CHEWY, INC. v. IBM , No. 22-1756 (Fed. Cir. 2024)
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In the case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Chewy, Inc., (Chewy) brought a suit against International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) seeking a declaratory judgment of noninfringement of several IBM patents. In response, IBM filed counterclaims alleging Chewy’s website and mobile applications infringed the patents.
The patents in question relate to improvements in web-based advertising. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted Chewy's motion for summary judgment of noninfringement of claims of the ’849 patent and also granted Chewy's motion for summary judgment that claims of the ’443 patent are ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. IBM appealed both summary judgment rulings.
The Court of Appeals affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remand for further proceedings. The Court affirmed the lower court's decision on noninfringement of the ’849 patent, ruling that Chewy's website and applications did not infringe certain claims of the patent because they didn't perform the specific limitation of "selectively storing advertising objects" as described in the patent.
However, the Court reversed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement of claim 12 of the ’849 patent, concluding that there is a genuine dispute of material fact regarding whether Chewy "establish[es] characterizations for respective users."
As for the ’443 patent, the Court affirmed the lower court's ruling that the claims are ineligible under § 101. The patent claims, according to the Court, could not transform the abstract idea of identifying advertisements based on search results into patent-eligible subject matter.
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