Eligibility Challenge to Intoxication Monitoring Patent Premature Prior to Claim Construction​

The court denied without prejudice defendant's motion to dismiss on the ground that plaintiff's intoxication monitoring patent encompassed unpatentable subject matter because claim construction had not occurred. "Defendant moves to dismiss Plaintiff’s complaint on the ground that the [patent] is directed to the patent-ineligible, abstract idea of 'using the results of a breathalyzer test to predict how intoxicated a person will be in the future'. . . . Plaintiff responds that the claims of the [patent] constitute a patentable improvement and transformation of an existing technological process — breath alcohol content analysis using a breathalyzer. . . . Given this dispute, the Court finds claim construction necessary to determine whether the [patent] is directed at a patentable concept because it claims an improvement to breathalyzer technology. Defendant’s motion is premature because the Court needs to construe material disputed claims in order to fully understand the basic nature of the claimed invention."

KHN Solutions Inc. v. Vertisense Inc., 3-16-cv-00962 (CAND September 30, 2016, Order) (Gilliam, USDJ)