Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01763/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01763-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
AT&T Corp.
Appellee
AT&T Mobility LLC
Appellee
BASCOM Global Internet Services, Inc.
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET SERVICES, INC.,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

AT&T MOBILITY LLC, AT&T CORP.,

Defendants-Appellees

______________________ 

2015-1763

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Texas in No. 3:14-cv-03942-M, Judge 

Barbara M.G. Lynn.

______________________ 

Decided: June 27, 2016 

______________________ 

ARUN SUBRAMANIAN, Susman Godfrey LLP, New 

York, NY, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented 

by DANIEL J. SHIH, JORDAN CONNORS, Seattle, WA. 

 

BRYANT C. BOREN, JR., Baker Botts LLP, Palo Alto, 

CA, argued for defendants-appellees. Also represented by 

RYAN BANGERT, JOHNSON KURIAKOSE KUNCHERIA, KURT 

M. PANKRATZ, Dallas, TX; MICHAEL HAWES, Houston, TX.

______________________ 

Before NEWMAN, O’MALLEY, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.

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2 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge CHEN. 

Opinion concurring in the result filed by Circuit Judge

NEWMAN. 

CHEN, Circuit Judge. 

BASCOM Global Internet Services, Inc. appeals from 

the grant of a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) of the 

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), in which the 

United States District Court for the Northern District of 

Texas held that BASCOM failed to state a claim upon 

which relief can be granted because the claims of U.S. 

Patent No. 5,987,606 are invalid as a matter of law under 

35 U.S.C. § 101. BASCOM has alleged that the claims of 

the ’606 patent contain an “inventive concept” in their

ordered combination of limitations sufficient to satisfy the 

second step of the Supreme Court’s Alice test. We find 

nothing in the intrinsic record to refute that allegation as 

a matter of law. We therefore vacate the district court’s 

order dismissing BASCOM’s complaint, and remand for 

further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

The ’606 patent was filed March 19, 1997. Back in 

1997, the Internet was known to contain information that 

consumers, students, and businesses wanted to access. 

’606 patent, 1:16–17. As the patent describes in the 

“Background of the Present Invention” section, web 

browsers “such as the Netscape NavigatorTM or the Microsoft ExplorerTM” allowed users to access websites in the 

form of HTML files. Id. at 1:18–24; see also id. at 1:23–25 

(“Other software utilities for accessing Internet content 

include News Groups, FTPs, IRC chat rooms and email.”). Some websites, however, contained information 

deemed unsuitable for some users. Corporations had the 

need to prevent their employees from accessing websites 

with certain types of information, such as “entertainment 

oriented sites,” while allowing them to continue to access 

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BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC 3

“technical or business sites,” and parents had the need to 

prevent their family from accessing websites containing 

“sexually explicit or other objectionable information.” Id.

at 1:30–40. 

The computer industry responded to this need by developing a software tool that allowed control over the type 

of information received over the Internet. The software 

tool inspected a user’s request to access a website and 

applied one or more filtering mechanisms: “exclusive 

filtering (‘black-listing’) which prevents access to all sites 

on a predetermined list of Internet sites; inclusive filtering (‘white-listing’) which allows access only to a predetermined list of Internet sites; and word-screening or 

phrase-screening which prevents access to web site ‘pages’ 

which contain any word or phrase on a predetermined 

list.” Id. at 1:41–50. 

According to the ’606 patent, filtering software was 

first placed on local computers, such that each local 

computer had its own tool for filtering websites (or other 

Internet content) requested by the operator of the computer. Id. at 1:58–63, Figure 8. Although the filtering 

software worked for its intended purpose, there were 

logistical problems with locating a tool for filtering Internet content on each local computer: (1) “it is subject to be 

modified or thwarted by a computer literate end-user, 

such as a teenager or corporate employee”; (2) “it is difficult and time consuming to install on every end-user’s 

client machine”; (3) “[it] is dependent upon individual 

end-user hardware and operating systems and requires 

modified software for different end-user platforms”; and 

(4) “the client database [ ] must be updated frequently to 

track changes in the content of various Internet sites” 

which “requires frequent downloads from the Internet or 

disk updates.” Id. at 2:1–12.

To overcome some of the disadvantages of installing 

filtering software on each local computer, another prior 

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4 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

art system relocated the filter to a local server. Id. at 

2:13–23, Figure 9. For example, a corporation with one 

connection to the Internet might have placed a server

between the computers of its employees and the Internet 

connection. In this configuration, many individual computers with different hardware and operating systems 

were connected to one local server over a local area network. When employees at their individual computers 

requested websites from the Internet, the local server

would filter all requests for Internet content. Id. “[A]

computer literate end-user” therefore could no longer 

easily “modify or thwart” the filtering tool to gain access 

to blocked websites. Id. at 2:25–30. However, the onesize-fits-all filter on the local server was not ideal because 

“a single set of filtering criteria is often not appropriate 

for all of the end-users.” Id. at 2:20–23. This solution for 

filtering Internet content also “require[d] time-consuming 

local service to initiate and maintain” and “software 

implementing the filtering functions [was] typically tied 

to a single local area network or a local server platform.” 

