Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-cv-06181/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-cv-06181-2/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Apple Inc.
Defendant
Yanbin Yu
Plaintiff
Zhongxuan Zhang
Plaintiff

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

YANBIN YU, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

APPLE INC.,

Defendant.

YANBIN YU, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD, et 

al.

Defendants.

Case No. 3:18-cv-06181-JD 

ORDER RE MOTION TO DISMISS

AMENDED COMPLAINT

Re: Dkt. No. 68

Case No. 3:18-cv-06339-JD 

 Re: Dkt. No. 64

In these related actions, Yanbin Yu and Zhongxuan Zhang (“Yu”) allege Apple and 

Samsung cell phones with dual-lens cameras infringe U.S. Patent No. 6,611,289, “Digital Cameras 

Using Multiple Sensors with Multiple Lenses” (the “’289 patent”).1 The Court dismissed the 

original complaints under 35 U.S.C. § 101 (“Section 101”) and Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank 

International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014). Yu v. Apple Inc., 392 F. Supp. 3d 1096 (N.D. Cal. 2019). Yu 

filed first amended complaints (“FACs”). Dkt. No. 66 in Case No. 18-cv-06181; Dkt. No. 61 in 

1 Unless otherwise noted, all docket references are to Yu v. Apple, Case No. 18-cv-6181. The 

motions and arguments in the two cases are virtually identical. 

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Case No. 18-cv-6339. Apple and Samsung filed a joint motion to dismiss for lack of patentability. 

Dkt. No. 68 in Case No. 18-cv-6181; Dkt. No. 64 in Case No. 18-cv-6339. Samsung also seeks to 

dismiss Yu’s willful and induced infringement claims. Dkt. No. 63 in Case No. 18-cv-6339. 

The Court finds the motion suitable for decision on the papers pursuant to Civil Local Rule 

7-1(b). The FACs are dismissed, and all remaining motions, including Samsung’s separate motion 

to dismiss, are terminated as moot. 

BACKGROUND

Before turning to the merits, an observation is warranted. Yu characterizes the prior 

dismissal order as making no less than 21 distinct “factual findings” and not properly crediting the 

allegations in the complaints. Dkt. No. 64 at 3-8. Yu appears to believe that every allegation in a 

complaint must be taken as true, and that any departure from this purported rule is in effect a 

finding of fact. That is not the law. On a motion to dismiss, “the tenet that a court must accept as 

true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions.” Ashcroft 

v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)). 

And specifically in a patent case, “a court need not accept as true allegations that contradict 

matters properly subject to judicial notice or by exhibit, such as the claims and the patent 

specification.” Secured Mail Sols. LLC v. Universal Wilde, 873 F.3d 905, 913 (Fed. Cir. 2017) 

(internal quotation and citation omitted). Yu’s original complaint failed under the application of 

these well-established principles, as informed by the Court’s “judicial experience and common 

sense.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679. To suggest otherwise, as Yu does, is to fundamentally 

misunderstand the Court’s order and our federal motion to dismiss practice. 

Yu’s comments about the prior order are also at odds with the rule “that patent eligibility 

can be determined at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage.” Aatrix Software, Inc. v. Green Shades Software, 

Inc., 882 F.3d 1121, 1125 (Fed. Cir. 2018); see also Genetic Techs. Ltd. v. Merial L.L.C., 818 F.3d 

1369, 1373-74 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (same). Yu is perfectly free to try to establish a material issue of 

fact that might forestall a motion to dismiss, but he cannot simply declare that such disputes exist

without any support in the record, or make them up out of whole cloth in a motion brief. 

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With respect to the merits, the salient facts are not meaningfully disputed and are detailed

in the prior dismissal order. In summary, the ’289 patent was issued to Yu on August 26, 2003, 

and expired on January 15, 2019. Dkt. No. 66-1. Yu alleges Apple and Samsung have infringed

“at least Claims 1, 2, and 4” of the ’289 patent. Dkt. No. 66 ¶¶ 38, 49 in Case No. 18-cv-6181; 

Dkt. No. 61 ¶¶ 36, 47 in Case No. 18-cv-6339. No other claims are asserted. 

