by Dennis Crouch
BBiTV has signaled its intent to seek Supreme Court review of the Federal Circuit’s rejection of its electronic program guide patents, teeing up important questions about patent eligibility for software innovations. The case highlights persistent tensions in how courts evaluate patent eligibility for screen-based user interfaces under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Broadband iTV, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc.
Background: The Technology and Patents at Issue
The challenges BBiTV’s patents aim to solve are immediately familiar to anyone who has struggled with a hotel television guide. A couple of months ago I was up in Chicago at the IPO meeting and recall the frustration of navigating a poorly designed program guide. The tedious process – click, wait, click, wait, click, wait – left me scrolling through countless unwanted channels, only to eventually give up and turn off the TV without watching anything.
The asserted BBiTV patents cover improvements to electronic program guides for video-on-demand systems. As content options exploded, viewers needed better tools to sift through the chaff. BBiTV’s patents claim to improve the user experience through automated guide generation and personalized organization. U.S. Patent Nos. 10,028,026, 9,648,388, 10,538,750, and 10,536,751. The ‘026 patent family claims a templated approach for automatically generating program guides using metadata and content uploaded by providers. The system uses a three-layer display architecture: a background layer providing basic visual elements, a template layer defining reserved areas, and a content layer populated with video information and navigation elements. A related ‘825 patent covers dynamically adjusting content categories based on viewing history to reduce navigation time.
The Section 101 Challenge
The district court granted summary judgment to Amazon.com invalidating all claims under § 101, and the Federal Circuit subsequently affirmed. The appeals court found the claims directed to abstract ideas of “receiving metadata and organizing the display of video content” and “collecting and using viewing history data to recommend categories.” The court rejected BBiTV’s arguments that the specific template architecture and dynamic interface adjustments constituted patent-eligible improvements to computer technology. I wrote more about the case a few months ago in my post titled From Knobs to Pixels: UI Patent Eligibility on Trial (Sept 2024).
The Upcoming Cert Petition
BBiTV’s recently filed a request with the Supreme Court to delay its cert petition. As is common, the extension request includes some information about the upcoming petition arguments.
A central issue BBiTV plans to raise to the Supreme Court petition involves how courts handle disputed factual issues when deciding patent eligibility on summary judgment. The Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment despite BBiTV’s presentation of evidence that template-based display generation was not conventional at the time of invention. The court relied heavily on a single line from the patent mentioning that templates could be created by a “template design firm” and testimony that templates were “known,” without grappling with BBiTV’s contrary evidence about the unconventional nature of its specific implementation. Of course, summary judgment is only proper if there are no material facts in dispute.
This procedural question is particularly timely given the pending petition in Island Intellectual Property LLC v. TD Ameritrade, Inc. I have written about that petition primarily in the context of R.36 opinion-free judgments, but that petition also asks whether courts can resolve patent eligibility at summary judgment when there are genuine factual disputes regarding “conventional” claim elements under Alice step two. Like BBiTV, Island IP argues that the Federal Circuit has improperly allowed courts to resolve contested factual issues about the state of the art at summary judgment, contrary to both Rule 56 and the Supreme Court’s guidance that Section 101 analysis may involve underlying factual determinations.
Chief Justice Roberts recently granted BBiTV’s request for a delay in filing its petition until January 31, 2025.
Jeffrey A. Lamken of MoloLamken is representing the patentee-petitioner as he did before the Federal Circuit. David Hadden of Fenwick & West argued for argued for defendants-appellees Amazon.com at the Federal Circuit.