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In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that you can't get a patent for implementing an otherwise abstract idea on a computer. The decision, known as CLS Bank v. Alice, has had a big impact over the last five years, invalidating a lot of broad software patents.
But a ruling this week illustrates the limits of that landmark ruling. The confusingly named United Services Automobile Association, which provides insurance and other financial products, sued Wells Fargo for infringing two patents on the concept of cashing checks with a mobile device. Wells Fargo argued that the patents were abstract—and therefore invalid—under the Alice rule.
[...] The patents cover check-cashing mobile apps that automatically snap a photo once a suitable image of the check is in the field of view.
A key claim of one of the USAA patents covers the concept of using a "processor" (aka a smartphone) to take a picture of a check and then send the check over a "communication pathway" (aka a network). USAA's supposed invention is the idea of monitoring "an image of the check in a field of view of a camera of a mobile device with respect to a monitoring criterion using an image monitoring and capture module of the mobile device"—and waiting until the image has met the criteria (is the entire check in the frame? Is there adequate light?) before snapping the picture. In other words, they patented the idea that you should wait until you have a good shot before snapping a picture.
[...] Wells Fargo argued that USAA had simply used a computer to perform the same steps any human being would take when snapping a photo of a check. Obviously if a human being was snapping a picture of a check, they would monitor the image in the viewfinder and only click the button once it showed an acceptable image.
But the court disagreed, noting that human eyes and human brains can't measure objective criteria like brightness as precisely as a computer can. USAA has argued that its approach leads to fewer bad check images being submitted. So in the court's view, the patent doesn't just cover an old-fashioned process being done on a computer—the use of the computer improves the process, yielding a patentable invention.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 02 2019, @07:41AM (2 children)
Actually, it's not the Texas judicial system *at all*. It's the *Federal Court* system. The Federal court for the Eastern District of Texas [uscourts.gov], in fact.
I've been there. Not just to the courthouse, but to the three story building (a block away from the courthouse, which could possibly hold a couple hundred humans, yet it's always empty) where nearly a *thousand* companies maintain "offices" (no one is *ever* there) so they can file IP suits in the notoriously patent friendly district court there.
I was there managing the setup of networking/IT resource for a large law firm in a temporary office for a trial (IP related, of course) in that court.
The people of Marshall were friendly, courteous and downright nice people. The town itself is small and quite nice as well.
All that said, this ruling (which, IIUC merely allows the lawsuit to proceed to trial rather than dismissing it), isn't the end of this case, and it's pretty obvious that any such patent claim is absurd on its face.
As such, I expect that this patent (either in the district court or on appeal) will be invalidated. Good riddance to bad garbage.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 02 2019, @08:10AM
Modded up - I didn't make my point especially clear in my own post. Thank you AC.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @04:15PM
Indeed. Even in this patent-friendly district, this is a motion for summary judgement and it is too early to be reporting that the court is "upholding the patent" because the court has actually done nothing of the sort. This trial is still very much in progress.
A motion for summary judgement by the defendant means that the plaintiff is asked to provide any evidence, which, if assumed to be true would entitle the plaintiff to damages by law. The defendant is saying "you have no proof!" If the plaintiff failed to provide any evidence, then the court would rule in favour of the defendant as the plaintiff obviously has no case whatsoever.
The details of what this motion means are right in the court document on page 4 (emphasis added):