Since the US Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp v. CLS Bank International, virtually all Patents for Internet-related Software inventions have been declared invalid in patent proceedings before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). In DDR Holdings v. Hotels.com, a patent relating to an invention in this field has now been upheld for the first time.

Patents US 6,993,572 claims a system and method for generating a webpage that displays content from a third party, for example a merchant, in addition to its own hosted content. The invention is intended to solve the problem that the visitor to a hosted website is often led away from this page when he clicks on an advertisement of the third-party provider.

One of the claims is directed to an “e-commerce outsourcing system” with a data store containing a look-and-feel description of the hosted website. Further, the system shall have a processor programmed to provide a composite webpage. This composite webpage shall have a look-and-feel of the hosted webpage and the content of the third-party provider’s offer.

The CAFC applied the criteria of the US Supreme Court case Mayo v. Prometheus Labs. when considering the patentability of this claim. It therefore first considered whether the claim was directed to one of the jurisdictional exceptions to patentability under Section 101 of the Patent Act. The three non-protectable exceptions are “laws of nature”, “physical phenomena” and “abstract ideas”. It found that the present claim does not fall within any of the three jurisdictional exceptions. It is true that the claim also relates to a computer and to the internet. However, the claim does not simply describe the computer-implemented performance of a per se known business practice. Rather, the invention is anchored in computer technology to solve a problem specific to computer networks. The computer automatically generates a composite webpage that allows products to be purchased from the third-party vendor without going to the vendor’s home page.

With this judgment, the CAFC demonstrates a useful way for practitioners to establish the patentability of Internet-related Software inventions.

Left: www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-orders/13-1505.Opinion.12-3-2014.1.PDF