LONGITUDE LICENSING LTD. v. GOOGLE LLC, decided April 30, 2025

Case: LONGITUDE LICENSING LTD. v. GOOGLE LLC Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Case Number: 2024-1202 Date Decided: April 30, 2025 Judges: LOURIE, DYK, and CHEN, Circuit Judges. DYK, Circuit Judge wrote the opinion. Appeal From: United States District Court for the Northern District of California (Judge Vince Chhabria)

Subject Matter: Appeal regarding the patent eligibility of four U.S. Patents owned by Longitude Licensing Ltd. related to digital image correction techniques.

Key Issue: Whether the asserted claims of U.S. Patents Nos. 7,668,365, 8,355,574, 7,454,056, and 7,945,109 are patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

Procedural History:

• Longitude Licensing Ltd. sued Google LLC in the Northern District of California alleging infringement of claims from the four patents.

• Google filed a motion to dismiss, arguing the claims were directed to an abstract idea.

• The District Court granted Google's motion to dismiss, finding the asserted claims not patent eligible under § 101. The court treated claim 32 of the '365 patent as representative and held all claims were directed to the same abstract idea without an inventive concept.

• Longitude appealed the District Court's decision.
  

Summary of the Patents at Issue: The four patents ("the '365, '574, '056, and '109 patents") are all directed to performing digital image correction techniques on a computer.

• Shared Specification: The '574 patent is a continuation of the '365 patent and shares the same title and specification. The specifications of the '056 and '109 patents are not significantly different.

• Core Concept: The specifications describe identifying the subject or "main object" of an image and adjusting the main object image data using "correction conditions." These conditions are described as "statistical values and color values" that correspond to the "properties" of the main object.
  

Main Themes and Important Ideas/Facts from the Source:

1. Patent Eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and the Alice Framework:

• The central legal question is whether the patents claim eligible subject matter under § 101.

• Section 101 defines eligible subject matter as "any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof."

• The Supreme Court has established "implicit" exceptions to § 101, including laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas.

• The Court applies the two-step Alice framework to determine patent eligibility:

• Step 1: "determine whether the claims at issue are directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts."

• Step 2: "consider the elements of each claim both individually and ‘as an ordered combination’ to determine whether the additional elements ‘transform the nature of the claim’ into a patent-eligible application."
  

2. Claims Directed to an Abstract Idea (Alice Step 1):

• The District Court held, and the Federal Circuit agreed, that the claims are directed 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."

• The court reiterates the principle that claims which merely "organize, alter, or manipulate data, without more, are patent ineligible."

• Claims that simply implement "longstanding activities and mental processes using new data and generic computing components without explaining how these arrangements actually result in the claimed improvement" are considered abstract.

• The court highlights that the '365 patent specification acknowledges that human users could already adjust picture quality using software, and that existing automatic techniques applied changes "across the board, without taking into consideration subtle differences in the main object characterizing the image."

• Claim 32 of the '365 patent is used as representative: "An image processing method comprising: determining the main object image data corresponding to the main object characterizing the image; acquiring the properties of the determined main object image data; acquiring correction conditions corresponding to the properties that have been acquired; and adjusting the picture quality of the main object image data using the acquired correction conditions; wherein each of the operations of the image processing method is executed by an integrated circuit."

• The court finds that Claim 32 merely uses a computer to adjust parameters based on the main object data but "without explaining how this result is achieved."

• The court draws parallels to previous cases, Hawk Technology Systems, LLC v. Castle Retail, LLC and Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., where claims were found abstract for describing functional steps using result-based language without detailing how the improvement was accomplished.

• In Hawk, claims were directed to viewing multiple video images based on parameters, but the claims "did not ‘explain what those claimed parameters are or how they should be manipulated.’"

• In Recentive, claims applying machine learning to a new field were found abstract because "neither the claims nor the specifications describe how such an improvement was accomplished."

• Longitude's argument that the claims are directed to an "improved digital image processing technique" is rejected because the claim language, particularly in Claim 32, "does anything more than describe the use of new data or explain how it is used in the steps of 'determining'... 'acquiring'... 'acquiring correction conditions,' and 'adjusting'."

• Longitude's attempt to import details from the specification, similar to the successful argument in McRo, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games of America Inc., is rejected. The court states, "While step one requires that ‘we consider the claims in light of the specification[,] [we] avoid importing concepts from the specification into the claims.’" The court emphasizes that the focus of the § 101 inquiry "must focus on the language of the Asserted Claims themselves."
  

3. Identifying the Main Object as an Abstract Idea:

• Longitude also argued that the claims are directed to a "distinct" improvement in identifying the main object of an image.

• Claim 5 of the '365 patent is cited as more explicitly addressing this: "An image processing device that determines the main object which characterizes an image... comprising: image data acquiring module... image data analyzing module... position data acquiring module... and main object determining module that determines the main object using the acquired position data and the results of analysis..."

• The court finds that Claim 5, like Claim 32, "merely identifies a number of components defined in functional terms that carry out basic data collection and manipulation functions."

• Claim 5 is also found to be directed to the same "abstract data manipulation as claim 32."
  

4. Treatment of Other Claims:

• Longitude argued that the District Court oversimplified by treating Claim 32 as representative instead of addressing each of the sixty-six claims individually.

• The court dismisses this argument, stating that because the other asserted claims are "substantially similar and linked to the same abstract idea" as Claims 5 and 32, the court was not required to address them all separately.

• Examples of variations in other claims include limiting the "main object" to a "human face" and specifying "correction conditions" as well-known parameters (Claim 3 of the '574 patent), or focusing on "color balance correction" on a "specific subject area" (claims of the '056 patent).

• The claims of the '109 patent focus on locating a human subject using scene and location information and adjusting sharpness, but are deemed to recite "the same abstract idea as claim 5 of the ’365 patent."

• The court concludes 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."
  

5. Lack of Inventive Concept (Alice Step 2):

• The District Court concluded, and the Federal Circuit affirmed, that the claims lack any inventive concept.

• An inventive concept must transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible application; simply stating functional steps or using new data within the abstract idea is not sufficient.

• Longitude's argument that the court erred by finding a lack of inventive concept "without evidence or analysis" is rejected, as "a patent itself may establish that the claims contain no inventive concept."

• Longitude's argument that the elements addressing "properties" and "correction conditions" recite inventive concepts is also rejected, as this is merely a restatement of the abstract idea identified in step one. These elements "cannot transform 'that idea into significantly more.'"
  

Conclusion: The Federal Circuit affirms the District Court's dismissal, concluding that the asserted claims of the four patents owned by Longitude Licensing Ltd. are not patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because they are directed to the abstract idea of using data to identify an image's subject and modifying image data based on that subject, and they lack an inventive concept that transforms this abstract idea into a patent-eligible application. The claims are framed in functional, results-oriented terms and do not sufficiently describe how the purported improvements are achieved. Full opinion here