Erise IP achieved a significant patent win for its client, Gameloft, Law360reported in the article, “‘Candy Crush,’ ‘Angry Birds’ Makers Get Patent Nixed by Alice.”
On Sept. 30, U.S. District Judge Leonard Stark of the District of Delaware granted Gameloft’s bid to invalidate an Inventor Holdings LLC patent. Erise IP attorneys Eric Buresh, Michelle Marriott and Mark Lang represented Gameloft in the case.
Gameloft’s motion for judgment on the pleadings asserted that the patent was invalid under the U.S. Supreme Court’s Alice decision (35 USC 101), holding that the patent did not claim patentable subject matter.
“Judge Stark agreed with the defendants that the ‘198 patent describes a way of using codes to unlock benefits in a mobile game, which the judge said is just an abstract idea that cannot be patented under Alice,” the Law360 story stated.
The ‘198 patent was issued in July 2014 and describes a method and apparatus for distributing promotions to users and for allowing the users to receive benefits associated with the promotions, according to Law360. Inventor Holdings had filed separate patent infringement actions against Gameloft and several other mobile game makers before the cases were consolidated.