Longitude Licensing Ltd. v. Google LLC

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Decided: April 30, 2025
• Docket: 24-1202
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 1 Filed: 04/30/2025

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

LONGITUDE LICENSING LTD., Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

GOOGLE LLC, Defendant-Appellee ______________________

2024-1202 ______________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in No. 3:23-cv-03046-VC, Judge Vince Chhabria. ______________________

Decided: April 30, 2025 ______________________

AARON ROBERT FAHRENKROG, Robins Kaplan LLP, Minneapolis, MN, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also rep- resented by WILLIAM JONES, SAMUEL J. LAROQUE, EMILY TREMBLAY.

GINGER ANDERS, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, Wash- ington, DC, argued for defendant-appellee. Also repre- sented by J. KAIN DAY. ______________________ Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 2 Filed: 04/30/2025

Before LOURIE, DYK, and CHEN, Circuit Judges. DYK, Circuit Judge. Longitude Licensing Ltd. (“Longitude”) sued Google LLC (“Google”) in the Northern District of California, al- leging infringement of claims of U.S. Patents Nos. 7,668,365 (the “’365 patent”), 8,355,574 (the “’574 pa- tent”), 7,454,056 (the “’056 patent”), and 7,945,109 (the “’109 patent”), all owned by Longitude. The district court dismissed the complaint on the ground that the asserted claims are not patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. See Longitude Licensing Ltd. v. Google, LLC, No. 23-CV- 03046-VC, 2023 WL 7109896, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 27, 2023) (“Dismissal”). We affirm. BACKGROUND The four patents at issue are directed to performing digital image correction techniques on a computer. The ’574 patent is a continuation of the ’365 patent, and the two share a title and specification; the specifications of the ’056 and ’109 patents are not significantly different from that shared specification. The specifications describe identify- ing the subject, or “main object,” of an image and adjusting the main object image data by using “correction condi- tions,” which include any kind of “statistical values and color values” that correspond to the “properties” of the main object. See ’365 patent, col. 14 ll. 51–58; see also ’574 patent, col. 14 ll. 53–59; ’056 patent, col. 5 ll. 33–36, 53–59; ’109 patent, col. 9 l. 65–col. 10 l. 6. On June 21, 2023, Longitude sued Google for infringe- ment of claims of the four patents. 1 Google filed a motion

1 Longitude also accused Google of infringing three other patents that Google did not address in its motion to dismiss. Those other patents are not at issue in this appeal Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 3 Filed: 04/30/2025

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to dismiss, arguing that the claims of the four patents are “directed to an abstract idea that merely uses computers as a tool.” J.A. 256. Google treated claim 32 of the ’365 patent as representative. The ’365 patent is titled “Determination of Main Object on Image and Improvement of Image Quality According to Main Object.” Claim 32 of the ’365 patent recites: 32. An image processing method comprising: determining the main object image data corresponding to the main object character- izing the image; acquiring the properties of the determined main object image data; acquiring correction conditions correspond- ing to the properties that have been ac- quired; and adjusting the picture quality of the main object image data using the acquired cor- rection conditions; wherein each of the operations of the image processing method is executed by an inte- grated circuit. Id. at col. 32 ll. 23–33. The ’365 patent acknowledges that human users could previously “adjust picture quality using retouching software,” id. at col. 1 ll. 14–15, but states that already existing “automatic picture quality adjusting tech- niques[] . . . [apply changes] across the board, without tak- ing into consideration subtle differences in the main object characterizing the image,” id. at col. 1 ll. 30–33.

and were voluntarily dismissed without prejudice by Lon- gitude before the district court. Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 4 Filed: 04/30/2025

On October 27, 2023, the district court granted the mo- tion to dismiss. The district court also treated claim 32 as representative and held that all the claims were directed to the same abstract idea without supplying an inventive concept, concluding that “the claim language in all four pa- tents is functional and ends-oriented” and that it “need not credit Longitude’s conclusory allegations in the complaint that the claims ‘recite a specific way to improve a prior com- puting process’ when that is not apparent from the claim language read in light of the specification.” Dismissal at *1 (quoting J.A. 284). Longitude timely filed this appeal. We have jurisdic- tion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1). DISCUSSION We review the grant of a motion to dismiss de novo. Trinity Info Media, LLC v. Covalent, Inc., 72 F.4th 1355, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2023). Patent eligibility is a question of law that we review de novo. Bancorp Servs., L.L.C. v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Can. (U.S.), 687 F.3d 1266, 1273 (Fed. Cir. 2012). Section 101 defines patent-eligible subject matter as “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” 35 U.S.C. § 101. The Supreme Court has ex- plained that there are certain “implicit” exceptions in § 101, namely, laws of nature, natural phenomena, and ab- stract ideas. Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Ge- netics, Inc., 569 U.S. 576, 589 (2013). To determine whether a patent claim is subject matter ineligible, we ap- ply the two-step Alice framework. Alice Corp. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 217–18 (2014); see also Mayo Col- laborative Servs. v. Prometheus Lab’ys, Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 77–80 (2012). At step one, we “determine whether the claims at issue are directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 217. At step two, we “consider Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 5 Filed: 04/30/2025

