by Dennis Crouch
For over 150 years, “user interfaces” have been a staple of patent protection, evolving from the physical realm of tool handles and knobs to today’s digital screens. Although tangible interface elements continue be patented as components of larger systems, the market shift towards on-screen interfaces has been paralleled with the anti-eligibility shift in Mayo and Alice. The Federal Circuit recently waded into these murky waters in Broadband iTV, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 23-1107 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 3, 2024), examining the patent eligibility of electronic programming guides and content recommendation systems. Affirming a decision by Judge Albright, the appellate panel held that the claimed inventions lacked eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, distinguishing some prior GUI cases that sided with the patentee.
Read the Decision Here: 23-1107.OPINION.9-3-2024_2377827 (Authored by Judge Reyna and joined by Judges Dyk and Stark)
Background on the Case: BBiTV sued Amazon in the Western District of Texas, alleging infringement of five patents. U.S. Patent Nos. 10,028,026; 9,648,388; 10,536,750; 10,536,751; and 9,973,825. The first four patents (the ‘026 family) share a common specification, while the ‘825 patent covers similar technology but is unrelated to the ‘026 family.
The ‘026 family patents generally relate to electronic programming guides for televisions, particularly in the context of video-on-demand systems. The patents aim to improve existing program guides by automating the creation of a hierarchically arranged, template-based program guide. Claim 1 of the ‘026 patent, which the court treated as representative, is a lengthy 500+ word claim describing an “Internet-connected digital device” configured to obtain and present an electronic program guide as a “templatized video-on-demand display.” The claim details how the display is generated in multiple layers, including a background screen, a display template, and content generated using received video content and associated metadata. At oral arguments, BBiTV’s counsel Jeffrey Lamken explained that the claims require “a very specific structure, a templatized electronic display comprising at least three layers, each of which has distinct characteristics and functions . . . When it says use a three-template layer comprising layers with distinct characteristics, that is specific. It is not abstract.”
The ‘825 patent, on the other hand, focuses on adjusting the order of categories within a program guide based on a user’s viewing history. Claim 1 of the ‘825 patent, also over 500 words long, describes a method for dynamic adjustment of an individualized electronic program guide based on viewer consumption of video-on-demand programs.
At summary judgment, Judge Albright dismissed the case – granting Amazon’s motion for summary judgment that all asserted claims were patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
On appeal, BBiTV’s primary argument was that the claims of both patent families were directed to patentable improvements in computer user interfaces, similar to those found eligible in Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. v. LG Elecs., Inc., 880 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2018) and Data Engine Techs. LLC v. Google LLC, 906 F.3d 999 (Fed. Cir. 2018). BBiTV contended that the claimed inventions provided specific technological solutions to problems in user interface design for video content navigation and recommendation. Judge Reyna and his colleagues were not persuaded, and the Federal Circuit affirmed.
Looking back on these cases, in Core Wireless, the Federal Circuit held that claims directed to an improved user interface for computing devices were not abstract, but rather were “directed to a particular manner of summarizing and presenting information in electronic devices.” The Judge Moore opinion found that the claimed invention improved on existing user interface methods by allowing users to more quickly access desired data and applications. Specifically, the claims recited a specific structure (a summary window) and specific functionality (restrained types of data displayed) that together provided a “specific improvement over prior systems, resulting in an improved user interface for electronic devices.”
Similarly, in Data Engine, the Federal Circuit held that claims directed to a specific method for navigating through three-dimensional spreadsheets using notebook tabs were patent eligible. The Judge Stoll opinion explains that the tab interface improved on prior art three-dimensional spreadsheets by providing a “highly intuitive, user-friendly interface with familiar notebook tabs for navigating the three-dimensional worksheet environment.” The invention solved the known technological problem of efficiently navigating through complex three-dimensional spreadsheets. The court emphasized that the claims recited more than just displaying a graphical user interface or collecting and displaying information, but rather “a specific structure (i.e., notebook tabs) within a particular spreadsheet display that performs a specific function (i.e., navigating within a three-dimensional spreadsheet).”
