Patent For Delivering Targeted Advertisements to Mobile Device Not Invalid Under 35 U.S.C. § 101

The court denied defendant's motion to dismiss on the ground that plaintiff’s patent for delivering targeted advertisements to a mobile device encompassed unpatentable subject matter because the asserted claims were not directed toward an abstract idea. "The [patent-in-suit] is not directed at merely the abstract idea of targeting advertising. Rather, it describes systems and methods for addressing barriers to certain types of information exchange between various technological devices, e.g. a television and a smartphone or tablet being used in the same place at the same time. To be sure, the end goal of the invention is to improve the delivery of relevant information -- i.e., targeting advertising (or other content) -- but that does not mean that it does nothing more than direct a person of ordinary skill in the art to use a computer system to implement a conventional and known process. . . . To the extent [defendant] is arguing that the patent does not adequately explain how the barriers are overcome when the described system and methods are employed, such issues do not support a finding of patent ineligibility under Section 101."

Free Stream Media Corp. v. Alphonso Inc., 3-17-cv-02107 (CAND January 12, 2018, Order) (Seeborg, USDJ)