Ilife Technologies, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc.

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
ILIFE TECHNOLOGIES, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
NINTENDO OF AMERICA, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2020-1477
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Texas in No. 3:13-cv-04987-M, Chief
Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn.
______________________
Decided: January 13, 2021
______________________
M ICHAEL C RAIG WILSON , Munck Wilson Mandala, LLP,
Dallas, TX, for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by
CHASE COBERN , SAMUEL WALLACE D UNWOODY, IV, SHAIN
K HOSHBIN , WILLIAM A. M UNCK , JORDAN C. STRAUSS .
STEPHEN R. SMITH , Cooley LLP, Washington, DC, for
defendant-appellee. Also represented by SAMUEL WHITT;
M ATTHEW J. BRIGHAM, D ENA C HEN , Palo Alto, CA.
______________________
Case: 20-1477 Document: 51 Page: 1 Filed: 01/13/2021

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ILIFE TECHNOLOGIES , INC. v. NINTENDO OF AMERICA, INC. 2
Before M OORE, REYNA, and CHEN , Circuit Judges.
M OORE, Circuit Judge.
iLife Technologies, Inc., appeals a Northern District of
Texas order holding that claim 1 of U.S. Patent No.
6,864,796 is directed to patent ineligible subject matter un-
der 35 U.S.C. § 101. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
iLife owns the ’796 patent, which is directed to a motion
detection system that evaluates relative movement of a
body based on both dynamic acceleration (e.g., vibration,
body movement) and static acceleration (i.e., the position of
a body relative to earth). See ’796 patent at Abstract; 1:62–
67; 3:26–32. Claim 1 recites:
1. A system within a communications device capa-
ble of evaluating movement of a body relative to an
environment, said system comprising:
a sensor, associable with said body, that senses dy-
namic and static accelerative phenomena of said
body, and
a processor, associated with said sensor, that pro-
cesses said sensed dynamic and static accelerative
phenomena as a function of at least one accelera-
tive event characteristic to thereby determine
whether said evaluated body movement is within
environmental tolerance
wherein said processor generates tolerance indicia
in response to said determination; and
wherein said communication device transmits said
tolerance indicia.
iLife sued Nintendo asserting that Nintendo infringed
claim 1. Nintendo moved for summary judgment asserting
that claim 1 was directed to patent ineligible subject mat-
ter. After the court declined to decide that issue, the
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ILIFE TECHNOLOGIES , INC. v. NINTENDO OF AMERICA, INC. 3
parties continued to trial, agreeing not to present eligibility
questions to the jury. Following a jury verdict in iLife’s
favor, Nintendo moved for judgment as a matter of law
(“JMOL”), renewing its assertions that claim 1 was di-
rected to ineligible subject matter. The court granted Nin-
tendo’s motion, holding that claim 1 was directed to the
abstract idea of “gathering, processing, and transmitting
information” and failed to recite an inventive concept. J.A.
25. iLife appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1295(a)(1).
D ISCUSSION
We review a grant of a motion for JMOL under regional
circuit law. Lucent Techs., Inc. v. Gateway, Inc., 580 F.3d
1301, 1309 (Fed. Cir. 2009). The Fifth Circuit reviews an
order granting JMOL de novo. Hurst v. Lee Cty., Miss., 764
F.3d 480, 483 (5th Cir. 2014). We also review a district
court’s determination of patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C.
§ 101 de novo. DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773
F.3d 1245, 1255 (Fed. Cir. 2014).
We apply a two-step framework for “distinguishing pa-
tents that claim laws of nature, natural phenomena, and
abstract ideas from those that claim patent-eligible appli-
cations of those concepts.” Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS
Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 217 (2014). “First, we determine
whether the claims at issue are directed to” a patent-ineli-
gible concept, such as an abstract idea. Id. If they are, we
examine “the elements of [each] claim to determine
whether it contains an ‘inventive concept’ sufficient to
‘transform’ the claimed abstract idea into a patent-eligible
application.” Id. at 221 (quoting Mayo Collaborative Servs.
v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 72, 79–80 (2012)).
If the elements involve “well-understood, routine, [and]
conventional activity previously engaged in by researchers
in the field,” Mayo, 566 U.S. at 73, they do not constitute
an “inventive concept.”
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ILIFE TECHNOLOGIES , INC. v. NINTENDO OF AMERICA, INC. 4
I. Alice Step One
At step one, the district court held that claim 1 is di-
rected to the abstract idea of “gathering, processing, and
transmitting information.” J.A. 25. We agree. Claim 1
recites a motion sensor system that evaluates and com-
municates the relative movement of a body using static and
dynamic acceleration information collected from sensors.
Failing to provide any concrete detail for performing the
associated functions, however, claim 1 merely amounts to
a system capable of sensing information, processing the col-
lected information, and transmitting processed infor-
mation.
We have routinely held that claims directed to gather-
ing and processing data are directed to an abstract idea.