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the elements of each claim both individually and ‘as an or- dered combination’ to determine whether the additional el- ements ‘transform the nature of the claim’ into a patent- eligible application.” Id. (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 78– 79). I At Alice step one, the district court held that the claims are drawn to the abstract idea of “improving image quality by adjusting various aspects of an image based on features of the main object in the image.” Dismissal at *1. We agree. A We have repeatedly held that claims that organize, al- ter, or manipulate data, without more, are patent ineligi- ble. See Broadband iTV, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 113 F.4th 1359, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2024) (collecting cases); see also Intell. Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Fin. Corp., 850 F.3d 1332, 1340–41 (Fed. Cir. 2017); Elec. Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2016); Digitech Image Techs., LLC v. Elecs. for Imaging, Inc., 758 F.3d 1344, 1350–51 (Fed. Cir. 2014). Claims that merely implement longstanding activities and mental pro- cesses using new data and generic computing components without explaining how these arrangements actually re- sult in the claimed improvement are similarly directed to unpatentable abstract ideas. See, e.g., Trinity, 72 F.4th at 1361–62; Univ. of Fla. Rsch. Found., Inc. v. Gen. Elec. Co., 916 F.3d 1363, 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2019). Such is the case here. The specification recognizes that users could already “adjust picture quality using retouch- ing software” and that “accurate adjustment of picture quality requires experience and familiarity.” ’365 patent, col. 1 ll. 13–17. Claim 32 of the ’365 patent merely uses a computer to adjust parameters associated with the main Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 6 Filed: 04/30/2025

object data (rather than data of the entire image, an ap- proach previously undertaken by humans) without ex- plaining how this result is achieved. Longitude argues that claim 32 is directed to an im- proved digital image processing technique: “how to more accurately adjust th[e] main object image data by using correction conditions corresponding to that data’s proper- ties.” Appellant’s Br. 6. The problem is that nothing in the language of claim 32 in this respect does anything more than describe the use of new data or explain how it is used in the steps of “determining” the main object, “acquiring” its properties, “acquiring correction conditions,” and “ad- justing” the picture quality. ’365 patent, col. 32 ll. 23–33. Claim 32 is similar to those found to be patent ineligible in Hawk Technology Systems, LLC v. Castle Retail, LLC, 60 F.4th 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2023), and Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., No. 2023-2437, 2025 WL 1142021 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 18, 2025). In Hawk, the claims involved methods of viewing mul- tiple simultaneously displayed and stored video images based on sets of “temporal and spatial parameters associ- ated with each image.” 60 F.4th at 1353. We explained that these claims were directed to an abstract idea because they merely recited a method of “receiving, displaying, con- verting, storing, and transmitting digital video ‘using re- sult-based functional language.’” Id. at 1357 (quoting Two- Way Media Ltd. v. Comcast Cable Commc’ns, LLC, 874 F.3d 1329, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2017)). We rejected Hawk’s argument, similar to Longitude’s argument here, that the use of “parameters” made the claims not abstract, since the claims did not “explain what those claimed parameters are or how they should be manipulated.” Id. at 1357 (citation omitted); see also Sanderling Mgmt. Ltd. v. Snap Inc., 65 F.4th 698, 703 (Fed. Cir 2023) (holding unpatentable claims directed to using a computer as “a tool to identify when a condition is met and then to distribute information Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 7 Filed: 04/30/2025

