Gotv Streaming, LLC v. Netflix, Inc.

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
DecidedFebruary 9, 2026
Docket24-1669
StatusPublished

This text of Gotv Streaming, LLC v. Netflix, Inc. (Gotv Streaming, LLC v. Netflix, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gotv Streaming, LLC v. Netflix, Inc., (Fed. Cir. 2026).

Opinion

Case: 24-1669 Document: 51 Page: 1 Filed: 02/09/2026

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

GOTV STREAMING, LLC, Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

NETFLIX, INC., Defendant-Cross-Appellant ______________________

2024-1669, 2024-1744 ______________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Central District of California in No. 2:22-cv-07556-RGK- SHK, Judge R. Gary Klausner. ______________________

Decided: February 9, 2026 ______________________

AMIR H. ALAVI, Alavi & Anaipakos PLLC, Houston, TX, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by JUSTIN CHEN, SCOTT W. CLARK, CONNIE FLORES JONES, CHRISTOPHER RYAN PINCKNEY; DAVID STEIN, Olson Stein LLP, Newport Beach, CA.

THOMAS SAUNDERS, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Washington, DC, argued for defendant-cross-ap- pellant. Also represented by MARK CHRISTOPHER FLEMING, Boston, MA; LAUREN MATLOCK-COLANGELO, New York, NY; ALIZA GEORGE CARRANO, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Washington, DC; DEVON WESLEY EDWARDS, New Case: 24-1669 Document: 51 Page: 2 Filed: 02/09/2026

York, NY; STEPHEN MARSHALL, INDRANIL MUKERJI, Coving- ton & Burling LLP, Washington, DC. ______________________

Before PROST, CLEVENGER, and TARANTO, Circuit Judges. TARANTO, Circuit Judge. GoTV Streaming, LLC owns the three related U.S. Pa- tent Nos. 8,478,245, 8,989,715, and 8,103,865 at issue here. Those patents claim methods and systems involving a server that receives a request for content from a wireless device, delivers the requested content to the device for the device to render (i.e., for visual content, to place on the de- vice’s screen), and has tailored the specifications for the to- be-rendered content to the screen size or other capabilities of the requester’s device. GoTV sued Netflix, Inc., alleging that Netflix directly infringed and induced infringement of all three patents. We have before us GoTV’s appeal and Netflix’s cross-appeal from a final judgment granting some relief to GoTV. Before trial, the district court dismissed GoTV’s claims of induced infringement and rejected Netflix’s challenge to the asserted claims as ineligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The court, when construing some claim terms, held all asserted claims of the ’865 patent invalid for indefiniteness, and it also denied GoTV’s request to exclude certain of Netflix’s proposed damages evidence. A jury trial was held on one claim from each of the ’245 and ’715 pa- tents, after which the jury found that Netflix infringed only the ’715 patent and awarded GoTV $2.5 million in dam- ages, representing a life-of-patent lump sum starting from the filing of this action (GoTV having disclaimed pre-com- plaint damages). The district court denied several of GoTV’s post-trial motions, including a request for retrial of damages because of allegedly improper Netflix damages evidence and a request for prejudgment interest from Case: 24-1669 Document: 51 Page: 3 Filed: 02/09/2026

GOTV STREAMING, LLC v. NETFLIX, INC. 3

before the complaint’s filing. The court entered final judg- ment, from which GoTV appeals and Netflix cross-appeals. We hold, on Netflix’s cross-appeal, that the claims at issue are ineligible for patenting under § 101. In consider- ing the claims’ meaning for purposes of that issue, we re- verse the district court’s holding that an element of the ’865 patent claims was indefinite, and we adopt GoTV’s con- struction of that element. Our ineligibility conclusion re- quires reversal of the district court’s judgment and entry of judgment in the case for Netflix. We therefore do not rule definitively on GoTV’s arguments on appeal other than its challenge to the district court’s indefiniteness ruling. But because GoTV has raised substantial arguments against the district court’s no-inducement ruling and allowance of certain damages evidence presented by Netflix, we ex- pressly vacate those rulings of the district court. I A The ’865 patent issued in January 2012, the ’245 patent in July 2013, and the ’715 patent in March 2015. The three patents share a written description, which dates to 2007, that describes using a server for tailoring, to a particular wireless device’s capabilities, the presentation specifica- tions for requested content delivered to that device for it to render. Because the written description is shared, we cite only the ’865 patent when discussing the written descrip- tion. The claims of the ’865 and ’715 patents focus on oper- ations performed by the server, while the claims of the ’245 patent focus on certain so-called client-side operations, i.e., operations performed by the wireless device or its user. The patents begin by identifying a problem in the prior art, which we will recount by discussing only content for visual presentation (display), ignoring for simplicity’s sake content for audio presentation that is also covered by the patents. Because wireless devices vary in screen size, Case: 24-1669 Document: 51 Page: 4 Filed: 02/09/2026

resolution, color palettes, and other properties, including processing capabilities for dynamic content (such as vid- eos), it was known that the quality of a display of content from a software application on a particular device is im- proved by tailoring the display specifications (the details of what is to be rendered for display) to the capabilities of the device displaying the content. See ’865 patent, col. 1, lines 47–57. For example, it is preferable that content to be ren- dered on a device fit the display-size and resolution con- straints of that device. Id., col. 1, lines 40–46. One prior- art solution, the patents say, involved software developers building applications “from the ground up” for each type of wireless device, tailoring display specifications to each type (e.g., brand, model). Id., col. 1, lines 50–60. The patents do not elaborate on specifics of the prior-art tailoring process, such as software developers’ starting point or use of a com- puter for the adaptation process. With brands and models of wireless devices proliferating, the patents say, such a process of developing device-tailored applications had be- come costly, id., col. 1, lines 47–50, and patching and up- dating had become time-consuming, id., col. 2, lines 29–31. The patents propose to reduce the device-specific-tai- loring burden by introducing a server that, when a user re- quests certain application content, accesses a version of that content containing at least some “generic” display specifications—“generic” simply meaning “not specific to any device or any set of device capabilities,” id., col. 6, lines 11–13—and performs tailoring of the display specifications to capabilities of the requesting wireless device. Id., col. 2, lines 36–41; id., col. 2, line 46, through col. 4, line 27. Thus, in processes described by the patents, when a user of a wireless device seeks application content online, the device communicates to a server what is being sought and at least what type of device it is. Id., col. 3, lines 4–6. (The user’s communication may specify capabilities of that type of de- vice or it may simply identify the type, leaving the server to obtain the capability information elsewhere. Id.; see also Case: 24-1669 Document: 51 Page: 5 Filed: 02/09/2026

GOTV STREAMING, LLC v. NETFLIX, INC. 5

id., col. 3, lines 26–29.) The server accesses a generic ver- sion of the requested content and forms a “generic template or page description” with general layout information for the page to be displayed (e.g., arrangement and relative sizes of components such as images, but not absolute sizes). ’865 patent, col. 3, lines 31–43; id., col, 3, line 63, through col. 4, line 1; col. 13, lines 26–37; col. 17, lines 49–53.

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