Bluebonnet Internet Media Services, LLC v. Pandora Media, LLC

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
BLUEBONNET INTERNET MEDIA SERVICES,
LLC,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
PANDORA MEDIA, LLC,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2022-2215
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of California in No. 3:21-cv-08294-VC,
Judge Vince Chhabria.
______________________
Decided: March 29, 2024
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ROBERT R. BRUNELLI, Sheridan Ross PC, Denver, CO,
argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by BRIAN
BOERMAN; BRIAN ANDREW CARPENTER , Cole Schotz P.C.,
Dallas, TX; G EORGE T HEODORE SCOTT , WALTER J AMES
SCOTT , J R., Scott Law Group LLP, Evergreen, CO.
BRYAN ALEXANDER K OHM , Fenwick & West LLP, San
Francisco, CA, argued for defendant-appellee. Also
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BLUEBONNET INTERNET MEDIA SERVICES, LLC v.
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represented by J ESSICA L. BENZLER ; J ONATHAN T HOMAS
MCMICHAEL , Seattle, WA.
______________________
Before P ROST , S TOLL , and STARK, Circuit Judges.
STARK, Circuit Judge.
Bluebonnet Internet Media Services, LLC (“Bluebon-
net”) appeals the judgment of the United States District
Court for the Northern District of California (“Northern
District”) that all asserted claims of its U.S. Patent Nos.
9,405,753 (“’753 patent”), 9,547,650 (“’650 patent”), and
9,779,095 (“’095 patent”) are directed to nonpatentable
subject matter. Bluebonnet also asks us to reconsider our
prior decision to issue a writ of mandamus and order this
case to be transferred from the Western District of Texas
(“Western District”). We find that the patents are directed
to an abstract idea and do not contain an inventive concept,
rendering the patents ineligible and the issue of forum
transfer moot. Accordingly, we affirm.
I
Bluebonnet filed suit in the Western District against
Pandora Media, LLC (“Pandora”) alleging infringement of
certain claims of the ’753, ’650, and ’095 patents. Repre-
sentative claim 1 of the ’753 patent recites:
A system comprising:
a playback interface executing on an
internet enabled multimedia computing
platform including:
a media player that plays me-
dia resources delivered over the In-
ternet from a remote server, and
a streaming media clips rating
system that receives a rating when
a user enters a rating selection by
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using one or more of an icon or dis-
play feature of the playback inter-
face, and signals, via the Internet,
the rating to a rating component;
and
a rating system including:
a database management com-
ponent that maintains an organiza-
tional data structure that describes
rating information for the media
resources,
the rating component receives,
via the Internet, the rating from
the streaming media clips rating
system and modifies rating infor-
mation in the organizational data
structure at least based on the rat-
ing; and
a play-list generator adapted to auto-
matically and dynamically generate at
least one play-list based on rating infor-
mation in the organizational data struc-
ture, wherein the play-list comprises
identifiers of one or more media resources
selected based on the rating information,
wherein the media resources are played
back on the media player.
’753 patent at 38:41-65.
Pandora’s motion to transfer the case from the Western
District was originally denied, but we later granted Pan-
dora’s mandamus petition and ordered the case to be trans-
ferred to the Northern District. Thereafter, Pandora
moved for judgment on the pleadings, which the judge in
the Northern District granted. The court found that while
the asserted “claims may capture the core of a good
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business idea,” “they are directed to an abstract idea and
lack an inventive concept – and are therefore invalid” un-
der 35 U.S.C. § 101. J.A. 27. Bluebonnet timely appealed.1
II
We evaluate subject matter eligibility using the two-
step Alice test. See Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S.
208 (2014). “First, we determine whether the claims at is-
sue are directed to a patent-ineligible concept, such as an
abstract idea,” and, second, we “determine whether [the
claim] contains an inventive concept sufficient to transform
the claimed abstract idea into a patent-eligible applica-
tion.” Chamberlain Grp., Inc. v. Techtronic Indus. Co., 935
F.3d 1341, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks
omitted). “[I]f a patent’s recitation of a computer amounts
to a mere instruction to ‘implemen[t]’ an abstract idea
‘on . . . a computer,’ that addition cannot impart patent el-
igibility.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 223 (internal citation omitted).
