Tenstreet, LLC v. Driverreach, LLC

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
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TENSTREET, LLC,
Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

DRIVERREACH, LLC,
Defendant-Appellee
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2020-1101
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Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Southern District of Indiana in No. 1:18-cv-03633-JRS-
TAB, Judge James R. Sweeney II.
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Decided: October 19, 2020
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P
AUL A. STEWART, Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear,
LLP, Irvine, CA, for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented
by MICHAEL K. FRIEDLAND, LAUREN KATZENELLENBOGEN.

ANDREW M. MCCOY, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath
LLP, Indianapolis, IN, for defendant-appellee. Also repre-
sented by LOUIS PERRY; JD SCHNEIDER, Denver, CO.
______________________

Before L
OURIE, HUGHES, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.
Case: 20-1101 Document: 49 Page: 1 Filed: 10/19/2020

TENSTREET, LLC v. DRIVERREACH, LLC 2
HUGHES, Circuit Judge.
Tenstreet appeals the Southern District of Indiana’s
determination that its patented method of using peer-to-
peer networking to verify employment history is directed
to patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Because the district court correctly determined that the
claims of the patent-in-suit are directed to an abstract idea
and lack an inventive concept, we affirm.
I
For motions to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Fed-
eral Rules of Civil Procedure, we apply the law of the re-
gional circuit. Bascom Glob. Internet Servs., Inc. v. AT&T
Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2016). The
Seventh Circuit reviews a grant of a motion to dismiss de
novo. Bible v. United Student Aid Funds, Inc., 799 F.3d
633, 639 (7th Cir. 2015). We review patent eligibility under
35 U.S.C. § 101 de novo. OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com,
Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
The Supreme Court has established a two-part test for
determining patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Alice
Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 217–18
(2014). “We must first determine whether the claims at
issue are directed to a patent-ineligible concept.” Id. If
they are, we “consider the elements of each claim both in-
dividually and ‘as an ordered combination’ to determine
whether the additional elements ‘transform the nature of
the claim’ into a patent-eligible application.” Id. (quoting
Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566
U.S. 66, 78–79 (2012)).
II
Tenstreet owns U.S. Patent No. 8,145,575 (the ’575 pa-
tent), which recites a method for using a peer-to-peer net-
work to verify the employment history of job applicants,
particularly for use in the truck driving industry, where
such verification is required by regulation. Tenstreet
Case: 20-1101 Document: 49 Page: 2 Filed: 10/19/2020

TENSTREET, LLC v. DRIVERREACH, LLC 3
argues that the ’575 patent claims are patent eligible be-
cause they provide three advantages over conventional pro-
cesses for employment verification: (1) a single channel for
routing transmissions; (2) the ability for job applicants to
monitor the verification process; and (3) database storage
of employment history.
The test for patent-eligible subject matter is not
whether the claims are advantageous over the previous
method. Even if the ’575 patent provides advantages over
manual collection of data, the patent claims no technologi-
cal improvement beyond the use of a generic computer net-
work. Accordingly, the district court correctly determined
that the ’575 patent claims are directed to the abstract idea
of collecting, organizing, and storing data on a conventional
computer network, and that the ’575 patent claims recite
no elements that transform them to patent-eligible appli-
cations. Tenstreet, LLC v. DriverReach, LLC, 417 F. Supp.
3d 1144, 1148 (S.D. Ind. 2019).
We have considered the appellant’s remaining argu-
ments and find them unpersuasive. We conclude that the
district court correctly determined that the ’575 patent
claims are directed to patent-ineligible subject matter.
Thus, we affirm the district court’s decision.
AFFIRMED
Case: 20-1101 Document: 49 Page: 3 Filed: 10/19/2020