Id. at 2:23–35.

Finally, some Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such 

as “America Online,” installed a filter on their remote 

servers, which allowed the ISP to prevent its subscribers 

from accessing certain websites. Id. at 2:36–39. However, this solution continued to use a single set of filtering 

criteria for all requests for websites from all of its subscribers. Id. at 2:39–49. 

The ’606 patent describes its invention as combining

the advantages of the then-known filtering tools while 

avoiding their drawbacks. The claimed filtering system

avoids being “modified or thwarted by a computer literate

end-user,” and avoids being installed on and dependent on 

“individual end-user hardware and operating systems” or 

“tied to a single local area network or a local server platform” by installing the filter at the ISP server. Id. at 2:1–

12, 2:23–35, 2:55–65. And, unlike the filtering tools that 

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BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC 5

existed on local servers and remote ISP servers at the 

time, the claimed filtering tool retains the advantage of a 

filtering tool that is located on each local computer; individuals are able to customize how requests for Internet 

content from their own computers are filtered instead of 

having a universal set of filtering rules applied to everyone’s requests. Id. at 2:52–65 (“[T]he present invention . . . provid[es] an Internet access system which: . . . 

allows users to select filtering schemes, such as inclusive 

or exclusive filtering, and filtering elements, such as ISP 

provided inclusive-lists or exclusive-lists, or their own 

customized inclusive-lists or exclusive-lists . . . .”).

The claimed invention is able to provide individually

customizable filtering at the remote ISP server by taking 

advantage of the technical capability of certain communication networks. In these networks, the ISP is able to 

associate an individual user with a specific request to 

access a website (or other Internet content), and can 

distinguish that user’s requests from other users’ requests. One way that the ISP is able to make this association, as described in the ’606 patent, is by requiring each 

user to first complete a log-in process with the ISP server. 

Id. at 4:35–38. After a user has logged in, the ISP server 

can associate the user with a request to access a specific 

website. Id. at 5:60–62 (“In the TCP/IP protocol, each 

Internet access request or ‘packet’ includes the [website] 

from which content is requested.”). Because the filtering 

tool on the ISP server contains each user’s customized

filtering mechanism, the filtering tool working in combination with the ISP server can apply a specific user’s 

filtering mechanism to the websites requested by that 

user. Id. at 4:35–50. To summarize, the ISP server

receives a request to access a website, associates the 

request with a particular user, and identifies the requested website. The filtering tool then applies the filtering 

mechanism associated with the particular user to the 

requested website to determine whether the user associCase: 15-1763 Document: 43-2 Page: 5 Filed: 06/27/2016
6 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

ated with that request is allowed access to the website. 

The filtering tool returns either the content of the website 

to the user, or a message to the user indicating that the 

request was denied. The ’606 patent describes its filtering 

system as a novel advance over prior art computer filters, 

in that no one had previously provided customized filters 

at a remote server.

The claims of the ’606 patent generally recite a system 

for filtering Internet content. The claimed filtering system is located on a remote ISP server that associates each 

network account with (1) one or more filtering schemes 

and (2) at least one set of filtering elements from a plurality of sets of filtering elements, thereby allowing individual network accounts to customize the filtering of Internet 

traffic associated with the account. For example, one 

filtering scheme could be “a word-screening type filtering 

scheme” and one set of filtering elements (from a plurality 

of sets) could be a “master list[ ] of disallowed words or 

phrases together with [an] individual [list of] words, 

phrases or rules.” Id. at 4:30–35. According to BASCOM, 

the ’606 patent contains two groups of claims: a first 

group that is limited to individual-customizable filtering

on a remote ISP server, and a second group that is further 

limited to a hybrid filtering scheme implemented on the 

ISP server comprised of a master-inclusive list, an individual-customizable set of exclusive lists, and an individual-customizable set of inclusive lists. For the 

individually customizable filtering claims, BASCOM 

points to claim 1 as instructive.

1. A content filtering system for filtering content 

retrieved from an Internet computer network by 

individual controlled access network accounts, 

said filtering system comprising:

a local client computer generating network access requests for said individual 

controlled access network accounts;

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BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC 7

at least one filtering scheme;

a plurality of sets of logical filtering elements; and

a remote ISP server coupled to said client 

computer and said Internet computer 

network, said ISP server associating each 

said network account to at least one filtering scheme and at least one set of filtering 

elements, said ISP server further receiving said network access requests from said 

client computer and executing said associated filtering scheme utilizing said associated set of logical filtering elements.

Id. at 6:62–7:10. For the hybrid filtering scheme claims, 

BASCOM points to claim 23, which depends on claim 22, 

as instructive.

