TikTok Beats Federal Suit by Invalidating Abstract Patent

TikTok Inc. convinced a federal judge in California to dismiss a patent dispute over the video-streaming company’s ‘For You’ feature, finding that technology at the heart of the suit is abstract and thus ineligible for protection.

Pennsylvania-based 10Tales Inc. sued TikTok and its parent company, China’s ByteDance Ltd., in 2020 alleging that the “recommendation system” used the feature infringes U.S. Patent No. 8,856,030, which covers technology related to digital media presentations.

The patent’s key claim shouldn’t have been issued in the first place because its “directed to the abstract idea of providing personalized digital media content to a user, ...