Facts

Contour IP Holding, LLC brought suit against GoPro, Inc. for patent infringement related to their point-of-view (POV) camera. Claim 11 of Contour's U.S. Patent No. 8,890,954 describes a "portable, point of view digital video camera," which was comprised of four elements: lens, an image sensor, a wireless connection protocol device, and a camera processor. Claim 3 of Contour's U.S. Patent No. 8,896,694 recites a "point of view digital camera system." The court viewed claim 11 as representative of both claims. The claims' purported advance over the prior art was the camera's video recording and streaming function, as well as its setting controls. Contour's camera creates two video streams and transmits the lower resolution stream to a personal device while saving the higher resolution stream. The camera was also configured to receive control signals from a portable computing device and adjust its settings as it records.

PLAINTIFFS' CONTENTIONS: Plaintiff contended that the claims were directed to particular improvements and specific solutions for POV cameras, which at the time of invention lacked a preview screen that allowed users to see both recordings simultaneously and adjust the screens remotely. Thus, the concept was inventive and the claims were patentable because the claims when considered as a whole performed the activity of allowing remote preview and remote control of the settings for a POV camera. Plaintiff further argued that its claims were patentable because it had to develop a Bluetooth driver to receive the processor chip's signal. Finally, plaintiff asserted that its technology could not have been conventional or well-understood since defendant needed to take apart plaintiff's units to determine how the technology worked.

DEFENDANTS' CONTENTIONS: Defendant contended that the proffered advance over the prior art is actually directed to a result or effect that is an unpatentable abstract idea, creating and transmitting video and adjusting the video's settings remotely. Defendant also argued that the claims only recited functional, ends-oriented language with no indication that the physical components are behaving in any way other than their basic, generic tasks.

Result

Summary judgment for defendant since plaintiff's claims cover patent-ineligible subject matter