Lawsuit Update: Pokémon GOes Scot-Free

Barbaro Tech., LLC v. Niantic, Inc.
Case No. 21-1249
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Decided: July 9, 2021

In 2018, Barbaro Technologies, LLC (“Barbaro”) sued Niantic, Inc. (“Niantic”), the creator of Pokémon GO, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 8,228,325 (the ‘325 patent) and U.S. Patent No. 7,373,377 (the ‘377 patent). The patents related to integration of real-world information into a virtual environment. The district court found the patents to be invalid as directed to non-patent-eligible subject matter under the Supreme Court’s Alice test, and thus not infringed. Particularly, the court found the patents failed to explain the specific method of integrating real-world data with a virtual environment and only were directed to the result. Barbaro appealed the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. After hearing oral arguments on July 8, 2021, the three judge Federal Circuit panel quickly affirmed the decision with a per curium ruling, agreeing with the lower court that Barbaro’s patents were invalid.

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