22. An ISP server for filtering content forwarded 

to controlled access network account generating 

network access requests at a remote client computer, each network access request including a 

destination address field, said ISP server comprising:

a master inclusive-list of allowed sites;

a plurality of sets of exclusive-lists of excluded sites, each controlled access network account associated with at least one 

set of said plurality of exclusive-lists of excluded sites; and

a filtering scheme, said filtering scheme 

allowing said network access request if 

said destination address exists on said 

master inclusive-list but not on said at 

least one associated exclusive-list, whereby said controlled access accounts may be 

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8 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

uniquely associated with one or more sets 

of excluded sites.

23. The ISP server of claim 22 further comprising: 

a plurality of inclusive-lists of allowed 

sites, each controlled access user associated with at least one of said plurality of inclusive-lists of allowed sites, said filtering 

program further allowing said network access request if said requested destination 

address exists on said at least one associated inclusive-list.

Id. at 8:63–9:18.

BASCOM sued AT&T Inc. for patent infringement, 

added AT&T Mobility LLC and AT&T Corp. (collectively, 

AT&T) as defendants, and then dismissed AT&T Inc. 

from the case. AT&T moved to dismiss BASCOM’s complaint under FRCP 12(b)(6), on the basis that each claim 

of the ’606 patent was invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101. 

Applying the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. Pty. 

Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014), 

AT&T argued that the claims were directed to the abstract idea of “filtering content,” “filtering Internet content,” or “determining who gets to see what,” each of 

which is a well-known “method of organizing human 

activity” like the intermediated settlement concept that 

was held to be an abstract idea in Alice. BASCOM Global 

Internet Servs., Inc. v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 107 F. Supp.

3d 639, 646 (N.D. Tex. 2015) (District Court Order). 

AT&T analogized the idea of filtering content to a parent 

or librarian forbidding children from reading certain 

books, and argued that performing the filtering on the 

Internet does not make the idea nonabstract. Finally, 

AT&T pointed to each individual limitation of the claims 

and argued that none of the limitations transforms the 

abstract idea of filtering content into patent-eligible 

subject matter because they do no more than recite rouCase: 15-1763 Document: 43-2 Page: 8 Filed: 06/27/2016
BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC 9

tine and conventional activities performed by generic 

computer components.

BASCOM responded by arguing that the claims of the 

’606 patent are not directed to an abstract idea because 

they address a problem arising in the realm of computer 

networks, and provide a solution entirely rooted in computer technology, similar to the claims at issue in DDR 

Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245 (Fed. 

Cir. 2014). BASCOM characterized the recent Supreme 

Court and Federal Circuit decisions invalidating claims 

under § 101 as focusing on claims that are directed to a 

longstanding fundamental practice that exists independent of computer technology. BASCOM asserted that its 

claims are different because filtering Internet content was

not longstanding or fundamental at the time of the invention and is not independent of the Internet. Finally, 

BASCOM argued that, even if the lower court found that

the claims are directed to an abstract idea, the inventive 

concept is found in the ordered combination of the limitations: a “special ISP server that receives requests for 

Internet content, which the ISP server then associates 

with a particular user and a particular filtering scheme 

and elements.” District Court Order, 107 F. Supp. 3d at 

652–53.

The district court agreed with AT&T. The district 

court found that the claims were directed to the abstract 

idea of “filtering content” because “content provided on 

the Internet is not fundamentally different from content 

observed, read, and interacted with through other mediums like books, magazines, television, or movies.” Id. at 

650. In its search for an “inventive concept,” the district 

court first determined that no individual limitation was 

inventive because each limitation, in isolation, was a 

“well-known, generic computer component[ ]” or a standard filtering mechanism. Id. at 654. The district court 

then determined that the limitations in combination were 

not inventive either because “[f]iltering software, apparCase: 15-1763 Document: 43-2 Page: 9 Filed: 06/27/2016
10 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

ently composed of filtering schemes and filtering elements, was well-known in the prior art” and “using ISP 

servers to filter content was well-known to practitioners.” 

Id. The district court also noted that the absence of 

specific structure for the generic computer components 

“raises the likelihood that such claims could preempt 

every filtering scheme under the sun.” Id. at 655.

BASCOM appeals. We have jurisdiction under 

28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review a district court’s dismissal for failure to 

state a claim under the law of the regional circuit. In re 

Bill of Lading Transmission & Processing Sys. Patent 

Litig., 681 F.3d 1323, 1331 (Fed. Cir. 2012). The Fifth 

Circuit reviews challenges to a dismissal for failure to 

state a claim under FRCP 12(b)(6) de novo, taking the 

allegations of the complaint to be true. Scanlan v. Texas 

A&M Univ., 343 F.3d 533, 536 (5th Cir. 2003). We review 

the district court’s determination of patent-eligibility 

under § 101 de novo. DDR, 773 F.3d at 1255.

DISCUSSION

A patent may be obtained for “any new and useful 

process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, 

or any new and useful improvement thereof.” 

35 U.S.C. § 101. The Supreme Court has “long held that 

this provision contains an important implicit exception: 

Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas 

are not patentable.” Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. 

