State Farm’s First Patent Suit Survives Amazon’s Dismissal Bid

A federal judge rejected Amazon.com Inc.’s request to dismiss State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.’s first patent-infringement case, finding it’s too early to determine the validity of six patents for eldercare technologies allegedly used in Alexa-enabled devices.

The tech giant failed to convince Magistrate Judge Christopher J. Burke that a patent claim representing four State Farm patents doesn’t contain an inventive concept, and that a claim representing the case’s other two patents covers an abstract idea, according to an opinion issued Sept. 6 in the US District Court for the District of Delaware.

• Burke said Amazon failed “to articulate an ...