101 Whack-a-Mole – Yet Another Software Patent Falls Victim to Section 101
Summary
Take for instance one of the most recent 101 decisions, AI Visualize, Inc. v. Nuance Communications, Inc., where the Federal Circuit once again held that software-related claims were ineligible for patent protection. The technology was designed to facilitate the viewing of large volume visualization datasets (VVDs) over low-bandwidth internet connections, without the need for local storage of the data. In their reply brief, exasperated counsel for AI Visualize desperately pointed towards the creation of virtual views, stating “[t]he claim limitations expressly recite the … requirements for a system to create virtual views, which the district court and Appellees removed from the character of the invention.” The fact, then, that the patents seemingly had all the ingredients to pass muster is what makes the court’s following decision so surprising. For the second step of the Alice test, AI Visualize argued that its method for generating virtual views “on the fly” was an inventive concept that transformed the abstract idea into a patent-eligible application. However, the court disagreed, noting that the process of generating virtual views, as claimed, was a conventional computer function that did not move beyond the abstract idea.