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based on satisfaction of that condition”). Similarly, claim 32 describes “determining” a main object, “acquiring” the main object image data and correction conditions, and “adjusting” the main object image data’s parameters with- out “sufficient recitation of how the purported invention improve[s] the functionality” of image correction methods. Hawk, 60 F.4th at 1358 (alteration in original) (quoting Koninklijke KPN N.V. v. Gemalto M2M GmbH, 942 F.3d 1143, 1152 (Fed. Cir. 2019)). In Recentive, the claims were directed to the applica- tion of machine learning for determining event schedules and generating network maps for broadcasters. 2025 WL 1142021, at *1. The claims generally involved methods comprising collecting data, using the data to train the ma- chine learning model, and updating the event schedules and network maps. We rejected the patentee’s argument that “its patents are eligible because they apply machine learning to [a] new field of use,” explaining that merely adapting existing technology to a novel data environment does not create patent eligibility. Id. at *6. We concluded that even if there had been a claim of “a technological im- provement, neither the claims nor the specifications de- scribe how such an improvement was accomplished.” Id. at *5. Here, too, Longitude urges that the use of new data (e.g., the correspondence between the main object data and correction conditions) represents a patent-eligible techno- logical improvement. Because the claim “functionally de- scribes a mere concept without disclosing how to implement that concept,” id., we agree with the district court that it is directed to a patent-ineligible abstract idea. Longitude repeatedly faults the district court for osten- sibly failing to consider claim 32 in light of the patent spec- ification, seeking to analogize its claims to those found to be patent eligible in McRo, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games of America Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Longi- tude argues that “[a]s in McRo, the intrinsic record . . . Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 8 Filed: 04/30/2025

shows that claim 32 is directed to an improved computing process” because “[l]ike the claimed ‘rules’ in McRo, [the claims’] correction conditions . . . provide how the claimed process improves upon prior automated image adjustment processes.” Appellant’s Br. 37–38 (internal quotation marks omitted). But in McRo, we stressed that the lan- guage of the claims themselves was “limited to rules with specific characteristics.” 827 F.3d at 1313. Here, claim 32 is framed entirely in functional, results- oriented terms, and Longitude effectively asks us to import disclosures from the specification into the claim so that it provides the same degree of specificity as those in McRo. This we decline to do. While step one requires that “we consider the claims in light of the specification[,] [we] avoid importing concepts from the specification into the claims.” AI Visualize, Inc. v. Nuance Commc’ns, Inc., 97 F.4th 1371, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2024); accord ChargePoint, Inc. v. Sema- Connect, Inc., 920 F.3d 759, 766 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (explain- ing that reliance on the specification “must always yield to the claim language in identifying th[e] focus” of the claims); Synopsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp., 839 F.3d 1138, 1149 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“The § 101 inquiry must focus on the language of the Asserted Claims themselves.”); In re TLI Commc’ns Patent Litig., 823 F.3d 607, 611–12 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (similar). The specific improvement purportedly re- cited in claim 32 does not make it non-abstract because the language of the claim does not explain how that improve- ment is achieved. B Longitude apparently faults the district court for fail- ing to consider a “distinct” improvement in digital image processing techniques: “how to more accurately identify the main object—meaning, what the image is a picture of—in digital image data by analyzing image and position data.” Appellant’s Br. 6. This concept appears in claim 32’s Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 9 Filed: 04/30/2025

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limitation of “acquiring the properties of the determined main object image data.” ’365 patent, col. 32 ll. 26–27. Longitude argues that claim 5 of the ’365 patent is more explicitly directed to this improvement: 5. An image processing device that determines the main object which characterizes an image, the im- age processing device comprising: image data acquiring module that acquires image data which is data of the target im- age; image data analyzing module that seg- ments the image data into a plurality of ar- eas for analysis in terms of area units; position data acquiring module that ac- quires position data of the areas of the im- age data; and main object determining module that de- termines the main object using the ac- quired position data and the results of analysis; wherein each of the modules of the image processing device is executed by an inte- grated circuit. Id. at col. 28 ll. 33–48. This argument fails for substan- tially the same reasons as Longitude’s argument as to claim 32. Like claim 32, claim 5 merely identifies a number of components defined in functional terms that carry out basic data collection and manipulation functions. The claim purportedly identifies the technical improvement of more efficiently locating the subject of an image without actually explaining how this process is achieved other than stating that the new data is used in identifying the main Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 10 Filed: 04/30/2025

object. See Hawk, 60 F.4th at 1358. We conclude that the invention recited in claim 5 is directed to the same class of abstract data manipulation as claim 32. See Content Ex- traction & Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, Nat. Ass’n, 776 F.3d 1343, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2014). C Longitude also argues that the district court “oversim- plif[ied]” the claims by treating claim 32 as representative instead of addressing each claim individually. See Appel- lant’s Br. 59. We have already addressed claim 5 in the preceding section. Because the other claims asserted by Longitude were “substantially similar and linked to the same abstract idea” claimed by claims 5 and 32, we con- clude that the court was not required to address all sixty- six claims in its order dismissing Longitude’s complaint. Content Extraction, 776 F.3d at 1348 (citation omitted). The other claims differ from claims 5 and 32 only inso- far as they recite additional limitations on what is meant by the “main object” and “correction conditions.” Claim 3 of the ’574 patent, for example, simply limits the “main ob- ject” to a “human face” and limits the “correction condi- tions” to a set of well-known parameters including “a highlight, a shadow, brightness, color balance, or memory color.” ’574 patent, col. 28 ll. 17–18. 2 The ’056 patent’s

