In the the two-step § 101 inquiry set forth in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014) for patent eligibility, Alice step one considers whether the claims at issue are directed to an abstract idea.  If the claims are not directed to an abstract idea, the Alice inquiry ends. If the claims are directed to an abstract idea, then the inquiry continues to Alice step two, which is whether the claims recite something “significantly more” than an abstract idea itself. 

At Alice step one, courts often examine the “focus of the claimed advance over the prior art.” Affinity Labs of Tex., LLC v. DIRECTV, LLC, 838 F.3d 1253, 1257 (Fed. Cir. 2016); see also Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2016). This analysis ascertains the “basic character” of the claimed subject matter. Trinity Info Media, LLC v. Covalent, Inc., 72 F.4th 1355, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2023) (citations omitted). In doing so, the court must avoid describing the claims at a high level of abstraction, divorced from the claim language itself. Enfish, 822 F.3d at 1337. 

To determine the focus of the claimed advance at Alice step one, courts consider whether the claims are directed to “a specific means or method that improves the relevant technology” rather than simply being directed to “a result or effect that itself is the abstract idea.” McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am. Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2016). An improved result, without more, is not enough to support patent eligibility at Alice step one. Koninklijke KPN N.V. v. Gemalto M2M GmbH, 942 F.3d 1143, 1150 (Fed. Cir. 2019). When a claim “abstractly cover[s] results” without regard to a specific process or machinery for achieving those results, it creates preemption concerns because it “would prohibit all other persons from making the same thing by any means whatsoever.” McRO, 837 F.3d at 1314 (quoting Le Roy v. Tatham, 55 U.S. 156, 175 (1853)). 

In Contour IP Holding LLC v. GoPro, Inc., No. 22-1654, __ F.4th __ (Fed. Cir. Sept. 9. 2024), the Federal Circuit considered whether a patent claim directed to an improved POV camera through its combination of claim limitations and requirement that the claimed POV camera processor be configured to record lowand high-quality data streams in parallel, followed by the low-quality data stream's wireless transfer to a remote device. The Court found that the patent claim required specific, technological means—parallel data stream recording with the low-quality recording wirelessly transferred to a remote device—that in turn provide a technological improvement to the real time viewing capabilities of a POV camera's recordings on a remote device. 

The Court distinguished its prior decision in Yu v. Apple Inc., 1 F.4th 1040, 1043 (Fed. Cir. 2021) which had held that those patent claims were “directed to the abstract idea of taking two pictures (which may be at different exposures) and using one picture to enhance the other in some way.” The Contour Court noted that, "in Yu, we took note of a longstanding, fundamental practice in photography, without conducting a prior art search"; and contrasted that with having a camera recording two video streams in parallel and wirelessly transferring the lower quality video stream to a remote device for real time viewing and adjustment as something that was not "a long-known or fundamental practice supporting patent ineligibility at Alice step one." 

The Court also rejected the argument that the patent claims were simply directed to the abstract idea of wireless network communication and thus analogous to ChargePoint, Inc. v. SemaConnect, Inc., 920 F.3d 759 (Fed. Cir. 2019). The claims in ChargePoint related to charging stations for electric vehicles, and more particularly local charging stations connected via a wireless network. Id. at 763, 766. There, the claims were drawn to the abstract idea of “communication over a network,” applied to the context of electric vehicle charging stations. Id. at 769. Neither the specification nor the claims supported that “the charging station itself is improved from a technical
perspective, or that it would operate differently than it otherwise could.” Id. at 768. 

     The [Contour patent] claims are directed to a technological solution to a technological problem. The written description discloses improving POV camera technology through specific means of generating high- and low-quality video streams in parallel and transferring a low-quality video stream to a remote device, and the claims reflect this improvement. 

Thus, the Court held that the patent claims recited patent eligible subject matter at Alice step one.