Patent Claims for Identifying a Caller With A Single Telephone Number Invalid Under 35 U.S.C. § 101

The court granted plaintiff's motion for judgment on the pleadings because the asserted claims of defendant's telephone system patents encompassed unpatentable subject matter and found that the claims for identifying a caller with a single telephone number were directed toward an abstract idea. "Essentially, the claim is directed to storing data in a database, looking up data from that database in response to the initiation of a phone call, and inserting at least a portion of that data in the already-existing caller ID field. . . . Although the solution employed by the asserted claims may utilize conventional telephony components, the problem of being unable to reach a particular individual is a practical, human unavailability problem, not a technological one."

BroadSoft, Inc. v. CallWave Communications, LLC, 1-13-cv-00711 (DED October 1, 2017, Order) (Andrews, USDJ)