvious variation did not establish ineligibility under Section 101.

The court denied summary judgment on this issue.

Polling and event notifications

Cellspin argued that polling or event notifications used to detect new data after pairing provided an inventive concept. The parties’ experts disagreed about when these features became routine in Bluetooth. The court noted that the claims did not specify a particular implementation, but concluded that factual disputes remained about whether these features were used to detect new data after pairing and whether they provided technical benefits such as saving power.

The court denied summary judgment on this issue.

Other alleged inventive concepts

The court rejected alleged inventive concepts based on inherent benefits, such as smaller devices, reduced user intervention, real-time publishing, and transfer-range benefits. It found that these were either consequences of conventional features or benefits that the claims did not require.

The court also rejected alleged inventive concepts based on ordered combinations of claim elements. Cellspin did not provide concrete evidence or argument showing that the combinations added something beyond the individual concepts. The court granted summary judgment on the identified combination concepts and on additional combination theories not raised in Cellspin’s supplemental brief.

The court ruled that cryptographic authentication by itself could not supply an inventive concept because the claims required only a generic cryptographic result. But it found that the defendants had not shown that using cryptographic methods together with Bluetooth pairing was conventional. It therefore denied summary judgment on that combined cryptography-and-pairing concept while granting summary judgment on inventive concept 49.

Disposition

The court denied Defendants’ motion for summary judgment of Section 101 invalidity based on three categories: applying HTTP and user information at an intermediary device; polling and event notifications to detect new data after pairing; and using cryptographic methods together with pairing. It granted the motion on the remaining alleged inventive concepts. The order stated that it terminated docket number 193 in case number 17-cv-05933-YGR.