OAKLAND – U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. has dismissed a motion filed by Facebook regarding a patent infringement lawsuit.
On Aug. 16, Gilliam denied Facebook's motion to dismiss the suit filed by plaintiff Hypermedia Navigation.
Hypermedia Navigation had filed the suit against Facebook over allegations of patent infringement of patents that allow a person using online search tools to see their results linearly "in a fashion designed for the user's entertainment," the ruling states. The suit was filed over alleged infringement of seven U.S. patents.
Facebook protested and filed a motion to dismiss in November 2017, saying that there was a lack of patent-eligible subject matter in the suit. The basis is that dismissal based on lack of subject matter “is appropriate only where the complaint lacks a cognizable legal theory or sufficient facts to support a cognizable legal theory,” according to the ruling.
Facebook argued the patents involved in the suit represented “an abstract and longstanding concept.” This involves how information is organized and presented to an internet search user in their results.
Gilliam wrote that “though the defendant may be correct that the concepts of searching, displaying and organizing information are longstanding, plaintiff adequately alleges that the present invention improves a specific online search mechanism by creating web programs that are geared towards entertaining and presenting the user with desirable information in a new way: through ‘linearly linked websites.'”
Gilliam's ruling broke down how that search process works: The program receives a request for search result for a video, then selects several video files based on the request. The program then creates a file to play the content with “a place to show the first video,” as well as “a place to display icons representative of the rest of the videos.” Finally, the program sends a file to whoever requested the search.