Weisner v. Google LLC, 2021-2228
Docket Number | 2021-2228 |
Decision Date | 13 October 2022 |
Citation | 51 F.4th 1073 |
Parties | Sholem WEISNER, Plaintiff-Appellant Shmuel Nemanov, Plaintiff v. GOOGLE LLC, Defendant-Appellee |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Federal Circuit |
Matthew De Preter, Aronberg Goldgehn, Chicago, IL, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by Jacob Ginsburg, Jacob Ginsburg, Esq. PLLC, Monsey, NY.
Todd Richard Gregorian, Fenwick & West LLP, San Francisco, CA, argued for defendant-appellee. Also represented by Daniel Ledesma, Kevin McGann, Olivia Lynn Wheeling, New York, NY; Allen W. Wang, Mountain View, CA.
Before Reyna, Hughes, and Stoll, Circuit Judges
Sholem Weisner appeals from the district court's dismissal of his patent infringement suit under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The district court held all of the asserted claims ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. We affirm-in-part and reverse-in-part.
Mr. Weisner—a named inventor of U.S. Patent Nos. 10,380,202, 10,642,910, 10,394,905 and 10,642,911 —sued Google LLC for patent infringement in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The four asserted patents are related and share a common specification.1 The shared specification generally describes ways to "digitally record a person's physical activities" and ways to use this digital record. '202 patent, Abstract. Specifically, it describes a way in which individuals and businesses can sign up for a system so that they can exchange information, for instance "a URL or an electronic business card." Id. at col. 3 ll. 30–36. Then, as individuals go about their day, they may encounter people or businesses that they want recorded in their "leg history," which records the URLs or business cards along with the time and place of the encounters. Id. at col. 3 l. 48–col. 4 l. 23; see also id. at Fig. 8. The specification describes a "leg history" as "the accumulation of a digital record of a person's physical presence across time." Id. at col. 1 ll. 6–10.
Individuals record entries in their travel history either by accepting a proposal from another person/business (e.g., by "push[ing] a button"), or by unilaterally making an entry (e.g., by "tak[ing] a snapshot with a digital camera ... and upload[ing] it to [their] databank"). Id. at col. 3 l. 48–col. 4 l. 11. These methods are illustrated in Figure 3 (showing a user accepting a proposed entry by "Macy's") and Figure 4 (showing a user unilaterally making an entry at "Benson's" by taking a photograph):
Id. at Figs. 3–4; see also id. at col. 11 l. 20–col. 13 l. 18.
The specification also describes using this collected travel history data to "enhance web searching results." Id. at col. 17 ll. 9–13. For example, the specification describes a method for enhancing search results by using a "useful person"—someone that has visited a location in common with the searching person. Id. at col. 17 l. 53–col. 18 l. 35; see also id. at col. 19 l. 27–col. 20 l. 61. As illustrated in Figure 9, in response to a person's search, the system cross-references the digital histories of the searching person and the useful person to establish a common visit (e.g., "www.fourseasons.com" in Figure 9) and then gives priority to those search results that are found in the useful person's travel history (e.g., "www.vegassteakhouse.com" in Figure 9):
Id. at Fig. 9.
Although the patents share a common specification, the claims are meaningfully different in their focus. Independent claim 1 of the '202 patent recites recording "physical location histories" of "individual member[s]" that visit "stationary vendor member[s]" in a "member network." Id. at col. 21 ll. 13–67 (claim 1). In claim 1, the "physical encounter" entry is proposed by the stationary vendor "automatic[ally]" and is recorded "upon acceptance by the handheld mobile communication device of the individual member." Id. An example of such a system is shown in Figure 3, above.
Claim 1 also recites a variety of other generic hardware and software components and features, such as a "telecommunications network," "database," "application," "positioning system," "handheld mobile communication device," "URL," a "searchable" "physical encounter history," and a "visual timeline." Id. The full claim is lengthy:
Id. at col. 21 ll. 13–67.
Claim 1 of the 910 patent col. 21 ll. 16–61. It likewise recites generic features such as an "application," "handheld mobile communication device," "database," etc. Id. The '910 patent's recited method, however, involves "capture by the particular individual member" that is processed "automatically." Id. In other words, the location history is recorded based on the initiative of the individual choosing to record entries, rather than in response to an individual "accept[ing]" an automatic proposition by a vendor as in claim 1 of the '202 patent. See id.
The representative claims of the remaining two patents have a different focus: using physical location histories to improve computerized search results. For instance, the preamble of claim 1 of the '911 patent recites "enhancing digital search results ... using URLs of location histories." '911 patent col. 21 ll. 14–53 (claim 1). The preamble to claim 1 of the '905 patent likewise recites "combining enhanced computerized searching ... with use of humans as physical encounter links." '905 patent col. 21 ll. 15–63 (claim 1). The claims then recite a number of steps for accumulating physical location histories (similar to the '202 and '911 patents ) but then also include steps related to computerized searches using these histories. Because we will discuss claim 1 of both the '911 and '905 patents in the analysis below, we repeat the claim language in full here:
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