Location Information Management Patents Not Ineligible Under 35 U.S.C. § 101​

The magistrate judge recommended denying defendants' motion for judgment on the pleadings on the ground that plaintiff’s location information management patents encompassed unpatentable subject matter because the asserted claims were not directed toward an abstract idea. "Defendants contend that all asserted claims of all asserted patents embody an abstract idea — 'managing the dissemination of location and/or event information within a community. At most, they recite different ways of organizing people into groups and managing the dissemination of location/event information through use of conventional computer and GPS technology.' . . . [I]t is improper to 'simply ask whether the claims involve a patent-ineligible concept.' To be sure, 'mere recitation of a generic computer cannot transform a patent-ineligible abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.' But this is not a license to delete all computer-related limitations from a claim and thereby declare it abstract. . . . Moreover, the mere fact that all the recited computer components are 'conventional' because the applicant did not invent an entirely new kind of computer is not inherently troubling. . . . [C]laim 6 recites a specialized procedure for accomplishing this result by using four different access codes, an administrator, users, location information, zones, and a variety of other features all working together in a particular fashion. Defendants cannot argue that there is a danger of claim 6 'tying up the future use' of the concept of location information management and dissemination."

PerdiemCo, LLC. v. IndusTrack LLC, 2-15-cv-00727 (TXED September 21, 2016, Order) (Payne, MJ)