Neither party has disagreed with treating claim 1 as the representative independent claim, 

as the Court did in the prior order, or suggested another approach. Yu, 392 F. Supp. 3d at 1101 

(citing Elec. Power Grp. v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2016)); see also

Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881 F.3d 1360, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2018). The Court will again use claim 1 as 

representative. 

Claim 1 recites:

1. An improved digital camera comprising:

a first and a second image sensor closely positioned with respect to a 

common plane, said second image sensor sensitive to a full region of 

visible color spectrum;

two lenses, each being mounted in front of one of said two image 

sensors;

said first image sensor producing a first image and said second image 

sensor producing a second image;

an analog-to-digital converting circuitry coupled to said first and said 

second image sensor and digitizing said first and said second intensity 

images to produce correspondingly a first digital image and a second 

digital image;

an image memory, coupled to said analog-to-digital converting 

circuitry, for storing said first digital image and said second digital 

image; and

a digital image processor, coupled to said image memory and 

receiving said first digital image and said second digital image, 

producing a resultant digital image from said first digital image 

enhanced with said second digital image.

Dkt. No. 66-1 at 10:38-58. Claims 2 and 4 are dependent on claim 1. Id. at 10:59-11:6. 

The parties have not called for claim construction as part of the eligibility inquiry, and as 

with the prior motion to dismiss, no material construction disagreements were identified in the 

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briefs. Aatrix, 882 F.3d at 1125 (citing Genetic Techs., 818 F.3d at 1373). Yu makes a cursory 

reference to the Federal Circuit’s decision in ChargePoint, Inc. v. SemaConnect, Inc., 920 F.3d 

759, 767 (Fed. Cir. 2019), for the proposition that the Alice inquiry “may require claim 

construction,” Dkt. No. 70 at 10, but makes no effort to show how that might apply here. 

Consequently, the Court need not wait on claim construction for resolution of the Section 101 

inquiry. 

DISCUSSION

I. LEGAL STANDARDS

The prior dismissal order discussed in detail the standards governing review of a Rule 

12(b)(6) motion and patentability under Section 101. Yu, 392 F. Supp. 3d at 1101-04. The parties

do not challenge that discussion, or point to any intervening change in law that might warrant a 

different approach here. 

To recap, Rule 8(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires a complaint to 

provide “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” A 

plaintiff must allege “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Twombly, 

550 U.S. at 570. This calls for enough “factual content that allows the court to draw the 

reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 

678 (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556).

A patentee cannot avoid dismissal of ineligible claims purely on the basis of conclusory or 

generalized factual allegations. See id. In addition, allegations about inventiveness that are 

“wholly divorced from the claims or the specification” will not defeat a motion to dismiss on 

Section 101 grounds. Cellspin Soft, Inc. v. Fitbit, Inc., 927 F.3d 1306, 1317 (Fed. Cir. 2019).

The scope of patentable subject matter includes “any new and useful process, machine, 

manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” 35 U.S.C. 

§ 101. The “laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas” are “specific exceptions to 

§ 101’s broad patent-eligibility principles.” Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 601 (2010) (citation 

omitted). 

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In Alice, the Supreme Court set out the now-familiar test of patent-eligibility under Section 

101. First, the Court “determine[s] whether the claims at issue are directed to a patent-ineligible 

concept” such as an abstract idea. Id. at 218. The “purely functional nature of the claim confirms 

[whether it] is directed to an abstract idea, not to a concrete embodiment of that idea.” Affinity 

Labs of Tex., LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc., 838 F.3d 1266, 1269 (Fed. Cir. 2016). “For an application 

of an abstract idea to satisfy step one, the claim’s focus must be something other than the abstract 

idea itself.” BSG Tech LLC v. BuySeasons, Inc., 899 F.3d 1281, 1287 (Fed. Cir. 2018). 

Oversimplifying the claims should be avoided because “[a]t some level, ‘all inventions . . . 

embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of nature, natural phenomena, or abstract ideas.’” 

