3D Camera Exposure Patent Invalid Under 35 U.S.C. § 101​

The court granted defendant's motion to dismiss because the asserted claims of plaintiff’s 3D camera exposure patent encompassed unpatentable subject matter. "A patent claim that recites a solution to a problem but not the means of achieving it is not drawn to patent-eligible subject matter. It is drawn to an abstraction. . . . Claim 1 of the [patent] is this kind of claim. The claim's preamble recites the technological context of the invention and its end goal; the first element restates the technological context; and the second element restates the end goal. The method of optimizing exposure on a structured-light 3D camera – the how that's nominally the subject of the claimed invention – is absent. . . . Describing the function of the prior-art cameras situates the claimed invention in the technological environment in which it operates, but it doesn't explain the invention itself. . . . By all appearances . . . the only effect of the word 'using' is to disclose the starting point of a method the claim doesn't explain: 'Using' two images, you get an optimal exposure. 'Using' certain inputs, you get a certain result. This is not enough to make claim 1 concrete. A claim cannot recite inputs and end result, then claim everything in between."

SungKyunKwan University, Research and Business Foundation v. LMI Technologies USA Inc., 3-16-cv-06966 (CAND May 3, 2017, Order) (Chhabria, USDJ)