Mass Transit Payment Processing Patents Invalid Under 35 USC § 101

The court granted defendants' motion for judgment on the pleadings that four of plaintiff's five mass transit payment system patents were invalid for lack of patentable subject matter and found that the claims were directed to an abstract idea. "Stripped of the technical jargon that broadly describe non-inventive elements (e.g., the 'interfaces' and 'processing systems'), and further shorn of the typically obtuse syntax of patents, the patents here really only cover an abstract concept: paying for a subway or bus ride with a credit card. . . . [Plaintiff] offers no authority for why a process that simply speeds up its performance, without more (meaning without actually inventing something that makes performance faster), makes the underlying idea of the transaction itself any less abstract."

Smart Systems Innovations LLC v. Chicago Transit Authority et al, 1-14-cv-08053 (ILND July 10, 2015, Order) (Chang, J.)