Interface claims written as results, synchronizing and layering without saying how, fail at both Alice steps

2022-10-17Fed. Cir.

International Business Machines Corporation v. Zillow Group, Inc., 50 F.4th 1371 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 17, 2022) (precedential) (Hughes, J., joined by Reyna, J.; Stoll, J., dissenting in part), affirming International Business Machines Corp. v. Zillow Group, Inc., 549 F. Supp. 3d 1247 (W.D. Wash. 2021) (Zilly, J.), No. 2:20-cv-00851-TSZ

The Western District of Washington entered judgment on the pleadings under Rule 12(c) that two patents International Business Machines Corporation asserted against Zillow claimed ineligible subject matter under Section 101 of Title 35 of the United States Code. United States Patent No. 9,158,789 claims presenting a map display and a list display, receiving a user input drawing a selection area, and "synchronizing the map display and the list display to concurrently update" the selection. United States Patent No. 7,187,389 claims displaying objects in layers distinguished by non-spatial display attributes, with a layer order determining display emphasis; dependent claims 9 and 13 add rearranging layers and re-matching objects at a user's request. The Federal Circuit affirmed, Judge Hughes writing with Judge Reyna. The '789 patent is directed to limiting and coordinating displayed information based on a user selection, and the claim "is result-oriented, describing required functions (presenting, receiving, selecting, synchronizing), without explaining how to accomplish any of the tasks"; IBM's inventiveness allegations were conclusory and divorced from the claims. The '389 patent is directed to organizing and displaying visual information, which cartographers have long done with layer coloring, and is broader than the small-screen interface claims upheld in Core Wireless. Judge Stoll dissented as to claims 9 and 13, which on the complaint and attached expert declaration she read as a specific technique for re-layering a cluttered display.

What it changesThe words that lost these claims are the words most artificial intelligence interface claims are built on: present, receive, select, filter, synchronize, display. A claim to a dashboard that surfaces model predictions, a tool that lets an analyst draw a region and refilter the model's output, or an interface that re-layers results by confidence will be read as a result unless the claim says how the result is produced in terms a computer needs. Recite the mechanism: the data structure that links the map elements to the list rows, the event that triggers the update, the rule that assigns objects to layers. Attaching an expert declaration to the complaint did not help IBM; the majority treated the inventiveness allegations as divorced from the claims, and only the dissent credited them. For an existing portfolio, user interface claims that recite coordinated or synchronized displays without an implementation should be assumed vulnerable on the pleadings, and continuation claims should be written to the implementation while the family is still open.

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Burbage Law is the practice of Jon Burbage, a registered patent attorney. 342 United States patents have issued from applications he wrote; the full list is on the Patents page. More about Jon Burbage.

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