The “inventive concept” requirement for patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. §101 requires that the innovative mechanism for achieving an otherwise abstract idea must be recited in the claims and must involve more than merely generic data collection. Here, for example, the claimed “maintaining” of a web browser state “without loss of said state” was found to be devoid of any mechanism for achieving the desired outcome (an abstract idea) and the further claimed mechanisms of “combining information from a template file and either a database or a conditional merge file” insufficient as mere generic data collection. “[Claim 1] describes the effect or result dissociated from any method by which [it] is accomplished.” It may therefore be best to avoid claiming an otherwise abstract idea only in terms of the desired outcome or with only basic data processing steps.
Background / Facts: The patent being asserted here is directed to the use of web browser Back and Forward navigational functionalities without the data loss that typical occurs with dynamically generated web pages. Claim 1 recites “maintaining” the state of a browser “upon the activation of another of said icons, wherein said maintaining allows use of said Back and Forward navigation functionalities without loss of said state.” The dependent claims recite further details concerning the data processing that may be used to perform the maintaining step.
Issue(s): Whether the claims are patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. §101.
Holding(s): No. “[T]he character of the claimed invention is an abstract idea: the idea of retaining information in the navigation of online forms.” Further, as stated in the specification itself, “browser Back and Forward button functionality” is “conventional,” “well-known,” and “common.” Claim 1, however, “contains no restriction on how the result [of maintaining a browser state] is accomplished. The mechanism for maintaining the state is not described [in claim 1], although this is stated to be the essential innovation. … [The patentee’s] proposed interpretation of ‘maintaining state’ describes the effect or result dissociated from any method by which maintaining the state is accomplished upon the activation of an icon.” That being said, dependent claim 2, which recites the mechanism in more detail as “combining information from a template file and either a database or a conditional merge file or both to form said dynamically generated online application form set,” was also dismissed as “represent[ing] merely generic data collection steps or siting the ineligible concept in a particular technological environment.”