Alice, 573 U.S. at 217 (second alteration in original) (citation omitted).

If a patent is directed to an ineligible subject matter, the second step in Alice is to look for 

an “‘inventive concept’ -- i.e., an element or combination of elements that is sufficient to ensure 

that the patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the [ineligible concept] 

itself.” Id. at 217-18 (alteration in original) (internal quotation and citation omitted). This step 

asks, “[w]hat else is there in the claims before us?” Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus 

Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 78 (2012). As in step 1, the answer must include something 

“significantly more” than the abstract idea itself. BSG Tech, 899 F.3d at 1290. It is also “wellsettled that mere recitation of concrete, tangible components is insufficient to confer patent 

eligibility to an otherwise abstract idea. Rather, the components must involve more than 

performance of ‘well-understood, routine, conventional activit[ies] previously known to the 

industry.’” In re TLI Commc’ns LLC Patent Litig., 823 F.3d 607, 613 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (alteration 

in original) (quoting Alice, 573 U.S. at 225). 

II. THE CLAIMED INVENTION IS NOT PATENTABLE

A. Claim 1 Is Directed to an Abstract Idea

Courts “have crafted various tools to analyze whether a claim is ‘directed to’ ineligible 

subject matter.” ChargePoint, 920 F.3d at 766. The patent specification may be considered in 

this inquiry, but “reliance on the specification must always yield to the claim language in 

identifying” the claim’s focus. Id.

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The plain language of claim 1 of the ’289 patent establishes that it is directed to a patentineligible concept, namely the abstract idea of taking two pictures and using those pictures to 

enhance each other in some way. It claims “[a]n improved digital camera” with elements like 

“image sensor[s],” “lenses,” “analog-to-digital converting circuitry,” “image memory,” and “a 

digital image processor.” Dkt. No. 66-1 at 10:38-58. These components are described as 

performing their normal functions. Each lens is “mounted in front of” an image sensor. The 

image sensors “produc[e]” images. The analog-to-digital converting circuitry “digitize[es]” the 

images. Image memory “stor[es]” those digital images. The digital image processor “produc[es]” 

an “enhanced” final digital image. 

In effect, claim 1 claims a digital camera with basic digital camera parts, performing their 

basic functions, except that the final digital image is produced “from said first digital image 

enhanced with said second digital image.” Id. at 10:57-58. The whole point of the claim is to 

provide two digital images so that a generic “digital image processor” can enhance one with the 

other. That is an abstract idea. 

While this is enough to answer step 1 under Alice, a useful cross-check is to look for 

“fundamental [and] long prevalent” implementations or practices of the same basic concept. See 

Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (quoting 

Alice, 573 U.S. at 219). The Court’s prior order noted that photographers had been using multiple 

pictures to enhance each other for over a century and concluded claim 1 was directed to that 

abstract idea. Yu, 392 F. Supp. 3d at 1104-05. Plaintiffs do not challenge that comparison in any 

way here. Dkt. No. 70 at 3-4, 11. They try to sidestep it as an unwarranted factual conclusion, but 

the Federal Circuit has expressly determined that “taking note of fundamental . . . concepts” on a 

motion to dismiss is not the equivalent of “making factual findings.” Affinity Labs, 838 F.3d at 

1270.

Yu suggests that the patent is not directed to an abstract idea because claim 1 recites 

camera architecture elements. The point is not well taken. In the similar context of a patent for 

“taking, transmitting, and organizing digital images” on cell phones, the Federal Circuit held that 

the presence of “concrete, tangible components such as ‘a telephone unit’ and a ‘server’” did not 

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disturb the conclusion that the claim at issue was “drawn to the concept of classifying an image 

and storing the image based on its classification.” In re TLI Commc’ns LLC Patent Litigation, 823 

F.3d at 609, 611. So too, here. 

Yu also says that the architecture in claim 1 is a specific improvement to a technical 

problem, and so not an abstract idea under step 1. Dkt. No. 66 ¶ 15. But Yu presents this point 

only as a conclusory allegation, with no facts alleged in support. In addition, the critical question

is “whether the focus of the claims is on the specific asserted improvement in computer 

capabilities . . . or, instead, on a process that qualifies as an ‘abstract idea’ for which computers 

are invoked merely as a tool.” Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1335-36 (Fed. Cir. 

