Patents Claiming Method for Parking Violation Enforcement Via Self-Release Booting System Invalid Under 35 U.S.C. § 101​

The court granted plaintiffs' motion to dismiss because the asserted claims of defendant's parking enforcement patents encompassed unpatentable subject matter and found that the claims were directed toward an abstract idea. "[T]he [asserted patents] generally describe a method of parking violation enforcement via a self-release booting system which enables the person responsible for a vehicle to remove an immobilizing boot without waiting for an enforcement company or municipal employee to arrive on the scene. . . . [T]he [patents] are directed to the abstract idea of expediting the vehicle immobilization process via self-service. . . . [W]hile the . . . patent claims feature other, specific limitations and requirements, such as the use of RFID receivers and the need for a 'remote computer system' or PDA to identify vehicles and communicate their scofflaw status to a centralized host system, none are directed to a technological improvement in how each component works, or in how the use of each component promotes a technological advance. . . . The streamlining of a tedious process may be a welcome improvement, but it is, at its heart, an abstract one: a way of more efficiently 'organizing human activity.'"

SP Plus Corporation v. IPT, LLC, 2-16-cv-02474 (LAED May 19, 2017, Order) (Feldman, USDJ)