{"id":174570,"date":"2024-03-21T17:30:21","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T21:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/?p=174570"},"modified":"2024-03-22T12:04:45","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T16:04:45","slug":"tic-tac-fruit-gaming-system-claims-fail-cafcs-eligibility-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/2024\/03\/21\/tic-tac-fruit-gaming-system-claims-fail-cafcs-eligibility-analysis\/id=174570\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Tic Tac Fruit\u2019 Gaming System Claims Fail CAFC\u2019s Eligibility Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The invention is directed to a concept for overcoming the legal obstacles discussed in the Background section of the patent rather than providing a technological solution to a technological problem.\u201d – CAFC opinion<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"eligibility\"<\/a>The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday, March 21, affirmed a district court\u2019s grant of summary judgment<\/a> that claims of a patent for an electronic gaming system were ineligible under Section 101.<\/p>\n

U.S. Patent No. 7,736,223<\/a> is owned by Savvy Dog Systems and POM of Pennsylvania (Savvy Dog) and is directed to a \u201cmore skill-based and less chance-based\u201d version of an electronic game called \u201cTic Tac Fruit.\u201d Savvy Dog sued Pennsylvania Coin and PA Coin Holdings (Pennsylvania Coin) for infringement in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Coin moved to dismiss the case, in part because it said the claims constituted patent ineligible subject matter.<\/p>\n

The district court agreed, holding that \u201cclaim 44 describes the rules for playing a game, and is thus an abstract idea within the meaning of Alice<\/em> step one.\u201d However, the district court denied the motion to dismiss because determination of Alice<\/em> step two, specifically, \u201c[w]hether the technology embedded into the game processor is an improvement and \u2018inventive concept\u2019 is a question of fact that the court cannot determine at this early stage of litigation.\u201d Following claim construction, Pennsylvania Coin moved for summary judgment, again arguing the claims were ineligible, and the court said at Alice<\/em> step two \u201cthat none of the claimed elements of claim 44 individually, or in an ordered combination, transformed the abstract idea into an inventive concept,\u201d thus granting summary judgment.<\/p>\n

On appeal, the CAFC noted that Savvy dog disagreed with the district court\u2019s characterization of claim 44 as being directed to the rules for playing a game and said instead that the claim is \u201cactually directed to \u2018a novel gaming terminal architecture\u2019 that previews the game \u2018before the player commits to play the game, thereby elevating skill and lessening the role of chance in the game.\u2019\u201d \u00a0But the CAFC said that, under either construction, the claim is directed to an abstract idea. Citing to In re Smith<\/em>, the appellate court said it has \u201cfound similar game implementations to be patent ineligible\u201d and that, even under Savvy Dog\u2019s interpretation, \u201cclaim 44 is not directed to a technological solution to a technological problem.\u201d Further citing to Chargepoint v. SemaConnect<\/em>, the CAFC continued:<\/p>\n

\u201cNotably, the specification does not describe \u2018overcoming some sort of technical difficulty\u2019 in displaying the preview of the game before player commitment\u2026.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the invention is directed to a concept for overcoming the legal obstacles discussed in the Background section of the patent rather than providing a technological solution to a technological problem.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While Savvy Dog had argued that the invention solves the legal problems surrounding Ohio\u2019s crackdown on electronic gambling games, after which only \u201cskill-based\u201d games in which \u201cthe outcome of play during the game must be controlled by the person playing the game and not by predetermined odds or random chance controlled by the machine,\u201d the CAFC said the solution offered is not a technological one. \u201cRather the purported elevation in the player\u2019s skill is due to when the game field is displayed, not how it is displayed,\u201d wrote the court. \u201cStated differently, nothing in the claim or the specification describes a new technological way of displaying.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Alice<\/em> step two, Savvy Dog argued that \u201cthe testing of the game field and the automatic previewing of the actual game to be played, whether individually or as an ordered combination, are inventive concepts,\u201d according to the opinion. But the CAFC found that \u201cthese steps are abstract ideas themselves\u2014whether viewed as part of a set of rules for playing a game or part of a game previewed to the player before committing to playing\u2014and thus cannot be an inventive concept under Alice<\/em> step two.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since all that is left of the claim after the abstract idea is identified are \u201cgeneric and conventional computer components (e.g., a gaming terminal and touch screen display) that are used in a routine and conventional way,\u201d the claim also fails at Alice<\/em> step two, said the court.<\/p>\n

Image Source: Deposit Photos
\nAuthor: miflippo
\nImage ID: 28667711\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday, March 21, affirmed a district court\u2019s grant of summary judgment that claims of a patent for an electronic gaming system were ineligible under Section 101. U.S. Patent No. 7,736,223 is owned by Savvy Dog Systems and POM of Pennsylvania (Savvy Dog) and is directed to a \u201cmore skill-based and less chance-based\u201d version of a popular electronic game called \u201cTic Tac Fruit.\u201d Savvy Dog sued Pennsylvania Coin and PA Coin Holdings (Pennsylvania Coin) for infringement in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Coin moved to dismiss the case, in part because it said the claims constituted patent ineligible subject matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109908,"featured_media":151006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7202,82,228,3,38597,37020],"tags":[43268,553,8730,49,33,1599,1569,8742,83,39447],"yst_prominent_words":[19117,22043,69683,15887,69676],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174570"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/109908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174570"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174581,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174570\/revisions\/174581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174570"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=174570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}