On July 20, 2015, in Thales Visionix, Inc v USA and Elbit Systems of America, LLC  (Ct Fed Clm 2015), the US Federal Court granted summary judgment dismissing a patent infringement lawsuit against the US Government.

The plaintiff, Thales Visionix, Inc (Thales), sued the government and its contractor Elbit System of America, LLC (Elbit) for infringing its US Patent No. 6,474,159 (the ‘159 patent) over an allegedly infringing system for tracking the relative motion between two moving objects in a fighter jet heads-up display system.  The ‘159 patent claimed a system that projects tactical information onto the interior of the visor of a fighter pilot’s helmet, allowing the pilot to view displayed information regardless of the direction the pilot is looking.  Traditional heads-up display systems require the pilot to look straight ahead at the display in order to read tactical information, target enemy aircraft, and fire weapons.

Claim 1 of the ‘159 patent claims a system for tracking the motion of an object relative to a moving reference frame, comprising:

a first inertial sensor mounted on the tracked object;

a second inertial sensor mounted on the moving reference frame; and

an element adapted to receive signals from said first and second inertial sensors and configured to determine an orientation of the object relative to the moving reference frame based on the signals received from the first and second inertial sensors.

The Court found that the patent lacked subject matter eligibility – as being impermissibly directed to an abstract, noting “the independent claims of the ‘159 Patent are directed to mathematical equations for determining the relative position of a moving object to a moving reference frame … the Court finds that this concept is a ‘building block of human ingenuity’, and the solution lies in the mathematical formulae, not the generic devices listed in the system claim.”

The claimed sensors were already well known in the field of motion tracking.  The Court indicated that these inertial trackers add nothing transformative to the claims.  While the concept of tracking the motion of a moving object relative to a moving reference frame may have been novel and non-obvious, the claimed system did not ground the abstract idea in a specific way or limit the claims to a fighter jet and a pilot’s helmet.

E-TIPS® ISSUE

15 07 29

Disclaimer: This Newsletter is intended to provide readers with general information on legal developments in the areas of e-commerce, information technology and intellectual property. It is not intended to be a complete statement of the law, nor is it intended to provide legal advice. No person should act or rely upon the information contained in this newsletter without seeking legal advice.

E-TIPS is a registered trade-mark of Deeth Williams Wall LLP.