See Elec. Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350,
1354 (Fed. Cir. 2016); SAP Am., Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, 898
F.3d 1161, 1167 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (holding claims directed to
the abstract idea of “selecting certain information, analyz-
ing it using mathematical techniques, and reporting or dis-
playing the results of the analysis”); Content Extraction &
Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, Nat. Ass’n, 776
F.3d 1343, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (holding claims directed to
the “abstract idea of 1) collecting data, 2) recognizing cer-
tain data within the collected data set, and 3) storing that
recognized data in a memory”).
iLife argues claim 1 is not directed to an abstract idea
because it recites a physical system that incorporates sen-
sors and improved techniques for using raw sensor data
like the claims we held eligible in Thales Visionix Inc. v.
United States, 850 F.3d 1343 (Fed. Cir. 2017) and Cardio-
Net, LLC v. InfoBionic, Inc., 955 F.3d 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2020).
But in Thales, the claims recited a particular configuration
of inertial sensors and a specific choice of reference frame
in order to more accurately calculate position and orienta-
tion of an object on a moving platform. 850 F.3d at 1349.
We held the claims were not directed to an abstract idea
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ILIFE TECHNOLOGIES , INC. v. NINTENDO OF AMERICA, INC. 5
because they sought to protect “only the application of
physics to the unconventional configuration of sensors as
disclosed.” Id. Likewise, the claims in CardioNet were not
abstract because they focused on a specific means or
method that improved cardiac monitoring technology, im-
proving the detection of, and allowing more reliable and
immediate treatment of, atrial fibrillation and atrial flut-
ter. 955 F.3d at 1368. In contrast, claim 1 of the ’796 pa-
tent is not focused on a specific means or method to
improve motion sensor systems, nor is it directed to a spe-
cific physical configuration of sensors. It merely recites a
motion sensor system that evaluates movement of a body
using static and dynamic acceleration information.
While we agree with the district court that these claims
are directed to the abstract idea of gathering, processing
and transmitting data, the district court erred to the extent
that it incorporated conventionality of claim elements at
step 1. See, e.g., J.A. 26 (“Nothing in claim 1, understood
in light of the specification, requires anything other than
conventional sensors and processors performing ‘conven-
tional activit[ies] previously known to the industry.’” (quot-
ing Alice, 573 U.S. at 225 (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 73))).
The conventionality of the claim elements is only consid-
ered at step two if the claims are deemed at step 1 to be
directed to a patent ineligible concept, such as an abstract
idea. Alice, 573 U.S. at 217, 225. A claim is not directed to
an abstract idea simply because it uses conventional tech-
nology. This claim is, however, directed to an abstract idea
because it contains nothing more than the idea of gathering
processing and transmitting data.
II. Alice Step Two
At step two, we “consider the elements of each claim
both individually and ‘as an ordered combination’ to deter-
mine whether the additional elements ‘transform the na-
ture of the claim’ into a patent-eligible application.” Alice,
573 U.S. at 217 (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 78–79). We
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ILIFE TECHNOLOGIES , INC. v. NINTENDO OF AMERICA, INC. 6
have explained that this step is satisfied when the claim
elements “involve more than performance of ‘well-under-
stood, routine, [and] conventional activities previously
known to the industry.’” Content Extraction, 776 F.3d at
1347–48 (quoting Alice, 573 U.S. at 225); see also Aatrix
Software, Inc. v. Green Shades Software, Inc., 882 F.3d
1121, 1128 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (collecting cases).
As the district court held, the elements of claim 1, con-
sidered individually and as an ordered combination, fail to
recite an inventive concept. J.A. 28. Aside from the ab-
stract idea, the claim recites only generic computer compo-
nents, including a sensor, a processor, and a
communication device. The specification’s description of
these elements confirms they are generic. See, e.g., ’796
patent at 2:46–50 (communication device includes “cellular
phones, . . . laptops, computers, . . . and other similar types
of communications equipment”); 2:64–67 (sensor broadly
means “a device that senses one or more absolute values,
changes in value . . . of at least the sensed accelerative phe-
nomena”); 4:34–38 (processor means “any device, system,
or part thereof that controls at least one operation”). iLife
argues that configuring an acceleration-based sensor and
processor to detect and distinguish body movement as a
function of both dynamic and static acceleration is an in-
ventive concept. Appellant’s Br. at 53–54. But the specifi-
cation clarifies sensors (e.g., accelerometers) “that measure
both static and dynamic acceleration [were] known.” ’796
patent at 2:1–2. And unlike the claims in Thales, claim 1
does not recite any unconventional means or method for
configuring or processing that information to distinguish
body movement based on dynamic and static acceleration.
Therefore, we conclude that claim 1’s mere call for sensing
and processing static and dynamic acceleration infor-
mation using generic components does not transform the
nature of claim 1 into patent eligible subject matter. See
Elec. Power, 830 F.3d at 1355; see also BSG Tech LLC v.
Buyseasons, Inc., 899 F.3d 1281, 1290–91 (Fed. Cir. 2018)
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ILIFE TECHNOLOGIES , INC. v. NINTENDO OF AMERICA, INC. 7
(“If a claim’s only ‘inventive concept’ is the application of
an abstract idea using conventional and well-understood
techniques, the claim has not been transformed into a pa-
tent-eligible application of an abstract idea.”). Accordingly,
we hold claim 1 is directed to patent-ineligible subject mat-
ter.
CONCLUSION
We have considered iLife’s remaining arguments and
find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we con-
clude that claim 1 of the ’796 patent is ineligible under
§ 101, and, therefore, we affirm.
AFFIRMED
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