BBiTV argued that its claims were analogous to those in Core Wireless and Data Engine, but the court disagreed. The baseline here is that although the BBiTV claims involved a user interface, that was not sufficient to invoke the reasoning of these pro-patentee cases–“the fact that the claims involve a user interface does not automatically put the claims in the same category as Core Wireless and Data Engine.” The key difference, according to the court, is that BBiTV’s claims were not directed to an improved structure or function of the user interface itself. Rather, the court found the BBiTV claims were directed to arranging content in a particular order (three layers) within a user guide, which it deemed to be a results-oriented abstract idea rather than a specific “technological solution to a technological problem.” This catchy phrase originally came from Judge Plager’s decision in Amdocs (Israel) Ltd. v. Openet Telecom, Inc., 841 F.3d 1288 (Fed. Cir. 2016), and has now been quoted in hundreds of PTAB decisions — the vast majority of which confirm ineligibility of the claims being prosecuted.
The court ultimately concluded that the claims here were more akin to those found abstract in Electric Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (monitoring of an electric power grid by collecting data from multiple sources, analyzing the data, and displaying the results) and In re TLI Commc’ns LLC Pat. Litig., 823 F.3d 607 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (classifying and storing digital images based on classification data).
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Jeffrey A. Lamken of MoloLamken argued for the patentee-appellant Broadband iTV, Inc., joined on the brief by Rayiner Hashem, Jonathan Barbee, Benoit Quarmby, David Alberti, Robert Kramer, and Hong Lin.
J. David Hadden of Fenwick & West LLP argued for the appellees Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon.com Services LLC, and Amazon Web Services, Inc., joined on the brief by Ravi Ragavendra Ranganath, Saina S. Shamilov, Todd Gregorian, and Jonathan Tamimi.
BBiTV’s patent prosecution is running through Charles Macedo and his team at Amster, Rothstein & Ebenstein.
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The USPTO continues to issue GUI claims each week (mostly method claims). For example, Atlassian’s recently granted patent (US12079452) claims a method for managing labels in collaborative electronic documents. The invention features a graphical user interface that includes label suggestions and dynamic searching in popup windows. Prosecution by folks at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck in Denver.
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Find claim 1 of BBiTV’s ‘026 Patent in all its lengthy glory:
1. An Internet-connected digital device for receiving, via the Internet, video content to be viewed by a subscriber of a video-on-demand system using a hierarchically arranged electronic program guide,
the Internet-connected digital device being configured to obtain and present to the subscriber an electronic program guide as a templatized video-on-demand display, which uses at least one of a plurality of different display templates to which the Internet-connected digital device has access, to enable a subscriber using the Internet-connected digital device to navigate in a drill-down manner through titles by category information in order to locate a particular one of the titles whose associated video content is desired for viewing on the Internet-connected digital device using the same category information as was designated by a video content provider in metadata associated with the video content;
wherein the ternplatized video-on-demand display has been generated in a plurality of layers, comprising:(a) a first layer comprising a background screen to provide at least one of a basic color, logo, or graphical theme to display;
(b) a second layer comprising a particular display template from the plurality of different display templates layered on the background screen, wherein the particular display template comprises one or more reserved areas that are reserved for displaying content provided by a different layer of the plurality of layers; and
(c) a third layer comprising reserved area content generated using the received video content, the associated metadata, and the associated plurality of images to be displayed in the one or more reserved areas in the particular display template as at least one of text, an image, a navigation link, and a button,
wherein the navigating through titles in a drill-down manner comprises navigating from a first level of the hierarchical structure of the video-on-demand content menu to a second level of the hierarchical structure to locate the particular one of the titles, and
wherein a first template of the plurality of different display templates is used as the particular display template for the templatized display for displaying the first level of the hierarchical structure and wherein a second template of the plurality of different display templates is used as the particular display template for the templatized display for displaying the second level of the hierarchical structure,
wherein the received video content was uploaded to a Web-based content management system by a content provider device associated with the video content provider via the Internet in a digital video format, along with associated metadata including title information and category information, and along with an associated plurality of images designated by the video content provider, the associated metadata specifying a respective hierarchical location of a respective title of the video content within the electronic program guide to be displayed on the Internet-connected digital device using the respective hierarchically-arranged category information associated with the respective title,
wherein at least one of the uploaded associated plurality of images designated by the video content provider is displayed with the associated respective title in the templatized video-on-demand display.