Myriad Genetics, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2107, 2116 (2013) (quoting Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 

132 S. Ct. 1289, 1293 (2012)) (internal brackets omitted). 

The Supreme Court has also consistently held that § 101 

provides a basis for a patentability/validity determination 

that is independent of—and on an equal footing with—

any other statutory patentability provision. Mayo, 132 S. 

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BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC 11

Ct. at 1303–04 (citing Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593

(2010); Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175 (1981), Parker v. 

Flook, 437 U.S. 584 (1978); Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 

63 (1972); H.R. Rep. No. 82-1923, at 6 (1952)). Courts 

may therefore dispose of patent-infringement claims 

under § 101 whenever procedurally appropriate. See 

DDR, 773 F.3d at 1263; Content Extraction & Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, Nat. Ass’n, 776 F.3d 1343, 

1351 (Fed. Cir. 2014), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 119 (2015). 

In Mayo, the Supreme Court set forth a two-step analytical framework to identify patents that, in essence, claim 

nothing more than abstract ideas. The court must first 

“determine whether the claims at issue are directed to a 

patent-ineligible concept.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2355. If so, 

the court must then “consider the elements of each claim 

both individually and ‘as an ordered combination’ to 

determine whether the additional elements ‘transform the 

nature of the claim’ into a patent-eligible application.” Id.

(quoting Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1298, 1297).

We have found software-related patents eligible under 

both steps of the test Alice sets out. We found a patent to 

a particular improvement to a database system patenteligible under step one in Enfish LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 

2016 WL 2756255, at *8 (Fed. Cir. May 12, 2016). There, 

we found claim language reciting the invention’s specific 

improvements to help our determination in step one of the 

Alice framework that the invention was directed to those 

specific improvements in computer technology. But we

also recognized that, “in other cases involving computerrelated claims, there may be close calls about how to 

characterize what the claims are directed to.” Id. “In 

such cases,” we noted, “an analysis of whether there are 

arguably concrete improvements in the recited computer 

technology could take place under step two.” Id. That is, 

some inventions’ basic thrust might more easily be understood as directed to an abstract idea, but under step two 

of the Alice analysis, it might become clear that the 

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12 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

specific improvements in the recited computer technology 

go beyond “well-understood, routine, conventional activit[ies]” and render the invention patent-eligible. See 

Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2359. We took this step-two path in

DDR. 773 F.3d at 1259 (“When the limitations of the . . . 

claims are taken together as an ordered combination, the 

claims recite an invention that is not merely the routine 

or conventional use of the Internet.”). 

The claims of the ’606 patent are directed to filtering 

content on the Internet. Specifically, claim 1 is directed to

a “content filtering system for filtering content retrieved 

from an Internet computer network.” ’606 patent, 6:62–

64. Claim 22 similarly is directed to an “ISP server for 

filtering content.” Id. at 8:63. The specification reinforces 

this notion by describing the invention as relating “generally to a method and system for filtering Internet content.” Id. at 1:7–11. We agree with the district court that 

filtering content is an abstract idea because it is a longstanding, well-known method of organizing human behavior, similar to concepts previously found to be abstract. 

See Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank 

(USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (holding that 

“tracking financial transactions to determine whether 

they exceed a pre-set spending limit (i.e., budgeting)” is 

an abstract idea that “is not meaningfully different from 

the ideas found to be abstract in other cases . . . involving 

methods of organizing human activity”); see also Content 

Extraction, 776 F.3d at 1347 (finding that “1) collecting 

data, 2) recognizing certain data within the collected data 

set, and 3) storing that recognized data in a memory” was 

an abstract idea because “data collection, recognition, and 

storage is undisputedly well-known” and “humans have 

always performed these functions”); Digitech Image 

Techs., LLC v. Elecs. for Imaging, Inc., 758 F.3d 1344, 

1350 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (finding that “a process of organizing information through mathematical correlations” is an 

abstract idea). An abstract idea on “an Internet computer 

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BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC 13

network” or on a generic computer is still an abstract 

idea. See Intellectual Ventures I, 792 F.3d at 1368 n.2 

(collecting cases).

BASCOM argues that the claims are directed to something narrower: the specific implementation of filtering 

content set forth in the claim limitations. Specifically, 

BASCOM asserts that claim 1 is “directed to the more 

specific problem of providing Internet-content filtering in 

a manner that can be customized for the person attempting to access such content while avoiding the need for 

(potentially millions of) local servers or computers to 

perform such filtering and while being less susceptible to 

circumvention by the user,” and claim 23 is directed to 

“the even more particular problem of structuring a filtering scheme not just to be effective, but also to make userlevel customization remain administrable as users are 

added instead of becoming intractably complex.” Appellant’s Br. at 14. We recognize that this court sometimes 

incorporates claim limitations into its articulation of the 

idea to which a claim is directed. See Enfish, 2016 WL 

2756255 at *6 (relying on a step of an algorithm corresponding to a means-plus-function limitation in defining 

the idea of a claim for step-one purposes). This case, 

unlike Enfish, presents a “close call[ ] about how to characterize what the claims are directed to.” See id. at *8. 

