Eolas Technologies Incorporated v. Amazon.com, Inc., Google LLC, Walmart, Inc.

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
AMAZON.COM, INC., GOOGLE LLC, WALMART,
INC.,
Defendants-Appellees
---------------------------------------------
GOOGLE LLC,
Plaintiff-Appellee
v.
EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED,
Defendant-Appellant
REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,
Defendant
______________________
2022-1932, 2022-1933, 2022-1934, 2022-1935
______________________
Appeals from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of California in Nos. 4:15-cv-05446-JST,
4:17-cv-01138-JST, 4:17-cv-03022-JST, 4:17-cv-03023-JST,
Judge Jon S. Tigar.
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 2
______________________
Decided: February 1, 2024
______________________
J OHN BRUCE CAMPBELL , McKool Smith, P.C., Austin,
TX, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by
J OSHUA WRIGHT BUDWIN, J AMES ELROY Q UIGLEY , J OEL
L ANCE T HOLLANDER.
CHARLES K RAMER VERHOEVEN, Quinn Emanuel Ur-
quhart & Sullivan, LLP, San Francisco, CA, for defendant-
appellee Google LLC. Also represented by J OCELYNE MA,
D AVID A NDREW P ERLSON; D EEPA ACHARYA , Washington,
DC.
G ABRIEL K. BELL , Latham & Watkins LLP, Washing-
ton, DC, argued for all defendants-appellees. Defendant-
appellee Amazon.com, Inc. also represented by RICHARD
G REGORY F RENKEL , D OUGLAS ETHAN L UMISH , Menlo Park,
CA; J OSEPH HYUK L EE , Costa Mesa, CA; AMIT MAKKER, San
Francisco, CA; J EFFREY H. D EAN, Amazon.com, Inc., Seat-
tle, WA.
MARK CHRISTOPHER F LEMING, Wilmer Cutler Pickering
Hale and Dorr LLP, Boston, MA, for defendant-appellee
Walmart, Inc.
______________________
Before CHEN, BRYSON , and STOLL , Circuit Judges.
STOLL , Circuit Judge.
Eolas Technologies Inc. appeals from the United States
District Court for the Northern District of California’s sum-
mary judgment holding the asserted claims of Eolas’s U.S.
Patent No. 9,195,507 invalid for claiming ineligible subject
matter. Because we agree with the district court’s conclu-
sion, we affirm.
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 3
BACKGROUND
I
The ’507 patent claims priority from a patent filed in
1994. The ’507 patent specification notes that the limited
processing power of a typical client computer and the low
bandwidth of the Internet prohibited most users from in-
teracting with large data objects on the Internet. See ’507
patent col. 5 ll. 39–52, col. 6 ll. 22–33. The specification de-
scribes the present invention as taking advantage of dis-
tributed hypermedia environments, such as that provided
by the World Wide Web, and harnessing the remote com-
puting power made available by distributed computing.1
Id. col. 6 ll. 57–67; see also id. col. 7 ll. 1–6.
The specification explains that tasks that would nor-
mally be resource or bandwidth-intensive for a single com-
puter—such as rendering large images or calculating
spreadsheet cells—can be performed more effectively with
distributed computing. For example, a new viewpoint of a
large image or an updated calculation for a large spread-
sheet can be computed on a remote computer and then sent
to the client computer for display. See id. col. 7 ll. 1–33.
Figure 5, shown below, illustrates an embodiment of
the invention.
1 “Distributed” describes objects or processes that
are located and/or processed across multiple computers on
a network. See, e.g., ’507 patent col. 5 ll. 29–34; see Eolas
Techs. Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 6:15-cv-01038,
2016 WL 7155294, at *8 (E.D. Tex. Dec. 8, 2016) (Claim
Construction Op.) (construing “distributed application” to
mean an “application that is broken up and performed
among two or more computers”).
