Nantworks, LLC v. Niantic, Inc.

Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit·Decided April 23, 2026·No. 24-2216·Unpublished

Opinion

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

NANTWORKS, LLC, NANT HOLDINGS IP, LLC, Plaintiffs-Appellants

v.

NIANTIC, INC., Defendant-Appellee

2024-2216

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in No. 3:20-cv-06262-LB, Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler.

Decided: April 23, 2026

MATTHEW K. BLACKBURN, Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP, San Francisco, CA, argued for plaintiffs-appellants . Also represented by EVAN BOETTICHER, Sunnyvale, CA.

HEIDI LYN KEEFE, Cooley LLP, Palo Alto, CA, argued for defendant-appellee. Also represented by DENA CHEN, ALEXANDRA MARIE LEEPER; PATRICK WARREN LAUPPE, Washington, DC.

2 NANTWORKS, LLC v. NIANTIC, INC.

Before REYNA, SCHALL, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges. CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judge.

NantWorks, LLC and Nant Holdings IP, LLC (collectively , “NantWorks”) appeal decisions from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California . The district court1 granted Niantic, Inc.’s (“Niantic”) motion for judgment on the pleadings that claims 7, 14, 16, 19, 26, and 31 of U.S. Patent No. 10,664,518 are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101. NantWorks, LLC v. Niantic, Inc., No. 20-CV-06262-LB, 2023 WL 187490, at *1, *3–8 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 13, 2023) (“’518 Decision”). The district court also granted Niantic’s motion for summary judgment that claims 7, 22, 23, and 25 of U.S. Patent No. 10,403,051 are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101. NantWorks, LLC v. Niantic, Inc., No. 20-CV-06262-LB, 2024 WL 3363568, at *1–7 (N.D. Cal. July 9, 2024) (“’051 Decision”). For the following reasons, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

On February 23, 2021, NantWorks filed the operative Third Amended Complaint, accusing Niantic of infringing at least claim 1 of the ’518 and ’051 patents through use of its augmented-reality (“AR”) games Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. J.A. 1545, 1553–54; ’518 Decision at *1; ’051 Decision at *1; see J.A. 1525–62.

Each of the patents pertain to augmented-reality (AR)

devices or systems, where the ’518 patent relates to mapping AR objects and rendering them on a device display, ’518 patent claim 1, and the ’051 patent relates to incorporating visual objects into a digital representation of an environment surrounding an AR device, ’051 patent claim 1.

1 Magistrate Judge Beeler, sitting by consent.

J.A. 1076–77.

NANTWORKS, LLC v. NIANTIC, INC. 3

The parties agree that claim 7 is representative of the asserted claims of the ’518 patent for purposes of this appeal . Appellee’s Br. 5–6; Oral Arg. 00:58–01:06, https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/oral-arguments/24-2216_02 032026.mp3. Claim 7 of the ’518 patent depends from claim 1, which recites:

1. A device capable of rendering augmented reality (AR), the device comprising:

at least one sensor, including a location sensor; a display; a non-transitory computer readable memory storing software instructions; and at least one processor coupled with the non- transitory computer readable memory, the at least one sensor, and the display; and, upon execution of the software instructions , is configurable to:

obtain sensor data from the at least one sensor wherein the sensor data includes a device location obtained from the location sensor; obtain an area of interest via an area database based on at least the device location within the sensor data; access an area tile map of the area of interest, the area tile map represented by a set of tile subareas that includes one or more tessellated tiles from a tessellated tile map; identify a tile subarea from the set of tile subareas based at least in 4 NANTWORKS, LLC v. NIANTIC, INC.

part on the device location relative to one or more locations of tile subareas from the set of tile subareas, wherein the identified tile subarea covers at least a portion of the area of interest, and wherein one or more tessellated tiles within the identified tile subarea are associated with one or more AR content objects; populate the non-transitory computer readable memory with at least one of the one or more AR content objects associated with the one or more tessellated tiles corresponding with the identified tile subarea; and render the at least one of the one or more AR content objects that is associated with the identified tile subarea on the display based on a view of interest.

’518 patent claim 1. Claim 7 recites:

7. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the one or more AR content objects is rendered on the display as an overlay of an image related to the real-world.

’518 patent claim 7.

At the district court Niantic argued, and NantWorks did not dispute, that claim 1 was representative of the asserted claims of the ’051 patent. ’051 Decision at *4 & n.12. Claim 1 recites:

1. An augmented reality (AR) platform system comprising:

NANTWORKS, LLC v. NIANTIC, INC. 5

an AR object repository storing available AR objects in a first non-transitory computer readable memory; and an AR server coupled with the AR object repository and, upon execution of software instructions stored in a second non- transitory computer readable memory by a processor, is configured to:

obtain digital data representative of an environment of an AR capable mobile device, the digital data including a device location of the AR capable device and a virtual element attribute; determine at least one context related to the AR capable device and pertinent to the environment based at least on the device location; identify relevant AR objects from the AR object repository representing available AR objects corresponding to the at least one context; determine whether to alter presence of a relevant AR object based on at least the device location and the virtual element attribute; and cause the AR capable device to render the relevant AR object according to its altered presence.

’051 patent claim 1.

After a Markman hearing, the district court issued a claim construction order construing several claims of each patent. See J.A. 5894–924. In this appeal, NantWorks 6 NANTWORKS, LLC v. NIANTIC, INC.

does not challenge any aspect of the district court’s claim construction ruling. See, e.g., Appellants’ Br. 2; see generally id.

Niantic moved for judgment on the pleadings that asserted claims 7, 14, 16, 19, 26 and 31 of the ’518 patent were patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c). ’518 Decision at *1, *3. The district court held that the asserted claims of the ’518 patent were directed to the abstract idea of “providing information based on a location on a map.” Id. at *7. The district court then concluded that the claims “describe only generic computer components applied to the abstract idea of providing information based on a location on a map, not an inventive concept.” Id. Thus, the district court concluded that the asserted claims of the ’518 patent were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and granted Niantic’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. Id. at *8.

Niantic moved for summary judgment that asserted claims 7, 22, 23, and 25 of the ’051 patent were patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. ’051 Decision at *1–2. The district court concluded that the asserted claims of the ’051 patent were directed to the abstract idea of “receiving information about a location and displaying materials based on that information.” ’051 Decision at *4; see id. at *5 (holding that the ’051 patent “is directed to filtering or picking information or materials relevant to a location or context .”). The district court then held that “there is nothing in the claims that is an inventive concept” and that “there are no specific improvements in computer technology.” Id. at *7. The district court thus concluded that the asserted claims of the ’051 patent were patent-ineligible and granted Niantic’s motion for summary judgment. Id.

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