The Enfish claims, understood in light of their specific 

limitations, were unambiguously directed to an improvement in computer capabilities. See id. at *5. Here, in 

contrast, the claims and their specific limitations do not

readily lend themselves to a step-one finding that they 

are directed to a nonabstract idea. We therefore defer our 

consideration of the specific claim limitations’ narrowing 

effect for step two.

We now turn to step two, and the search for an “inventive concept.” The “inventive concept” may arise in 

one or more of the individual claim limitations or in the

ordered combination of the limitations. Alice, 134 S. Ct. 

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at 2355. An inventive concept that transforms the abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention must be significantly more than the abstract idea itself, and cannot 

simply be an instruction to implement or apply the abstract idea on a computer. Id. at 2358.

The district court looked at each limitation individually and noted that the limitations “local client computer,” 

“remote ISP server,” “Internet computer network,” and 

“controlled access network accounts” are described in the 

specification as well-known generic computer components. 

District Court Order, 107 F. Supp. 3d at 654; see ’606 

patent, 1:58–2:12 (describing a prior art filtering system 

on a local client computer); id. at 2:36–45 (describing a 

prior art filtering system on an ISP server that uses “a 

single set of filtering criteria for all of their controlledaccess end-users”). The district court also noted that a 

filtering system is described in the specification as “any 

type of code which may be executed” along with database 

entries. District Court Order, 107 F. Supp. 3d at 654; see

’606 patent, 4:28–30 (“[I]t will be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the filtering scheme can be any 

of a number of known-schemes, or hybrids thereof.”). The 

district court then looked at the limitations collectively, 

and held that “[f]iltering software, apparently composed 

of filtering schemes and filtering elements, was wellknown in the prior art,” and “using ISP servers to filter 

content was well-known to practitioners.” District Court 

Order, 107 F. Supp. 3d at 654. The district court thus 

concluded that BASCOM had not asserted adequately 

that the claims disclose an inventive concept because the 

limitations, “considered individually, or as an ordered 

combination, are no more than routine additional steps 

involving generic computer components and the Internet, 

which interact in well-known ways to accomplish the 

abstract idea of filtering Internet content.” Id. at 655.

We agree with the district court that the limitations of 

the claims, taken individually, recite generic computer, 

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BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC 15

network and Internet components, none of which is inventive by itself. BASCOM does not assert that it invented local computers, ISP servers, networks, network 

accounts, or filtering. Nor does the specification describe 

those elements as inventive.

However, we disagree with the district court’s analysis of the ordered combination of limitations. In light of 

Mayo and Alice, it is of course now standard for a § 101 

inquiry to consider whether various claim elements 

simply recite “well-understood, routine, conventional 

activit[ies].” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2359. The district court’s 

analysis in this case, however, looks similar to an obviousness analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103, except lacking an 

explanation of a reason to combine the limitations as 

claimed. The inventive concept inquiry requires more 

than recognizing that each claim element, by itself, was 

known in the art. As is the case here, an inventive concept can be found in the non-conventional and non-generic 

arrangement of known, conventional pieces. 

The inventive concept described and claimed in the 

’606 patent is the installation of a filtering tool at a specific location, remote from the end-users, with customizable 

filtering features specific to each end user. This design 

gives the filtering tool both the benefits of a filter on a 

local computer and the benefits of a filter on the ISP 

server. BASCOM explains that the inventive concept 

rests on taking advantage of the ability of at least some 

ISPs to identify individual accounts that communicate 

with the ISP server, and to associate a request for Internet content with a specific individual account. ’606 patent 

at 4:35–38 (“FIG. 3 shows the ISP server 100 process for 

accepting a log-in request 200, the ISP server 100 first 

verifies 201 whether the user is a registered subscriber.”); 

id. at 5:60–62 (“In the TCP/IP protocol, each Internet 

access request or ‘packet’ includes the [website] from 

which content is requested.”); Oral Argument, 17:30–

17:50 (counsel for BASCOM agreeing that the ISP server 

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16 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

is able to associate individual accounts with website 

requests because, “due to the TCP/IP protocol, the server 

is able to recognize the address of the particular user”). 

According to BASCOM, the inventive concept harnesses 

this technical feature of network technology in a filtering 

system by associating individual accounts with their own 

filtering scheme and elements while locating the filtering 

system on an ISP server. See Research Corp. Techs. v. 

Microsoft Corp., 627 F.3d 859, 869 (Fed. Cir. 2010) 

(“[I]nventions with specific applications or improvements 

to technologies in the marketplace are not likely to be so 

abstract that they override the statutory language and 

framework of the Patent Act.”). On this limited record, 

this specific method of filtering Internet content cannot be 

said, as a matter of law, to have been conventional or 

generic. 

