The Receivership Estate of AudienceScience Inc. v. Google LLC
- Edward Davila
- 5:22-cv-04756
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 20
In AudienceScience v. Google, Judge Davila granted judgment on the pleadings, ruling the advertising patents patent-ineligible and dismissing the complaint without leave to amend.
The Receivership Estate of AudienceScience Inc. and Revitalization Partners, L.L.C. lost their patent-infringement case against Google LLC and YouTube, LLC. The complaint was dismissed without leave to amend.
What happened
The Receivership Estate of AudienceScience Inc. v. Google LLC involved claims that Google LLC and YouTube, LLC infringed three patents covering online advertising. The patents described selecting advertisements using a user’s browsing history, webpage context, and revenue-based performance scores.
The defendants argued that the patent claims covered the abstract idea of targeting advertisements to internet users to increase revenue. The plaintiffs argued that the patents described specific improvements to internet advertising technology. The court concluded that the claims did not describe a technological improvement and used ordinary computer components and conventional advertising methods.
Judge Edward J. Davila granted the defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings. He ruled that the asserted claims were not eligible for patent protection under 35 U.S.C. § 101, dismissed the complaint without leave to amend, terminated the remaining motions and deadlines as moot, and closed the case.
The detailed version
- The Receivership Estate of AudienceScience Inc. v. Google LLC · No. 5:22-cv-04756
- Edward Davila
- May 2, 2024
Background
The Receivership Estate of AudienceScience Inc. and Revitalization Partners, L.L.C. sued Google LLC and YouTube, LLC, alleging infringement of three AudienceScience patents under 35 U.S.C. § 271. The patents were U.S. Patent Nos. 7,747,676, 7,882,175, and 8,082,298. They concerned selecting online advertisements based on webpage context, a user’s recent browsing history, and performance scores reflecting the revenue generated by advertisements, subjects, or keywords.
The defendants moved for judgment on the pleadings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c). The motion argued that the patent claims were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because they claimed patent-ineligible subject matter. The court determined that the eligibility question could be decided from the pleadings and the patents attached to the complaint. It rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that attorney argument or factual disputes made the motion premature.
Representative Claims
The court selected multiple representative claims because no single claim captured all the relevant limitations. For the ’676 Patent, the representative claims were Claims 1, 2, and
- For the ’175 Patent, they were Claims 1, 12, and
- For the ’298 Patent, they were Claims 1 and
- The court treated these claims as representing the remaining claims because the plaintiffs did not identify meaningful differences that would affect the eligibility analysis.
Patent-Eligibility Analysis
The court applied the two-step framework used to determine whether a patent claim is directed to an abstract idea and, if so, whether it includes an inventive concept that transforms that idea into a patent-eligible application.
At the first step, the court held that the representative claims were directed to the abstract idea of targeting advertisements to internet users to maximize revenue generation. Although the claims used user history, webpage context, keywords, subjects, and performance-based weighting, the court viewed these steps as methods of tailoring information based on collected data. It concluded that using both webpage context and user history was an application of additional targeting information in an internet setting, not a solution to a problem unique to internet technology.
At the second step, the court held that the claims lacked an inventive concept. The claims used conventional computer components, including a computing system, processor, memory, and computer-readable storage or device. The court also found that the claims combined conventional approaches to advertising and did not provide a sufficiently specific method for calculating or applying the performance scores. In the court’s view, ranking advertisements, keywords, or subjects by revenue performance did not add more than the abstract advertising concept itself.
Disposition
The court held that the representative claims did not transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible application. Because the ruling was based on the language of the patents, the court found that amending the complaint would be futile.
The court GRANTED the defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings. It DISMISSED the complaint WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND. The court also terminated the defendants’ pending motion for leave to amend their answer, related motions to seal, and all pending dates and deadlines as moot. The clerk was directed to close the case.
Read the full 20-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.