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 4
Id. Fig. 5. In this embodiment, a browser client 208 on the
user’s computer requests and parses through a data object
(e.g., hypermedia document 212),2 and identifies an appli-
cation for the application client 210 to invoke in order to
interact with the data object. See id. col. 9 ll. 4–20, col. 9
ll. 29–33. The application client 210 communicates with
the distributed network 206 (e.g., World Wide Web) to ac-
cess the data object located on a server computer 204. Id.
col. 9 ll. 34–40. Upon receipt of the data object from the
application client 210, the browser client 208 displays the
data object on the client computer 200. Id. col. 9 ll. 54–57;
see also id. col. 9 l. 65–col. 10 l. 3. The specification also
describes an example of an application performing multidi-
mensional image visualization. Id. col. 9 ll. 34–35. In this
2 A “hypermedia document” is a document presented
to a user in a computer system in which “the user is able to
click on images, sound icons, video icons, etc., that link to
other objects of various media types, such as additional
graphics, sound, video, text, or hypermedia or hypertext
documents.” ’507 patent col. 2 ll. 22–30.
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 5
example, application server 220 performs the rendering
and transformation calculations as the user interacts with
the three-dimensional data object, with application client
210 updating the user’s view with each new viewpoint cal-
culation. Id. col. 10 ll. 34–39, ll. 46–54. The specification
describes a preferred embodiment in which the user inter-
acts with the three-dimensional data object “within, or ad-
jacent to, a window generated by browser client 208 that
contains a display of hypermedia document 212.” Id. col. 9
ll. 59–61.
According to the ’507 patent, having the application
server 220 use the computing resources of the server com-
puter 204, as described in the three-dimensional visualiza-
tion example, is much faster than having the application
client 210 executing on the client computer 200. Id. col. 10
ll. 60–64.
Eolas argued before the district court that there is no
substantial difference between method claims 32, 37, and
39 and system claims 19, 24, and 26. The district court
agreed and determined these method claims were repre-
sentative of the system claims. See Eolas Techs. Inc. v. Am-
azon.com Inc., No. 17-cv-03022, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
243302, at *53–54 (N.D. Cal. May 16, 2022) (Summary
Judgment Op.). Representative independent claim 32 re-
cites:
32. A method, performed by a server computer con-
nected to the World Wide Web distributed hyper-
media network on the Internet, for disseminating
interactive content via the World Wide Web dis-
tributed hypermedia network on the Internet, the
method comprising:
A. receiving, by the server computer, a re-
quest for information; and
B. transferring, by the server computer,
the information onto the World Wide Web
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 6
distributed hypermedia network on the In-
ternet, wherein:
(i) a World Wide Web browser on a
client computer connected to the
World Wide Web distributed hyper-
media network has been configured
with a plurality of different interac-
tive-content applications, each said
interactive-content application be-
ing configured to enable a user to
interact, within one or more World
Wide Web pages, with at least part
of one or more objects while at least
part of each of said one or more ob-
jects is displayed to the user within
at least one of said one or more
World Wide Web pages, and
(ii) at least part of the information
is configured to allow the World
Wide Web browser on the client
computer to:
a. detect at least part of an object to
be displayed in a World Wide Web
page, and
b. cause a display of the World
Wide Web page to a user,
(iii) the World Wide Web browser
has been configured to:
a. select an interactive-content ap-
plication, based upon the infor-
mation, from among the different
interactive-content applications,
and
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 7
b. automatically invoke the se-
lected interactive-content applica-
tion to enable the user to employ
the selected interactive-content ap-
plication to interact within the
World Wide Web page with at least
part of the object while at least part
of the object is displayed to the user
within the World Wide Web page,
wherein the automatically invoked
interactive-content application has
been configured to operate as part
of a distributed application config-
ured to enable a user to perform the
interaction through the use of com-
munications sent to and received
from at least a portion of the dis-
tributed application located on two
or more distributed application
computers connected to the World
Wide Web distributed hypermedia
network on the Internet, the two or
more distributed application com-
puters being remote from the client
computer.
’507 patent col. 23 l. 25–col. 24 l. 2.
