KLARQUIST NEWS
Klarquist Wins Summary Judgment of Invalidity under Sec. 101 for Client NBC Universal
On July 8, 2014, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York granted summary judgment to Klarquist client Bravo Media, LLC (a division of NBC Universal Media LLC) that U.S. Patent No. 6,585,516 (the ‘516 patent) was invalid under 35 USC § 101 for failing to claim patent-eligible subject matter. The ‘516 patent was generally directed to a system and method for using a computer to plan meals to meet one’s nutritional goals. Applying the Supreme Court’s decisions under § 101, including the recent decision of June 24, 2014 in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. ___, Judge Engelmayer held that the ‘516 patent claimed an abstract concept of meal planning on a general purpose computer. This is believed to be the first district court decision applying the Supreme Court’s Alice opinion.
DietGoal Innovations, LLC, the owner of the ‘516 patent, sued Bravo Media in 2012 in the Eastern District of Texas. DietGoal alleged that a recipe search feature that was then offered on Bravo Media’s website, infringed some claims of the ‘516 patent. Bravo Media sought transfer of the case to the Southern District of New York, but the court in East Texas instead transferred the cases to the Eastern District of Virginia. There, Klarquist convinced that court to transfer the DietGoal case against Bravo Media to the Southern District of New York.
Bravo Media is represented by Klarquist attorneys J. Christopher Carraway and N. Andrew Sfeir.
DietGoal v. Bravo – 101 Decision