2 Claim 3 recites: 3. A method of image processing, the method com- prising: determining a main object in an image gen- erated by an image generating apparatus, wherein the main object includes at least a human face, and wherein the determining of the main object is implemented by Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 11 Filed: 04/30/2025

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claims are directed to image correction techniques involv- ing color balance correction. Like the ’365 patent, the ’056 patent identifies the problem in the prior art as image correction being applied “for the overall image,” which leads to “the risk of making an undesirable change to the color tone of a specific [human] subject.” ’056 patent, col. 1 ll. 28–35. In place of claim 32’s main object, the claims of the ’056 patent are directed to a “specific subject area.”3

determining whether the image includes the human face; and adjusting image quality of the main object using correction conditions corresponding to properties of the determined main ob- ject, wherein a parameter used in adjusting the image quality is a highlight, a shadow, brightness, color balance, or memory color; wherein each operation of the method of image processing is executed by one of a person computer, a printer, or a display de- vice. ’574 patent col. 28 ll. 8–21.

3 Claim 10 is representative: 10. An image processing device for executing color balance correction on image data of a photographed image, said image processing device comprising: an image data acquisition module that ac- quires said image data; a specific subject area determination mod- ule that determines a specific subject area in said photographed image, wherein said specific subject area contains a specific sub- ject in said photographed image, and Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 12 Filed: 04/30/2025

The claims of the ’109 patent similarly relate to locating a human subject of the image and processing that image data in that area, reciting the same abstract idea as claim 5 of the ’365 patent. The claims merely replace the ’056 patent claims’ specific subject area with using shooting scene in- formation and location information in the image data to

wherein said specific subject area determi- nation module determines said specific subject area using pixel values of pixel data included in a target area for determination, and a position of said target area in said photographed image; a specific subject characteristic value calcu- lation module that calculates a specific sub- ject characteristic value, wherein said specific subject characteristic value repre- sents a characteristic of image data corre- sponding to said determined specific subject area; a correction value calculation module that calculates a correction value for color bal- ance correction using said calculated spe- cific subject characteristic value and color balance a preset characteristic target value; and a correction execution module that exe- cutes said color balance correction on said image data using said calculated correction value. ’056 patent, col. 16 ll. 32–56. Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 13 Filed: 04/30/2025

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detect the “location information of a person,” and focus on adjusting the sharpness of the location information. 4 Ultimately, the problem for Longitude is that each claim actually is directed to the same abstract idea of using data to identify an image’s subject and modifying image data based on that subject. None of the claims describes how these results are achieved. The court was not required to separately address these “trivial variations of the ab- stract idea” claimed by the ’365 patent. Trinity, 72 F.4th at 1362. II The district court concluded at Alice step two that the claims lack any inventive concept. Dismissal at *1. We

4 Claim 1 is representative: 1. An image processing apparatus comprising: a CPU, the CPU executing functions in- cluding acquiring an image file, the image file including image data, shooting scene information, and location in- formation of a person in the image data, and increasing sharpness of an area in which the person is located and de- creasing sharpness of an area in which the person is not located based on the acquired location in- formation when the acquired shoot- ing scene information indicates a portrait scene. ’109 patent, col. 14 l. 63–col. 2 l. 4. Case: 24-1202 Document: 38 Page: 14 Filed: 04/30/2025

agree and find neither of Longitude’s arguments to the con- trary persuasive. First, Longitude argues that the district erred by find- ing a lack of inventive concept “without evidence or analy- sis,” casting this inquiry as a “fact finding.” Appellant’s Br. 41. But the absence of an inventive concept does not necessarily entail subsidiary factual determinations, and a patent itself may establish that the claims contain no in- ventive concept. See Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881 F.3d 1360, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2018). That is the case here: Longitude fails to identify any relevant factual dispute, and the claims do not recite any inventive concept. Second, Longitude argues that “the intrinsic evidence demonstrates that the claimed steps addressing ‘proper- ties’ of main object image data and ‘correction conditions corresponding to [those] properties’ recite inventive con- cepts.” Appellant’s Br. 40–41 (alteration in original) (cita- tion omitted). But adjusting the main object image data’s properties according to a set of correction conditions is the same abstract idea we identified at step one above. These elements cannot transform “that idea into significantly more.” Broadband, 113 F.4th at 1370; accord BSG Tech LLC v. Buyseasons, Inc., 899 F.3d 1281, 1290 (Fed. Cir. 2018). CONCLUSION We have considered Longitude’s remaining arguments and find them unpersuasive. Because the claims of the four patents are not patent eligible under § 101, we affirm. AFFIRMED