Electric Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A.

Electric Power Group v. Alstom, decided August 1st, 2016. A unanimous panel of the Federal Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Taranto, affirmed summary judgment that patent claims covering software for real-time monitoring and analysis of an electric power grid are not eligible for patenting under Section 101. The claims, the court held, are directed to the abstract idea of collecting, analyzing, and displaying information, and supply no inventive concept. Here's the brief.

Electric Power Group owned three patents describing systems and methods for real-time performance monitoring of an electric power grid. The claimed methods collect data from many sources across a wide area — phasor measurements, transmission maps, other grid and non-grid data — detect and analyze events in real time, and then display the results in visuals, tables, and charts.

Electric Power Group sued Alstom and related companies in the Central District of California, alleging infringement of claims from all three patents. Claim 12 of one patent was treated as representative. It recited receiving multiple data streams of sub-second, time-stamped phasor measurements from across the wide area; receiving data from other grid and non-grid sources; detecting and analyzing events in real time; displaying the results and a concurrent visualization of the measurements; and deriving a composite indicator of grid reliability.

The district court granted Alstom summary judgment, holding that the asserted claims are directed to the abstract idea of monitoring and analyzing data from disparate sources, and lack an inventive concept in the application of that idea. Electric Power Group appealed to the Federal Circuit.

The question was whether these claims are eligible under Section 101. That section defines the categories of patentable subject matter, but the Supreme Court has long recognized an implicit exception: laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable.

Under the Supreme Court's decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, courts apply a two-step framework. First, ask whether the claim is directed to a patent-ineligible concept, such as an abstract idea. If it is, ask second whether the claim's elements, individually and as an ordered combination, add an inventive concept that transforms the claim into a patent-eligible application.

At step one, the court placed the claims in a familiar class.

Collecting information, the court explained, even when limited to particular content, falls within the realm of abstract ideas. Analyzing information by mental steps or mathematical algorithms is likewise an essentially mental process. And merely presenting the results of that collection and analysis is an abstract, ancillary part of the same process. The claims combined all three, and recited no particular inventive technology for carrying them out.

The court distinguished its recent decision in Enfish, where the claims improved the way a computer itself carried out a basic function.

At step two, the court found nothing to supply an inventive concept. The court stressed what the claims did not require: they did not require a new source or type of information, or new techniques for analyzing it; they did not require an inventive set of components, such as new measurement devices; and they did not invoke any inventive programming. Limiting the abstract idea to the power-grid environment was not enough. Neither was reciting generic computer, network, and display technology.

Merely selecting information, by content or source, for collection, analysis, and display, the court added, does nothing significant to differentiate the process from ordinary mental processes. Echoing the district court, the panel invoked the common-sense distinction between a desirable result and a particular inventive means of achieving it. The claims defined a desirable, information-based result without claiming an inventive way of achieving it, so they failed Section 101. The panel affirmed.

Electric Power Group has become a leading case on the ineligible side of software patent law. It stands for the proposition that claims directed to collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying the results — without a specific improvement to the way computers or networks function — are directed to an abstract idea, and, if they invoke only conventional, generic components, lack an inventive concept. Courts and the Patent Office cite it to separate claims that improve computer functionality from claims that merely use computers as tools to process information.

Electric Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, decided August 1st, 2016. I'm John Goodhue. Thanks for watching.