In Weisner v. Google LLC,1 the Federal Circuit held claims directed to mobile device location tracking contained an inventive concept that transformed the abstract idea of creating and using travel histories to improve computerized search results into a patent-eligible invention. The court reasoned that the claims recited a specific solution to the Internet-centric problem of web searches, enabling more personalized search results than conventional methods offer.
Sholem Weisner, a named inventor of U.S. Patent Nos. 10,394,905 and 10,642,911, sued Google LLC for patent infringement. The patents described ways that individuals and businesses could swap information. For example, individuals record entries in their travel history either by accepting a proposal from another person/business or by separately making their own entry. The specification also explained that the recorded travel history data could be used to improve web search results. For example, the system used a person's search results to cross-reference digital histories of specific other persons to create a common visit and then gave priority to those search results.
The claims of the '911 and '905 patents recited using physical location histories to enhance electronic search results. For example, the preamble of claim 1 of the '911 patent recited improving digital search results using uniform resource locators (URLs) of location histories. The claims also described gathering physical location histories but involved steps associated with electronic searches using the histories. Claim 1 of the '911 patent recited:
providing, by at least one processing system in communication with a positioning system, an account to (i) an individual member and (ii) a stationary vendor member, of a member network, the account associated with a URL, the individual member's account associated with a mobile communication device or multiple mobile communication devices;
maintaining a communication link between the mobile communication device and the at least one processing system or the positioning system such that the mobile communication device is configured to accumulate a location history on a database maintained by the at least one processing system from physical encounters by the individual member at multiple stationary vendor members upon the mobile communication device being set to enter instances of a physical encounter between the individual member carrying the mobile communication device and the stationary vendor member at a physical premises of the stationary vendor member, the positioning system determining a location of the individual member at the physical premises;
for each individual member having a location history who sends a search query to a search engine of the at least one processing system, the search query targeting a geographic area:
(1) searching, by the search engine, the database for URLs of stationary vendor members in the location history, the location history also identifying time and geographic place of the physical encounters therein; and
(2) assigning a priority, by the at least one processing system, in a search result ranking based on an appearance of one of the...