The claims do not merely recite the abstract idea of 

filtering content along with the requirement to perform it 

on the Internet, or to perform it on a set of generic computer components. Such claims would not contain an 

inventive concept. See CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (reasoning that the use of the Internet to verify a credit card 

transaction does not meaningfully add to the abstract 

idea of verifying the transaction). Nor do the claims 

preempt all ways of filtering content on the Internet; 

rather, they recite a specific, discrete implementation of 

the abstract idea of filtering content. Filtering content on 

the Internet was already a known concept, and the patent 

describes how its particular arrangement of elements is a 

technical improvement over prior art ways of filtering 

such content. As explained earlier, prior art filters were 

either susceptible to hacking and dependent on local 

hardware and software, or confined to an inflexible onesize-fits-all scheme. BASCOM asserts that the inventors 

recognized there could be a filter implementation versatile enough that it could be adapted to many different 

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BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC 17

users’ preferences while also installed remotely in a single 

location. Thus, construed in favor of the nonmovant—

BASCOM—the claims are “more than a drafting effort 

designed to monopolize the [abstract idea].” Alice, 134 S. 

Ct. at 2357. Instead, the claims may be read to “improve[ ] an existing technological process.” Id. at 2358 

(discussing the claims in Diehr, 450 U.S. 175). 

This court’s recent case law on step two of the Alice

test further establishes the patent-eligibility of the claims 

before us. As one would expect, BASCOM attempts to 

analogize its claims to the claims in DDR, while distinguishing its claims from the claims in other cases, such as 

Content Extraction and Accenture Global Services, GmbH 

v. Guidewire Software, Inc., 728 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 

2013). In turn, AT&T attempts the opposite comparisons, 

distinguishing the ’606 patent claims from the claims in 

DDR, and analogizing the claims with claims from other 

cases such as OIP Technologies, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 

788 F.3d 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2015), Intellectual Ventures I, 

and Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709 (Fed. 

Cir. 2014). 

Turning first to DDR, we held that DDR’s patent 

claimed a technical solution to a problem unique to the 

Internet—websites instantly losing views upon the click 

of a link, which would send the viewer across cyberspace 

to another company’s website. 773 F.3d at 1248–50. The 

claimed invention solved that problem in a particular, 

technical way by sending the viewer to a hybrid webpage 

that combined visual elements of the first website with 

the desired content from the second website that the 

viewer wished to access. Id. at 1257–59. The creation of 

this hybrid webpage that co-displays the look and feel of 

the first website with the desired content from the second 

website required a specific technical solution that did 

more than claim all implementations for retaining web 

viewers. 

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18 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

Although the invention in DDR’s patent was engineered in the context of retaining potential customers, the 

invention was not claiming a business method per se, but 

was instead claiming a technical way to satisfy an existing problem for website hosts and viewers. Similarly, 

although the invention in the ’606 patent is engineered in 

the context of filtering content, the invention is not claiming the idea of filtering content simply applied to the 

Internet. The ’606 patent is instead claiming a technology-based solution (not an abstract-idea-based solution

implemented with generic technical components in a 

conventional way) to filter content on the Internet that 

overcomes existing problems with other Internet filtering 

systems. By taking a prior art filter solution (one-sizefits-all filter at the ISP server) and making it more dynamic and efficient (providing individualized filtering at 

the ISP server), the claimed invention represents a “software-based invention[ ] that improve[s] the performance 

of the computer system itself.” See Brief for United States 

as Amicus Curiae in Support of Respondents at 30–31, 

Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347 

(2014) (No. 13-298), 2014 WL 828034.

Turning next to OIP, the claims at issue in that case 

were directed to the abstract idea of offer-based price 

optimization which was implemented by “‘sending a first 

set of electronic messages over a network to devices,’ the 

devices being ‘programmed to communicate,’ storing test 

results in a ‘machine-readable medium,’ and ‘using a 

computerized system . . . to automatically determine’ an 

estimated outcome and setting a price.” 788 F.3d at 1363. 

In other words, the claims simply required the performance of the abstract idea of offer-based price optimization on generic computer components using conventional 

computer activities. The intrinsic record in OIP confirmed that the invention was simply the generic automation of traditional price-optimization techniques. Id. 

Unlike the claims in the ’606 patent, the patent in OIP

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BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC 19

was not limited to a specific technical solution of the 

abstract idea. 

The other cases BASCOM and AT&T discuss similarly claim an abstract idea implemented on generic computer components, without providing a specific technical 

solution beyond simply using generic computer concepts 

in a conventional way. The claims in Intellectual Ventures 

I preempted all use of the claimed abstract idea on “the 

Internet, on a generic computer.” 792 F.3d at 1371. The 

claims in Content Extraction preempted all use of the 

claimed abstract idea on well-known generic scanning 

devices and data processing technology. 776 F.3d at 1348. 