Eolas argues that independent claim 45 is patent eligi-
ble for additional reasons not present in representative
claim 32. In particular, Eolas emphasizes that claim 45
recites additional limitations of generating and sending
computer commands to perform viewing transformations:
45. A method performed by one or more computers
for coordinating distributed processing to enable
dissemination of interactive content to a client
computer, the method comprising:
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 8
a. coordinating by the one or more comput-
ers processing of at least part of a distrib-
uted application to perform at least one
task,
b. coordinating by the one or more comput-
ers communications sent to and received
from at least a portion of the distributed
application located on two or more separate
computers connected to the World Wide
Web distributed hypermedia network to
enable the separate computers to work to-
gether to perform the at least one task,
wherein at least part of the distributed ap-
plication has been implemented to be part
of a distributed interactive-content applica-
tion configured to enable a user to interact
with at least part of an object, displayed
within a World Wide Web page by the cli-
ent computer, and
c. generating and sending by the one or
more computers commands over a network
to coordinate activity of the separate com-
puters working together to perform view-
ing transformations to enable the
interaction with at least part of the object,
wherein:
a. the two or more separate com-
puters are remote from the client
computer containing a World Wide
Web browser configured to cause
the display of the World Wide Web
page,
b. the World Wide Web browser has
been configured with a plurality of
different interactive-content appli-
cations, each said interactive-
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 9
content application being config-
ured to enable a user to interact,
within one or more World Wide
Web pages, with at least part of one
or more objects while at least part
of each of said one or more objects
is displayed to the user within at
least one of said one or more World
Wide Web pages,
c. the World Wide Web browser has
been enabled, by information that
has been transferred onto the
World Wide Web distributed hyper-
media network, to detect at least
part of the object and to display the
world Wide Web Page,
d. the World Wide Web browser
has been configured to select an in-
teractive-content application,
based upon the information, from
among the different interactive-
content applications, and automat-
ically invoke the selected interac-
tive-content application,
e. the automatically invoked inter-
active-content application has been
configured to operate as part of the
distributed interactive-content ap-
plication.
Id. col. 24 l. 56–col. 25 l. 37.
II
Eolas filed suit against Amazon.com, Inc.; Google LLC;
and Walmart, Inc. (collectively, “Appellees”) in the Eastern
District of Texas for infringing certain claims of the ’507
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 10
patent. The cases were later transferred to the Northern
District of California.
During claim construction, the district court construed
the claim limitation “World Wide Web browser on a client
computer” to not require that the interactive content appli-
cations be internal to the World Wide Web browser.3 See
Claim Construction Op., 2016 WL 7155294, at *12–13. In
other words, the district court determined that the claim
did not require relocation of the interactive content appli-
cation into the World Wide Web browser.
Appellees filed a motion for summary judgment, argu-
ing that the claims 19, 24, 26, 32, 37, 39, and 45 are ineli-
gible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Applying the
two-step test set forth in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Interna-
tional, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), the district court concluded
that under Alice step one, the asserted claims are “directed
to the abstract idea of enabling interactivity with remote
objects on a client computer browser using distributed com-
puting.” Summary Judgment Op., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
243302, at *20. The district court determined under Alice
step two that the purported inventive concepts of distrib-
uted computing and improved security, whether
3 The court specifically construed the claim term
“the World Wide Web browser on a client computer” to
mean “a client computer application, separate from the in-
teractive-content application, that allows a user to access
the World Wide Web.” Claim Construction Op., 2016 WL
7155294, at *13 (emphasis added). This separation cuts
against the notion that the interactive content application
must be in the browser. Also, the court’s construction is
consistent with the title of the ’507 patent, which refers to
“Automatically Invoking External Application” and Fig-
ure 8A of the preferred embodiment, which refers to
launching an external application at step 290. ’507 patent
Fig. 8A, col. 15 ll. 4–7, ll. 17–18.
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 11
individually or as an ordered combination, embodied the
abstract idea, and thus could not transform the claim be-
yond the abstract idea as required to demonstrate eligibil-
ity under Alice step two. Id. at *60–61. It also explained
that the remaining aspects of the asserted claims lacked an
inventive concept to transform the abstract idea into a pa-
tent-eligible application because they cite generic computer
components and functions. See id. at *61–62. The district
court therefore held the asserted claims ineligible under
§ 101 and granted summary judgment in Appellees’ favor.
Id. at *67–68.
Eolas appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1295(a)(1).
D ISCUSSION
When reviewing a district court’s grant of summary
judgment, we apply the law of the regional circuit. See Syn-
opsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp., 839 F.3d 1138, 1146
(Fed. Cir. 2016). Summary judgment in the Ninth Circuit
is appropriate when, after drawing all reasonable infer-
ences in favor of the non-moving party, there remains no
genuine issue of material fact precluding the grant of sum-
mary judgment. See Comite de Jornaleros de Redondo
Beach v. City of Redondo Beach, 657 F.3d 936, 942 (9th Cir.
