Discount Redemption Patent Invalid Under 35 U.S.C. § 101

The court granted defendant's motion to dismiss because the asserted claims of plaintiff’s discount redemption patent encompassed unpatentable subject matter and found that the claims were directed toward an abstract idea. "The Court finds claim 11 is directed to the abstract idea of a 'membership discount program' on a network. . . . [Plaintiff] asserts [defendant] has overstated the breadth of the claim because, at the time of invention, 'membership discount programs were not widely implemented.' [Plaintiff] notes by way of background that claim 11 would not have covered the 'membership discount programs” that existed before the patent. . . . The Supreme Court has indicated that the prevalence of an abstract idea does not factor into a patent-eligibility analysis. . . . Furthermore, the Court finds that describing two abstract ideas in connection with each other — 'collecting customer information' and 'membership discount programs' — does not cause either abstract idea to then become a concrete thing."

NexusCard, Inc. v. Brookshire Grocery Company, 2-15-cv-00961 (TXED April 6, 2016, Order) (Gilstrap, J.)