The claims in Ultramercial preempted all use of the 

claimed abstract idea on the Internet. 772 F.3d at 715–

16. And the claims in Accenture preempted all use of the 

claimed abstract idea on generic computer components 

performing conventional activities. 728 F.3d at 1344–45. 

Our decisions further explained that simply because some 

of the claims narrowed the scope of protection through 

additional “conventional” steps for performing the abstract idea, they did not make those claims any less 

abstract. See, e.g., Ultramercial, 772 F.3d at 715 (“We 

conclude that the limitations of the ’545 claims do not 

transform the abstract idea that they recite into patenteligible subject matter because the claims simply instruct 

the practitioner to implement the abstract idea with 

routine, conventional activity.”). As explained above, 

construed in favor of BASCOM as they must be in this 

procedural posture, the claims of the ’606 patent do not 

preempt the use of the abstract idea of filtering content on 

the Internet or on generic computer components performing conventional activities. The claims carve out a specific location for the filtering system (a remote ISP server) 

and require the filtering system to give users the ability 

to customize filtering for their individual network accounts.

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20 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

CONCLUSION

While the claims of the ’606 patent are directed to the 

abstract idea of filtering content, BASCOM has adequately alleged that the claims pass step two of Alice’s two-part 

framework. BASCOM has alleged that an inventive 

concept can be found in the ordered combination of claim 

limitations that transform the abstract idea of filtering 

content into a particular, practical application of that 

abstract idea. We find nothing on this record that refutes 

those allegations as a matter of law or justifies dismissal 

under Rule 12(b)(6). We therefore vacate the district 

court’s order granting AT&T’s motion to dismiss under 

FRCP 12(b)(6) and remand so that the case may proceed.

VACATED AND REMANDED

COSTS

No costs.

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United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET SERVICES, INC.,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

AT&T MOBILITY LLC, AT&T CORP.,

Defendants-Appellees

______________________ 

2015-1763

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Texas in No. 3:14-cv-03942-M, Judge 

Barbara M.G. Lynn.

______________________ 

NEWMAN, Circuit Judge, concurring in the result. 

I agree with the court that the claims of the Bascom 

patent are eligible for participation in the system of 

patents. Thus the case requires remand to the district 

court, so that the rules and conditions of patentability can 

be applied to the Bascom claims. However, it has become 

increasingly apparent, as various factual situations have 

been brought into Section 101 challenges, that these new 

litigation opportunities have led to judicial protocols that 

are time-consuming and usually unnecessary. As this 

case illustrates, these cumbersome procedures for separate determinations of patent eligibility and patentability 

have added to the cost and uncertainty of patentsupported commerce, with no balancing benefit. 

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2 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

I write separately to urge a more flexible approach to 

the determination of patent eligibility, for the two-step 

protocol for ascertaining whether a patent is for an “abstract idea” is not always necessary to resolve patent 

disputes. There is no good reason why the district court 

should be constrained from determining patentability, 

instead of eligibility based on “abstract idea,” when the 

patentability/validity determination would be dispositive 

of the dispute. 

That is, instead of an initial evidentiary procedure for 

determination of eligibility at trial and appeal, followed

by another cycle of patentability litigation when eligibility 

is found, initial decision directed to patentability may 

resolve or moot any issue of eligibility. Initial determination of eligibility often does not resolve patentability, 

whereas initial determination of patentability issues 

always resolves or moots eligibility.

A 

Section 101 defines patent-eligible subject 

matter as any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter

Section 101 states, in broad terms, the subject matter

eligible to participate in the system of patents:

35 U.S.C. § 101. Inventions patentable— 

Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful 

process, machine, manufacture, or composition of 

matter, or any new and useful improvement 

thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to 

the conditions and requirements of this title.

Discoveries and inventions that are within the statutory 

categories are eligible for patenting, upon compliance 

with the conditions of Title 35. The Court has recognized 

the breadth of subject matter implemented by Section 

101, stating: 

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BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC 3

In choosing such expansive terms . . . modified by 

the comprehensive “any,” Congress plainly contemplated that the patent laws would be given 

wide scope.

Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 308 (1980).

An important aspect of Title 35 is that it discarded 

the judge-made usage of “invention” and “flash of creative 

genius,” and replaced it with the statutory standard of 

unobviousness. “Nowhere in the entire act is there any 

reference to a requirement of ‘invention’ and the drafters 

did this deliberately in an effort to free the law and lawyers from bondage to that old and meaningless term.” 

Giles S. Rich, Principles of Patentability, 28 GEO. WASH.

L. REV. 393, 405 (1960). 

On this history, the emphasis on eligibility has led to 

erratic implementation in the courts. An example is seen 

in this case, where the district court and this court differ 

in their view of “inventive concept” for the Bascom patent. 

I propose returning to the letter of Section 101, where 

eligibility is recognized for “any new and useful process, 

machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” It 

follows that if any of these classes is claimed so broadly or 

vaguely or improperly as to be deemed an “abstract idea,” 

this could be resolved on application of the requirements 

and conditions of patentability. This determination would 

avoid resolving an undefined “inventive concept” applied 

to eligibility.