“We review procedural aspects of the grant of judgment
on the pleadings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(c) based on the law of the regional circuit,” which here
is the Ninth Circuit. Two-Way Media Ltd. v. Comcast Ca-
ble Commc’ns, LLC, 874 F.3d 1329, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2017).
In the Ninth Circuit, “[d]ismissal for failure to state a claim
is reviewed de novo. Factual allegations in the complaint
are taken as true and all reasonable inferences are drawn
in the plaintiff’s favor.” Barrett v. Belleque, 544 F.3d 1060,
1061 (9th Cir. 2008) (internal citation omitted).
III
At Alice step one, the district court found that Bluebon-
net’s claims were directed to the abstract idea of
1 The district court had subject-matter jurisdiction
under 28 U.S.C. § 1338. We have jurisdiction under 28
U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).
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“customizing a product according to a customer’s likes and
dislikes,” applied “to the somewhat narrower context of
computer-based media playlists.” J.A. 28. We agree with
the district court. Our precedent establishes that these
types of methods of organizing digital media – which is
what creating playlists based on user feedback is – are ab-
stract ideas. See, e.g., In re TLI Commc’ns LLC Pat. Litig.,
823 F.3d 607, 613 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“[A]ttaching classifica-
tion data, such as dates and times, to images for the pur-
pose of storing those images in an organized manner is a
well-established ‘basic concept’ sufficient to fall under Al-
ice step 1.”). And it is well-settled that “merely adding com-
puter functionality to increase the speed or efficiency of the
process,” as the claims asserted here do, “does not confer
patent eligibility on an otherwise abstract idea.” Intell.
Ventures I LLC v. Cap. One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363,
1370 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
At step two, we further agree with the district court
that the claims lack any inventive concept. As the trial
court stated, the claims “describe only the basic steps of
streaming media, rating media, generating a playlist, and
sharing a playlist.” J.A. 29. The claims do not, for in-
stance, provide a new algorithm or method for creating
playlists. Indeed, as the district court pointed out, the in-
ventors “acknowledged that [they] did not invent stream-
ing media, playlists or media players.” J.A. 29 (internal
quotation marks omitted). Nor do the claims “require[] an-
ything other than conventional computer and network
components operating according to their ordinary func-
tions.” Two-Way Media Ltd., 874 F.3d at 1339.
Contrary to Bluebonnet’s contentions, the district court
was not required to accept as true allegations in the com-
plaint that are conclusory, state legal conclusions, or con-
tradict the patent itself. Even accepting Bluebonnet’s
assertion that four or five different components are re-
quired to practice the asserted claims – a contention we do
not endorse, as it amounts to an untimely request for claim
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construction2 – the sheer number of conventional computer
components employed, without more, does not constitute
an inventive concept. See, e.g., Yu v. Apple Inc., 1 F.4th
1040, 1045 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (holding that “claimed configu-
ration does not add sufficient substance to the underlying
abstract idea” where “generic hardware limita-
tions . . . merely serve as a conduit for the abstract idea”)
(internal quotation marks omitted).
We have considered Bluebonnet’s other arguments and
find them unpersuasive.3 For the reasons stated above, we
affirm the district court’s decision.
AFFIRMED
2 Claim construction proceedings were held in the
Western District. After transfer to the Northern District,
and during briefing on Pandora’s Rule 12(c) motion, Blue-
bonnet argued that the Western District’s constructions
were correct and that no further claim construction need
be undertaken.
3 Given our affirmance of the unpatentability deter-
mination, Bluebonnet’s dissatisfaction with the transfer of
venue is moot. We note, however, that any challenge to
venue has to be raised first in the district court. Here,
Bluebonnet did not move in the Northern District to trans-
fer the case back to the Western District. Nor does it ask
us to dismiss or remand this appeal to allow it to do so now.
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