Opinions — Thursday, January 22, 2026

The Federal Circuit affirmed the Western District of Washington's dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) of US Patent No. 7,679,637 LLC's infringement suit against Google LLC, holding that claims 2–5 and 7–9 of the '637 patent—directed to web conferencing systems with time-shifting capabilities allowing asynchronous review of presentations—are ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. At Alice step one, the court concluded the claims are directed to the abstract idea of allowing asynchronous review of presentations because they fail to describe how that goal is achieved, instead reciting result-oriented functional language such as systems "arranged to allow" or "able to" accomplish simultaneous recording and observing without disclosing any specific technological implementation. The specification confirmed that the claimed client applications, data streams, and time-scale modification components were conventional, off-the-shelf technologies. At Alice step two, the court found no inventive concept because the claims merely described the functions of the abstract idea using well-understood, routine components operating according to their ordinary functions, and no amendment could alter what the patent itself disclosed about the conventionality of its elements.

The decision reinforces the Federal Circuit's increasingly demanding approach to software patent eligibility when claims rely on result-oriented functional language without explaining the "how" of the purported improvement. The court's analysis emphasizes that reciting multiple conventional components—here, two client applications manipulating data streams—does not save claims from abstraction when those components perform standard functions to implement an abstract concept. The holding that the specification's acknowledgment of conventional technology forecloses any inventive concept argument, even when the complaint contains conclusory allegations to the contrary, signals that patentees cannot cure eligibility deficiencies through artful pleading. The procedural ruling that claim construction was unnecessary and that denial of leave to amend was not futile further demonstrates that eligibility challenges can succeed at the pleadings stage when the patent specification itself reveals the conventional nature of the claimed technology.