2011).
Patent eligibility under § 101 is a question of law that
may involve underlying questions of fact. See Mortg.
Grader, Inc. v. First Choice Loan Servs. Inc., 811 F.3d
1314, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2016). We review the district court’s
ultimate conclusion on eligibility de novo. See Intell. Ven-
tures I LLC v. Capital One Fin. Corp., 850 F.3d 1332, 1338
(Fed. Cir. 2017). We look to the two-step test articulated
in Alice to determine whether a claim is eligible for patent-
ing under § 101. See 573 U.S. at 217–18. For Alice step
one, we must assess whether the claims at issue are di-
rected to a patent-ineligible concept, namely a law of na-
ture, natural phenomenon, or abstract idea. Id. at 217. If
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 12
the answer is yes, we then consider the claim elements,
both individually and as an ordered combination, to deter-
mine whether they contain an “inventive concept” suffi-
cient to “‘transform the nature of the claim’ into a patent-
eligible application.” Id. at 217–18 (quoting Mayo Collab-
orative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 72–
73, 78 (2012)). In other words, we must determine whether
the claims recite additional features beyond the abstract
idea, rendering the claims eligible for patenting. Those ad-
ditional features must be more than “well-understood, rou-
tine, conventional activity.” Mayo, 566 U.S. at 79–80.
Starting with Alice step one, the district court deter-
mined that representative claim 32 of the ’507 patent “is
directed to the abstract concept of enabling interactivity
with remote objects on a client computer browser using dis-
tributed computing.” Summary Judgment Op., 2022 U.S.
Dist. LEXIS 243302, at *27.
On appeal, Eolas argues that this characterization is
overgeneralized in that it fails to acknowledge the claim’s
recitation of objects on the World Wide Web. See Appel-
lant’s Br. 43–44. We agree. Eolas’s claims are not directed
to computers, networks, or interacting with content gener-
ally; rather, they recite interacting with content on the
World Wide Web. For example, the body of claim 32 recites
certain configuration requirements of a World Wide Web
browser, World Wide Web pages, and the World Wide Web
distributed hypermedia network. The district court’s char-
acterization “disregard[s] th[e]se express claim elements”
in a way that is “‘untethered from the claim language.’”
TecSec, Inc. v. Adobe Inc., 978 F.3d 1278, 1295 (Fed. Cir.
2020) (quoting Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d
1327, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2016)); see also Enfish, 822 F.3d
at 1337 (warning against “describing the claims at such a
high level of abstraction” in the § 101 analysis). The spec-
ification further supports our understanding of what the
claimed invention is directed to in that it describes
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 13
problems specific to the World Wide Web and explains how
the invention purports to solve them.
At the same time, we are concerned that the district
court’s characterization of what the claims are directed to
is too specific in that the court included implementation de-
tails—i.e., using distributed computing—that may be best
left for consideration under Alice step two. See Summary
Judgment Op., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 243302, at *60–61.
In narrowly articulating what the invention was directed
to under Alice step one and concluding that this subject
matter was abstract, the district court eliminated any op-
portunity to consider whether distributed computing trans-
forms the invention into eligible subject matter under Alice
step two. See BSG Tech LLC v. Buyseasons, Inc., 899 F.3d
1281, 1290 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (“After identifying an ineligible
concept at step one, we ask at step two ‘[w]hat else is there
in the claims before us?’” (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 78
(modification in BSG)).
We nonetheless agree with the district court that, even
under our slightly modified view of what the claims are di-
rected to, the claims are directed to an abstract idea under
Alice step one. Simply put, interacting with data objects
on the World Wide Web is an abstraction. See Ultramer-
cial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709, 714–15 (Fed. Cir.
2014).
Eolas contends that it developed new functionality that
was not previously available and thus its claims are eligi-
ble under § 101. We are not persuaded by this particular
argument. At best, the specification explains that prior art
systems provided users “very little, if any, interaction with
the[] data objects” on the World Wide Web due to the con-
straints of client computers, ’507 patent col. 6 ll. 22–34,
and thus “it [wa]s desirable to allow a user to manipulate
data objects in an interactive way to provide the user with
a better understanding of information presented and to al-
low the user to accomplish a wider variety of tasks,” id.