2016). The answer goes against Yu. The FAC says that the “problems that are described in the 

specification, and that were addressed by the ’289 Patent, demonstrate that the focus of the 

claimed invention is an improvement in the functionality of digital cameras.” Dkt. No. 66 ¶ 14.

But the specification makes clear that the focus of the patent is on “improving image qualities.” 

Dkt. No. 66-1 at 2:31-35. While this goal may be shaped by a desire to avoid “incurring 

substantial costs” in digital cameras, id., “the need [for better images] is not a unique technical 

problem.” Cellspin, 927 F.3d at 1316. 

The “essentially result-focused functional character of claim language” amply establishes

that claim 1 does not propose a specific solution to a technical problem. Am. Axle & Mfg., Inc. v. 

Neapco Holdings LLC, 939 F.3d 1355, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (citation omitted). “To be patenteligible, the claims must recite a specific means or method that solves a problem in an existing 

technological process.” Koninklijke KPN N.V. v. Gemalto M2M GmbH, 942 F.3d 1143, 1150 

(Fed. Cir. 2019). The ’289 patent expressly disclaims such specificity in favor of “a generic 

solution that makes digital cameras capable of producing high resolution images.” Dkt. No. 66-1 

at 2:4-5. No particular or special equipment is required. Id. at 4:67-5:4. The “analog-to-digital 

converting circuitry” digitizes, the “image memory” stores, and the “digital image processor” 

produces images. There is no description of how the claimed invention achieves these results, and 

this wide-open space leaves room to claim “all solutions for achieving a desired result” of the 

enhancement of digital images. Am. Axle & Mfg., 939 F.3d at 1365 (citation omitted). 

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A “look at the focus of the claimed advance over the prior art” also shows that “the claim’s 

character as a whole is directed to excluded subject matter.” Koninklijke, 942 F.3d at 1150 

(citation omitted). All the claimed advances in the patent are attributable to the use of “an 

additional image sensor . . . to modify image qualities of the original image sensor.” Dkt. No. 66-

1 at 7:41-43; see also id. at 9:19-27; id. at 10:1-5. This further demonstrates that claim 1 is not 

directed to an improvement in computer functionality, as was true for the digital image patent in In 

re TLI. See 823 F.3d at 611-13. 

Other allegations in the FAC buttress this conclusion. The only arguably special

component Yu identifies for the Apple or Samsung cameras is the processor required “to perform 

the complex computations necessary to take advantage of the dual-lens camera.” Dkt. No. 66 

¶¶ 26-31 in Case No. 18-cv-6181; Dkt. No. 61 ¶¶ 27-29 in Case No. 18-cv-6339. As in SAP 

America, Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1169-70 (Fed. Cir. 2018), “it is clear, from the 

claims themselves and the specification, that [the] limitations require no improved computer 

resources [Yu] claims to have invented, just already available computers, with their already 

available basic functions, to use as tools in executing the claimed process.”

“[T]he extent to which the claim would preempt building blocks of science and 

technology” is properly considered at Alice step 1. ChargePoint, 920 F.3d at 768. Yu says that,

because the patent does “not cover a system that includes only red, green, and blue 

monochromatic image sensors,” Dkt. No. 70 at 13, preemption is not a concern. But the Federal 

Circuit has rejected similar efforts to evaluate preemption in such all-or-nothing terms. “While 

preemption may signal patent-ineligible subject matter, the absence of complete preemption does 

not demonstrate patent eligibility. [Plaintiffs’] attempt to limit the breadth of the claims by 

showing alternative[s] . . . outside of the scope of the claims does not change the conclusion that 

the claims are directed to patent ineligible subject matter.” Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, 

Inc., 788 F.3d 1371, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2015). 

Yu himself takes a very broad reading of the scope of the ’289 patent. The specification 

describes how the claimed invention increases the resolution of photographs from digital cameras 

and extends their dynamic range, Dkt. No. 66-1 at 1:66-2:16, among other enhancements, id. 

