CAFC Upholds District Court Invalidation of Transmission Decoding Claims Under 101

“The claimed ‘combining’ step, by itself, is an abstract idea and cannot itself provide an inventive concept.” – CAFC

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday affirmed a district court decision finding that Technology in Ariscale, LLC’s patent for a transmission signal decoding method was patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The opinion was authored by Judge Cunningham.

Ariscale first argued to the CAFC that the United States District Court for the Central District of California’s characterization of claim 1 of its U.S. Patent No. 8,139,652 as being “directed to receiving, manipulating, and decoding data” constituted error. Instead, Ariscale said the claim was more appropriately characterized as “combining and decoding repeatedly transmitted [downlink frame prefix (“DFP”)] information.” But the CAFC said this description “is not meaningfully different from that of the district court and does not suggest that the district court overgeneralized the claim.” Ariscale’s limitation of the claim to DFP information was not supported by the claim language, said the CAFC, and even if Ariscale was correct, “this would ‘not change its character as information’ or otherwise make it less abstract,” the opinion added.

The CAFC also agreed with the district court that the claims are directed to the abstract idea of “receiving, manipulating, and decoding data” and that the “claim language also fails to disclose ‘specific means or method[s]’ for the recited functions and instead ‘merely invokes generic processes and machinery.’” Additionally, the claimed methods can be performed in the human mind or using pencil and paper, which the CAFC said in PersonalWeb Techs. LLC v. Google LLC, 8 F.4th 1310, 1315 (Fed. Cir. 2021) is “a telltale sign of abstraction.”

While Ariscale argued that the claims are directed to improvements in wireless communications technology, the CAFC said that the specific improvements Ariscale pointed to were not tied to the claims at issue.

At step two of the Alice-Mayo framework, Ariscale argued that the ordered combination of steps claimed represent an inventive concept that should render the claims eligible. But the CAFC said the claims and specification show that “the advantages associated with the patented invention are not tied to the particular order of steps dictated in claim 1.”

The individual steps of claim one also failed to show an inventive concept, said the CAFC, because “all claimed steps aside from the ‘combining’ step were used in prior art decoding methods.” Furthermore, the “combining step” does not sufficiently explain how the referenced symbols are combined, and the specification’s additional detail on that point “cannot serve as the basis of an inventive concept,” said the opinion. “The claimed ‘combining’ step, by itself, is an abstract idea and cannot itself provide an inventive concept,” wrote the CAFC, adding that the combining step also “involves basic arithmetic which can be performed mentally or by hand or other conventional methods.’”

Ariscale’s final argument rested on the district court’s alleged failure to respect the ‘652 patent’s presumption of validity. The opinion said there was no evidence to show the district court did not presume the patent was valid and, citing Sanderling Mgmt. Ltd. v. Snap Inc., 65 F.4th 698, 705 (Fed. Cir. 2023), reiterated that “courts are not required to defer to Patent Office determinations as to eligibility.”

The district court’s judgment of invalidity under Section 101 was therefore affirmed.

Eileen McDermott Eileen McDermott is the Editor-in-Chief of IPWatchdog.com. Eileen is a veteran IP and legal journalist, and no stranger to the intellectual property world, having held editorial and managerial positions at [...see more]

Warning & Disclaimer: The pages, articles and comments on IPWatchdog.com do not constitute legal advice, nor do they create any attorney-client relationship. The articles published express the personal opinion and views of the author as of the time of publication and should not be attributed to the author’s employer, clients or the sponsors of IPWatchdog.com.

Join the Discussion

5 comments so far. Add my comment.

Anon
January 8, 2026 09:57 am
I see that Greg has ‘let loose’ again on this ‘next’ IPWatchdog 101 thread.

I hear the frustration.

It is akin to the frustration from others (with different perspectives) that sound in knowing that the US Supreme Court has Royally [sic] messed things up, and have done so for quite some time.

I have to wonder on the nigh-repeat, definite rhyme in history and how the likes of PJ Frederico and (later Judge) Rich must have felt when throughout the early part of last century the Supreme Court acted in the manner to warrant one of its own to christen the Court with the phrase, “the only valid patent is one that has not yet appeared before us.”

Many of us – and myself explicitly included – have shared in this outrage.

Some of us – and myself explicitly included – have discussed in detail one or more actual paths of curbing the errors of the Supreme Court (with my own discussions provided for different branches of the government).

Sadly, I have yet to see any additional paths being offered (that are not tainted with the poison pills of ‘stakeholders’ who really do not want the system fixed).

Will this be the year that is different?

That would be wild (but that’s another thread).

Posted in near duplicate on the prior 101 thread.
See: https://ipwatchdog.com/2025/12/15/101-crossroads-uspto-fix-courts-congress/#comment-2872944
Lab Jedor
January 7, 2026 08:31 pm
Such enjoyable and ‘a propos’ comments by Greg. In a 101 ‘abstract’ invalidation decision by CAFC, I often read the spec and the claims of the patent, to find some reasonable evidence for the “abstract idea” allegation.

One claim limitation in Claim 1 is: “deinterleaving, using a computer processor, the received transmission signal;”

CAFC holds that: “… the claims and specification show that “the advantages associated with the patented invention are not tied to the particular order of steps dictated in claim 1.”” Of course they do, as deinterleaving before “receiving the transmission signal” is impossible and “combining before deinterleaving” is useless. Furthermore, despite what the CAFC asserts, you cannot de-interleave a transmission signal with paper-and-pencil, or in the mind.

