In Contour IP Holding LLC v. GoPro, Inc., 2022-1654, 2022-1691 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 9, 2024), the Federal Circuit reviewed the district court’s decision invalidating asserted claims as ineligible subject matter under §101. Under the first step in Alice the district court characterized representative claim 11 as directed to the abstract idea of “creating and transmitting video (at two different resolutions) and adjusting the video's settings remotely.” The Court reversed and remanded, finding the district court impermissibly characterized the claim at a high level of generality and that claim 11 was directed to a specific means of improving technology (parallel data stream recording with low-quality recording wirelessly transferred to a remote device) and not just directed to an end result. Thus, the inquiry should have ended at step one of Alice.
CLAIM 11:
11. A portable, point of view digital video camera, comprising:
a lens;
an image sensor configured to capture light propagating through the lens and representing a scene, and produce real time video image data of the scene;
a wireless connection protocol device configured to send real time image content by wireless transmission directly to and receive control signals or data signals by wireless transmission directly from a personal portable computing device executing an application; and
a camera processor configured to:
receive the video image data directly or indirectly from the image sensor,
generate from the video image data a first image data stream and a second image data stream, wherein the second image data stream is a higher quality than the first image data stream,
cause the wireless connection protocol device to send the first image data stream directly to the personal portable computing device for display on a display of the personal portable computing device, wherein the personal portable computing device generates the control signals for the video camera, and wherein the control signals comprise at least one of a frame alignment, multi-camera synchronization, remote file access, and a resolution setting, and at least one of a lighting setting, a color setting, and an audio setting,
receive the control signals from the personal portable computing device, and
adjust one or more settings of the video camera based at least in part on at least a portion of the control signals received from the personal portable computing device.