# OIP Technologies, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc.

> Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit · June 11, 2015 · 788 F.3d 1359

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8413483

## Case

- **Full name:** OIP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
- **Decided:** June 11, 2015
- **Citations:** 788 F.3d 1359; 115 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1090; 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 9721; 2015 WL 3622181
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Mayer
- **Judges:** Hughes, Mayer, Taranto
- **Cited by:** 206 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8413483

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding a method comprising (1) testing prices, (2) gathering statistics about how customers reacted to the prices, (3) using that data to estimate outcomes, and (4) acting on estimated outcomes (ie., automatically selecting and offering new prices based on estimated outcome) …
- holding patent-ineligible claims which included “storing test results in a ‘machine-readable medium,’ ” because that and other limitations only “require[ed] conventional computer activities or routine data-gathering steps” which did not transform the abstract idea of “offer-ba…
- concluding that “relying on a computer to perform routine tasks more quickly or more accurately is insufficient to render a claim patent eligible,” where the “key distinguishing feature of the claims is the ability to automate or otherwise make more efficient traditional price…
- concluding at step two that just because a computerized method might be able perform a task “more quickly or more accurately” than a human, this does not mean that the method is patent eligible
- finding no inventive concept in claimed steps of sending electronic messages over a network, storing test results, and “‘using a computerized system . . . to automatically de- termine’ an estimated outcome and setting a price”

## Opinion text

MAYER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I write separately to address the argument advanced by OIP Technologies, Inc. that the district court erred in resolving the patent eligibility issue on the pleadings. Failure to recite statutory subject matter is the sort of “basic deficiency,” that can, and should, “be exposed at the point of minimum expenditure of time and money by the parties and the court,” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 558 , 127 S.Ct. 1955 , 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Addressing 35 U.S.C. § 101 at the outset not only conserves scarce judicial resources and spares litigants the staggering costs associated with discovery and protracted claim construction litigation, it also works to stem the tide of vexatious suits brought by the owners of vague and overbroad business method patents. Accordingly, where, as here, assert *1365 ed claims are plainly directed to a patent ineligible abstract idea, we have repeatedly sanctioned a district court’s decision to dispose of them on the pleadings. See, e.g., Content Extraction & Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, 776 F.3d 1343, 1349 (Fed.Cir.2014); Ultramereial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709, 717 (Fed.Cir.2014); buy SAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1352 (Fed.Cir.2014). I commend the district court’s adherence to the Supreme Court’s instruction that patent eligibility is a “threshold” issue, Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 602 , 130 S.Ct. 3218 , 177 L.Ed.2d 792 (2010), by resolving it at the first opportunity.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8413483. Public record. Not legal advice.