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 14
col. 6 ll. 37–41. But an abstract idea that is new or ground-
breaking is not any less abstract. See Ultramercial,
772 F.3d at 714 (rejecting argument that “abstract ideas
remain patent-eligible under § 101 as long as they are new
ideas, not previously well known, and not routine activ-
ity”).
Case law from the Supreme Court and this court sug-
gests that claims purporting to improve a technological
process are not directed to an abstract idea under § 101.
See Alice, 573 U.S. at 223; Visual Memory LLC v. NVIDIA
Corp., 867 F.3d 1253, 1260 (Fed. Cir. 2017). According to
Eolas, the ’507 patent claims capture “specific technologi-
cal solutions to [three] specific technological problems,”
and thus, the claims are not abstract under Alice step one.
Appellant’s Br. 25. First, Eolas asserts that at the time of
the invention, user interaction with data objects was lim-
ited to downloading data objects “onto their client comput-
ers and then launching external applications that would
[then] permit manipulation” of the data objects. Appel-
lant’s Br. 23. Eolas asserts that with the claimed inven-
tion, “rather than downloading objects to be manipulated
with outside-the-Web-browser helper applications, objects
are embedded within Web pages and Web browsers are
configured with applications that can be automatically in-
voked to permit manipulation while the object is displayed
within the Web page.” Appellant’s Br. 24. In other words,
Eolas claims that inside-the-browser applications facilitate
object manipulation. Second, Eolas contends that in addi-
tion to relocating applications to reside within the Web
browser, the claims address scalability with its distributed
computing configuration: “new applications are broken up
and distributed, with one part working in the browser and
other parts on remote distributed application computers.”
Id. Third, Eolas contends that, by invoking only applica-
tions that are configured to be used with the Web browser,
the invention improves security. Appellant’s Br. 24–25. In
the alternative, Eolas relies on these same three aspects of
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 15
the invention as alleged inventive concepts that would ren-
der the claims eligible under Alice step two. See Appel-
lant’s Br. 55–58. As noted above, Alice step two requires
determining whether an element, or a combination of ele-
ments, in the claim contains an inventive concept sufficient
to “‘transform the nature of the claim’ into a patent-eligible
application.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 217 (quoting Mayo,
566 U.S. at 72, 79). Finally, Eolas contends that claim 45’s
additional limitation of “viewing transformations” provides
an inventive concept that renders claim 45 patent-eligible.
Appellant’s Br. 35.
Whether analyzed as technological improvements un-
der Alice step 1 or as inventive concepts under Alice step 2,
none of Eolas’s three alleged concepts for representative
claim 32 make the claim eligible. We likewise conclude
that claim 45 does not recite additional features beyond the
claimed abstract idea that render the claim eligible for pa-
tenting. We consider each of Eolas’s alleged inventive con-
cepts in turn below.
First, Eolas contends that relocation of the interactive
content application from outside to inside the World Wide
Web browser itself was an important new structural
change that improved interactivity with the World Wide
Web. But we do not see this limitation anywhere in the
claims and thus it cannot satisfy Alice step two. And Eolas
did not challenge the district court’s claim construction,
which does not require that the interactive content appli-
cation be internal to the World Wide Web browser, on ap-
peal. Furthermore, Eolas did not present this alleged
inventive concept of relocating the interactive application
in the web browser in its § 101 arguments before the dis-
trict court below. Thus, not only do the claims not recite
locating the interactive content applications within the
browser, but it appears that Eolas waived this argument
by not presenting it below. Relocation of the interactive
content application within the web browser is therefore not
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 16
an inventive concept that renders the claims eligible under
Alice step 2.
Second, Eolas asserts that the claims recite the in-
ventive concept of distributed processing between the ap-
plication in the browser and applications on remote
distributed computers. But it is undisputed that, at the
time of the invention, distributed processing was well-un-
derstood, routine, conventional activity. See Summary
Judgment Op., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 243302, at *61 n.12;
Appellees’ Br. 54. For example, one of the named inventors
of the ’507 patent confirmed that the inventors did not in-
vent distributed computing, servers, or applications.
J.A. 16647, 16649 (Martin Depo. at 63:9–18, 65:8–24).
