By Memorandum Opinion entered by The Honorable Gregory M. Sleet in Jedi Technologies, Inc. v. Spark Networks, Inc. et al., Civil Action No. 16-1055-GMS (D.Del. August 3, 2017), the Court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s patent infringement action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) after finding that plaintiff’s patents claim ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Specifically, the Court found that the asserted claims of the patents-in-suit, U.S. Patent Nos. 7,885,977 (“the ‘977 patent”), 8,417,729 (“the ‘729 patent”), 8,930,406 (“the ‘406 patent”), and 9,432,315 (“the ‘315 patent”), are invalid under § 101 because each claim the abstract concept of matching online chatters based on criteria such as personality or location without providing the kind of meaningful limitations needed to make the subject matter patent-eligible. Id.at *12-13. In other words, the Court found that the patents-in-suit do nothing more than “recite the performance of some business practice known from the pre-Internet world along with the requirement to perform it on the Internet.” Id.at *16.
Ultimately, the Court invalidated pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 101 claims 1, 2, 4 and 5 of the ‘977 patent, claims 26, 27, 29, 30 and 31 of the ‘729 patent, claims 3, 4, and 6 of the ‘406 patent, and claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of the ‘315 patent for claiming ineligible subject matter and having no inventive concept. See Order.
Copies of the Court’s Memorandum Opinion and Order are attached.
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