Apple, Google Keep Win as Appeals Court Axes Geolocation Patents

The Federal Circuit upheld a district court’s invalidation of four patents asserted against Google LLC and Apple Inc. that purport to cover geolocation technology for mobile devices.

Claims from Geoscope Technologies Pte. Ltd.'s US Patent No. 8,406,753 “simply require collecting, comparing, and reporting data using conventional components,” and therefore are abstract and ineligible for patent protection, wrote the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an unsigned opinion issued Friday.

Under the US Supreme Court’s two-part test from its 2014 Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, a patent involving an abstract idea may still pass muster if ...