There may be 103 or 112 issues in this case, but 101 absolutely not. The opinion appears more like: “you really don’t want me to read all this stuff, do you?”

It is tiresome having to provide these comments. And I often think: why bother? But we really should not accept this scientific and engineering nonsense.
Pro Say
January 7, 2026 05:01 pm
What Greg said.

The CAFC yet again refuses to correctly apply SCOTUS’ cabined (though unconstitutional) Alice decision. Correctly applied, this patent easily passes Alice.
Greg Aharonian
January 7, 2026 08:57 am
The word “abstract” does not appear in 35 USC 100 or 35 USC 101. There is no specific definition of “abstract” in any caselaw. Indeed, In Alice v.c CLS, Judgey Thomas explicitly stated that they won’t provide a specific definition: “we need not labor to delimit the precise contours of the ‘abstract ideas’ category in this case”. Yes, they must labor, but can’t, because they have no idea what the term means. They can’t rely on dictionaries, because ‘abstract’, like many other fundamental terms (such as ‘set’ and ‘good’) are defined circularly (and thus meaninglessly) in dictionaries. This isn’t Harry Potter – they can’t waive the magical ‘abstract’ wand.

Citing LeRoy is even worse: “A principle, in the abstract, is a fundamental truth; an original cause; a motive; these cannot be patented, as no one can claim in either of them an exclusive right”, because it replaces one unconstitutionally vague term, ‘abstract’, with others: ‘fundamental truth’ (which applies to no computer algorithm) , or ‘original cause’ (which applies to no computer algorithm – until such time as someone finds a Tanakh that states “Let there be light, and Fortran, and there was light, and Fortran”.)

None of these judges, in the 54 years since Benson, have any idea what the term ‘abstract’ means with regards to computer science (while deliberately ignoring computer science journal articles and conferences on software abstractions). Indeed, a very non-abstract useful tool in computer science is ‘abstract data structures’ which are a very well-defined type of data structure usefully used. I doubt highly a single judge in the USA is familiar with ‘abstract data structures’.

It is thus a violation of the patent owner’s (and patent applicant’s) Due Process Public Notice rights to have their patent invalidated by the courts, for invalidating a patent with a meaningless term. And each such invalidation means is more evidence that the USPTO has no understanding ‘abstract’ since it allowed the patent to issue. And is more evidence that patent lawyers have no understanding of ‘abstract’, since they drafted and prosecuted the ‘(not)abstract’ claims. No patent lawyer should be allowed to pass the Patent Bar unless they can demonstrate the ability to always write non-abstract claims (yes, sarcasm, since this is impossible to do without … a definition of ‘abstract’, a sarcasm that also applies to ‘obvious’).

In depriving the patent owner of his Due Process right to a definition of ‘abstract’ use to invalidate the patent, all involved Supreme Court (and CAFC and district court) are committing a civil crime: 42 U.S.C. 1983 – “Every person [which includes judges] who, under color of any statute [35 USC 101] … subjects, or causes to be subjected, any Citizen of the USA … to the deprivation of any rights [SUCH AS DUE PROCESS] … shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law”. All of these judges should be sued under the statute. How about an IPWatchdog seminar on this civil law statute?

This 54 year tyranny of having patent rights denied/destroyed by a judicially legislated term, ‘abstract’, is both tyranny and an unConstitutional violation of the separation of powers. All such instances of this tyranny should see the judges involved sued under 42 USC 1983.

If the intent of Congress (which the Supreme Court endlessly lies about defending) in 1952 was that ‘abstract’ inventions are not patentable, they could have written that into the statute (and then we could have been able to file lawsuits, using multiple Supreme Court caselaw, that without a definition, that use of ‘abstract’ was unconstitutionally vague in the statute).

But Congress didn’t include ‘abstract’ in the statutory language. If they thought about it all (and Congress rarely thinks about the content of these huge proposed laws they are voting on), they probably assumed that 35 USC 102/103/112 could filter out anything ‘abstract’. And this would have been reasonable – I have examined lots of patents invalidated for being ‘abstract’, and can always find invalidating prior art under 102/103. Indeed, 15 years before Benson was litigated, someone published the exact Benson article (in the mid 1950s) in one of the early books on computer science. Benson could have been quickly disposed of at the USPTO under 102 (had I been born :-).

This judicial tyranny of the use of the undefined ‘abstract’ must end. Time to sue any judge doing so. And they have an easy out.

They can reject any invalidity arguments based on ‘abstract’ by ruling that until such time that Congress adds ‘abstract’ to the statute, despite past caselaw, ‘abstract’ cannot be used at trial. This is entirely reasonable. And helps them avoid committing a civil crime.

Indeed, it is insulting that in many lower court decisions whining about the complete contradictory definitions of ‘abstract’ across multiple court decisions, few if any judges ever state: “Will Congress please do their constitutional duty and clean up this mess?”

Look you patent lawyers, you are first and foremost lawyers, with law school training in Constitutional and Criminal law (both part of the state bar exam you must pass to qualify to be a patent lawyer). Time to start applying these laws on behalf of your clients. How about the AIPLA creating a DueProcessPublicNoticeBOT?
Model 101
January 7, 2026 08:36 am
Crook stuff!!!!