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at 7:3-7. But Yu has sued Apple and Samsung for cell phone cameras with a better zoom and 

portrait mode, neither of which were actually mentioned in the patent. Dkt. No. 66 ¶ 25 in Case 

No. 18-cv-6181; Dkt. No. 61 ¶¶ 22-23 in Case No. 18-cv-6339. 

B. Claim 1 Lacks an Inventive Concept

Under the second step of Alice, Yu has not shown that claim 1 embodies an “‘inventive 

concept’ sufficient to ‘transform’ the claimed abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.” Alice, 

573 U.S. at 221 (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 72-73). The presence of an inventive concept ensures 

a patent contains “an element or combination of elements that is ‘sufficient to ensure that the 

patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the ineligible concept itself.’” 

Id. at 217-218 (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 72-73). The “inventive concept must be evident in the 

claims” themselves. RecogniCorp, LLC v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., 855 F.3d 1322, 1327 (Fed. Cir. 

2017). 

No individual “additional elements transform the nature of the claim into a patent-eligible 

application.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 217. The FACs focus on the patent’s use of “at least one image 

sensor that is sensitive to a full region of visible color spectrum” and “making the image sensors 

closely positioned with respect to a common plane.” Dkt. No. 66 ¶ 10. But Yu offers no evidence 

or good argument that these elements individually were not “well-understood, routine, 

conventional activities previously known to the industry.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 225. In any event, 

the question is readily “answered adversely to the patentee based on the sources properly 

considered on a motion to dismiss, such as the complaint, the patent, and materials subject to 

judicial notice.” Aatrix, 882 F.3d at 1128. The whole purpose of the patent was to create better 

images without “incurring the cost of photosensitive chips with multimillion photocells.” Dkt. 

No. 66-1 at 2:6-7. There is no suggestion by Yu that image sensors “sensitive to a full region of 

visible color spectrum” were not well-known. 

The allegations in the FACs also undermine any claim that close positioning of image 

sensors was unconventional. Both prior art patents discussed in the FACs exhibited that feature,

and one placed sensors “closely positioned with respect to a common plane.” Dkt. No. 66 ¶ 17. 

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understood, routine, and conventional,” Berkheimer, 881 F.3d at 1369, in the complete absence of 

any facts showing that these elements were not well-known, routine, and conventional, the close 

positioning of image sensors cannot supply the necessary inventive concept in this case.

Nor does an inventive concept emerge from viewing the elements as an ordered 

combination. Yu has not demonstrated that the application of the abstract idea of taking two 

pictures and using those pictures to enhance each other in some way might be unconventional. 

The decision in Cellspin highlights this deficiency. Cellspin involved a series of patents for 

“connecting a data capture device, e.g., a digital camera, to a mobile device so that a user can 

automatically publish content from the data capture device to a website.” Cellspin, 927 F.3d 

at 1309. The Federal Circuit reversed a dismissal on Alice grounds because “Cellspin’s 

allegations identify several ways in which its application of capturing, transferring, and publishing 

data was unconventional.” Id. at 1316. “Cellspin alleged that it was unconventional to separate 

the steps of capturing and publishing data so that each step would be performed by a different 

device linked via a wireless, paired connection. This two-step, two-device structure is discussed 

throughout the shared specification. Cellspin also alleged that this structure provided various 

benefits over prior art systems.” Id. at 1316-17.