Moreover, as the district court explained, the claims
merely describe a desired function or outcome without
providing details of the claimed distributed processing.
Specifically, claim 32 requires an automatically invoked in-
teractive-content application “configured to operate as part
of a distribution application” that “enable[s] a user” to in-
teract with data objects within a World Wide Web Page.
’507 patent col. 23 ll. 54–62. And the rest of the claim re-
cites that “a portion of the distributed application [is] lo-
cated on two or more distributed application computers
connected to the World Wide Web distributed hypermedia
network on the Internet [with] the two or more distributed
application computers being remote from the client com-
puter.” Id. col. 23 l. 61–col. 24 l. 2. The claim thus recites
distributed processing, but does not specify how the
claimed configuration for distributed processing is any dif-
ferent than generic distributed processing. For example,
the claim does not specify how the processing is distributed
among the distributed application computers. Nor does it
require distributed processing among applications internal
and external to the web browser. Without more, the dis-
tributed processing as claimed is not an inventive concept
that transforms claim 32 into a patent-eligible invention.
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 17
Third, Eolas alleges its claims alleviate certain security
concerns existing at the time of the invention by limiting
the invoked interactive content applications to those con-
figured to operate within the Web browser. But this al-
leged inventive concept is not within the scope of the claims
because, as noted above, the claims do not actually require
that the interactive content applications be located within
the browser. Indeed, the claims merely recite that the
browser invokes interactive-content applications (which,
under the district court’s construction, are separate from—
i.e., external to—the “World Wide Web browser”). See ’507
patent col. 23 ll. 50–53 (“[T]he World Wide Web
browser . . . select[s] an interactive-content application . . .
from among the different interactive-content applica-
tions.”); see also id. Title (“Distributed Hypermedia Method
and System for Automatically Invoking External Applica-
tion Providing Interaction and Display of Embedded Ob-
jects within a Hypermedia Document”); id. col. 15 ll. 4–7,
ll. 15–30. Thus, the claims are not eligible under either Al-
ice step one or Alice step two based on this contention.
Finally, turning to claim 45, Eolas asserts that the ad-
ditional limitation requiring remote computers to generate
and send computer commands to perform “viewing trans-
formations” offers a 3D view that improves a computer net-
work system’s specific technical features or operations.
Appellant’s Br. 35. This additional limitation does not
transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible claim.
The district court construed “viewing transformations” to
mean “operations performed on data for visual display to a
user.” Claim Construction Op., 2016 WL 7155294, at *16.
This broad construction, which is unchallenged on appeal,
encompasses visual display generally, something well-
known in the art at the time of the invention. See, e.g.,
J.A. 16655–56 (Martin Depo. 145:18–146:2) (Inventor Mar-
tin denying having invented sending commands to a re-
mote server to perform visualization processes);
J.A. 12150–51 (prior art publication describing sending
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EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON. COM , INC. 18
scientific visualization to remote computers); ’507 patent
col. 6 ll. 2–4 (explaining in background of the invention sec-
tion that “a variety of visualization techniques . . . have
been developed”); J.A. 13047 (Inventor Doyle describing ex-
isting visualization systems in a 1994 proposal). Nor does
anything else in the claim or the specification show how the
recited viewing transformation differs from conventional
visual display. Thus, the “viewing transformations” limi-
tation in claim 45—construed as “operations performed on
data for visual display to a user”—fails to transform the
abstract idea into an eligible technical solution. See, e.g.,
Elec. Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1355
(Fed. Cir. 2016) (stating that “‘displaying concurrent visu-
alization’ of two or more types of information . . . is ‘insuf-
ficient to pass the test of an inventive concept in the
application’ of an abstract idea’” (quoting buySAFE, Inc.
v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1353, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2014)).
For all of the above reasons, we conclude that the
claims are directed to an abstract idea under Alice step 1
and that the alleged inventive concepts identified by Eolas
do not otherwise transform the abstract nature of the
claims to render the claims patent-eligible. We thus agree
with the district court’s judgment that the asserted claims
of the ’507 patent are not eligible for patenting.
CONCLUSION
We have considered Eolas’s remaining arguments and
find them unpersuasive. Because the district court cor-
rectly concluded that the ’507 patent claims are directed to
ineligible subject matter, we affirm.
AFFIRMED
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