Yu did not make similar allegations here, and has not otherwise shown that the ’289 patent 

entails an unconventional application of any sort. The patent requires only a generic “digital 

image processor . . . producing a resultant digital image from said first digital image enhanced 

with said second digital image.” Dkt. No. 66-1 at 10:54-58. The specification recognizes that 

image sensors being closely positioned does not fundamentally transform this process, noting that 

images “from image sensors even very closed [sic] positioned, are not in registration” and that 

“[t]he pixel registration process based on each pixel is very computationally extensive and 

therefore preferably carried in predefined blocks. Pixels in registered blocks are then further 

registered in pixel bases using linear interpolation that is known in mathematical books.” Id.

at 7:67-8:1; 8:50-55. The FACs’ allegation that prior art registration issues were resolved by 

lenses being “closely positioned with respect to a common plane” Dkt. No. 66-1 ¶ 10, is 

undermined by the patent itself, which attributes the solution to that problem to “linear 

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interpolation that is known in mathematical books.” Yu has not plausibly alleged that the use of 

closely positioned sensors “is a technical improvement over prior art,” and so that cannot help 

claim 1 pass step 2 under Alice. See BASCOM Glob. Internet Servs., Inc v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 

827 F.3d 1341, 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2016).

So too for the use of an image sensor “sensitive to a full region of visible color spectrum,”

which also does not provide the necessary inventive concept. According to the specification, it is 

not a particular image sensor, but rather the use of “images independently [obtained] from 

multiple sensors with multiple lenses . . . [that makes] complementary expansions of the respective 

dynamic ranges become possible.” Dkt. No. 66-1 at 9:49-51. The patent describes how images 

from only limited-range “color sensors” can be combined to increase dynamic range if each is 

“separately controlled with different exposure time and other system parameters.” Id. at 9:44-45. 

The specification notes that “images from a single image sensor with a single lens can be hardly 

enhanced for a larger dynamic range without sacrificing one end or the other of the dynamic 

range.” Id. at 9:46-49. This makes clear that it is the use of multiple images, not that one image 

sensor is sensitive to the full color spectrum, which provides for the benefits of the claimed 

invention, like increased dynamic range. See also id. at 9:53-10:5 (same for increased resolution). 

Consequently, “the alleged ‘inventive concept’ that solves problems identified in the field 

is that [digital images are combined]. But [combining images] is the abstract idea itself, and a 

claimed invention’s use of the ineligible concept to which it is directed cannot supply the 

inventive concept that renders the invention ‘significantly more’ than that ineligible concept.” 

ChargePoint, 920 F.3d at 774. 

The allegations in the FACs from the ’289 patent’s prosecution history do not lead to a 

different conclusion. The FACs say that the “prosecution history of the ’289 Patent makes clear 

that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) considered the claimed invention 

to include an unconventional camera architecture.” Dkt. No. 66 ¶ 17. But for step 2, “[t]he 

appropriate question is not whether the entire claim as a whole was well-understood, routine and 

conventional to a skilled artisan (i.e., whether it lacks novelty).” Chamberlain Grp., Inc. v. 

Techtronic Indus. Co., 935 F.3d 1341, 1348-49 (Fed. Cir. 2019). The prosecution history 

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demonstrates only that the patent examiner found the use of “image sensors being sensitive to a 

full visible color spectrum in combination with other limitations” had not been disclosed in the 

prior art and was patentable for that reason. Dkt No. 66 ¶ 17. That is not the “inventiveness” 

required under Alice at step 2. 

Plaintiffs try to make a final stand against dismissal on the contention that defendants’ 

motions are “disingenuous in view of their own attempts to patent very similar technology.” Dkt. 

No. 70 at 14. How this argument fits into the Section 101 inquiry is not at all clear, and Yu makes 

no effort to explain that. It is no bar to the motions.

CONCLUSION

The FACs against Apple in Case No. 18-cv-6181 and Samsung in Case No. 18-cv-6339 

are dismissed. In the prior dismissal order, the Court expressed doubt that plaintiffs could amend 

around Alice “[i]n light of the plain language of the claims in the patent.” Yu, 392 F. Supp. 3d at

1108. The FACs did not succeed in that effort, and the Court’s “discretion to deny leave to amend

is particularly broad where the plaintiff has previously amended the complaint.” S.F. Herring 

Assoc. v. Dep’t of the Interior, 946 F.3d 564, 582 (9th Cir. 2019). Consequently, the cases are 

dismissed with prejudice. All other pending motions are terminated. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: March 24, 2020

JAMES DONATO

United States District Judge

Case 3:18-cv-06181-JD Document 77 Filed 03/24/20 Page 12 of 12