Although there is concern that broad claims may 

preempt development by others of improvements and 

variants of a broad invention, and limiting patentable 

scope may restrict preemption, it is not the policy of 

patent law to permit only narrow claims when an inventor has made a new, broad invention. When an invention 

is new and unobvious and described and enabled, commensurate patent rights are not barred on policy grounds.

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4 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

B 

Patentability v. Eligibility

A new and useful process or machine or manufacture 

or composition of matter is not an abstract idea, and if the 

claims are deemed to be so broad as to be abstract, application of the requirements of patentability is a direct path 

to resolution of validity disputes. Claims that are imprecise or that read on prior art or that are unsupported by 

description or that are not enabled raise questions of 

patentability, not eligibility.

35 U.S.C. § 112(a) requires a written description in 

“full, clear, concise, and exact terms,” and § 112(b) requires “claims particularly pointing out and distinctly 

claiming the subject matter” of the invention. The process, machine, manufacture, or composition of Section 101 

must comply with Section 112. Subject matter that 

complies with Section 112 averts the generality or vagueness or imprecision or over-breadth that characterize 

abstract ideas. These are conditions of patentability, not 

of eligibility. The “conditions and requirements of this 

title” weed out the abstract idea.

The Court recognized that “all inventions at some level embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or apply . . . abstract 

ideas.” Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., 

Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1293 (2012). I have come upon no 

guide to when a claim crosses the boundary between 

unacceptable abstractness and acceptable specificity. 

Experience with this aspect demonstrates its imprecision. 

This conundrum is resolved on application of the criteria 

of patentability. Nor is this a new observation: “precedent 

illustrates that pragmatic analysis of section 101 is facilitated by considerations analogous to those of section 102 

and 103 as applied to the particular case.” Internet Patents Corp. v. Active Network, Inc., 790 F.3d 1343, 1347 

(Fed. Cir. 2015) (referring to the specification and prior 

art to determine abstractness of claims).

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BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC 5

In this case, as the panel majority recites, the district 

court found that “filtering software, apparently composed 

of filtering schemes and filtering elements, was wellknown in the prior art,” Maj. Op. at 9–10, 14, citing 

BASCOM Global Internet Servs., Inc. v. AT&T Mobility 

LLC, 107 F. Supp. 3d 639, 654 (N.D. Tex. 2015). The 

district court found reason to combine known selective

filtration procedures. Id. AT&T argues that these findings, as they relate to patentability, are correct. Bascom 

states that it did not have a full opportunity to present 

evidence concerning patentability. Accepting Bascom’s 

position, remand is appropriate. 

C 

AT&T’s motion to dismiss

The district court held that “the Court looks at the ‘elements of each claim both individually and ‘as an ordered 

combination’ to determine whether the additional elements [beyond those that recite the abstract idea of 

filtering content] ‘transform the nature of the claim’ into a 

patent-eligible application.’” BASCOM, 107 F. Supp. 3d 

at 654. The district court found that the Bascom filtration 

method was not an “inventive concept” and held that the 

Bascom claims were not eligible subject matter under 

Section 101. Id. at 644.

In arguing “inventive concept,” both sides presented 

arguments that would also be relevant to patentability. 

These arguments are repeated on this appeal. AT&T, 

supporting the “abstract idea” position on which it prevailed before the district court, argues that content filtration was a generally known concept, and thus was an 

“abstract idea” under Alice step one. AT&T argues that 

the Bascom filtration method is not an “inventive concept” 

under step two. AT&T also argues that the Bascom 

claims are invalid under Sections 103 and 112.

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6 BASCOM GLOBAL INTERNET v. AT&T MOBILITY LLC

Bascom states that for issues under Sections 103 and 

112, additional evidence would be provided, evidence not 

needed for response to a motion to dismiss for abstractness. We agree that Bascom must be accorded the opportunity to litigate these issues directly, rather than as

overflow from the eligibility debate.

On appellate review, I agree with the majority that 

the Bascom claims contain an “inventive concept” in the 

claims’ “ordered combination of limitations,” and that this 

establishes eligibility. In the district court, the only issue 

that was finally decided is that of eligibility. Thus remand is the appropriate next step. However, I again 

point to the increased efficiency, and savings in cost and 

time, by direct resolution of patentability. The Court’s 

rulings in Alice and Mayo do not require that every broadly claimed patent must be treated in two separate litigation procedures, if charged with abstractness. 

While the two-step protocol helps to decide whether a 

particular claim is “eligible” for patenting, we should 

clarify the district court’s authority to resolve the issues of 

patent validity directly. Direct application to the Bascom 

claims of the law of sections 102, 103, or 112, could have 

resolved this dispute in one litigation cycle of trial and 

appeal, instead of the repeated effort now required.

In sum, when evidence of patentability is needed or 

presented to resolve a challenge to eligibility of claims to a 

new method or machine or manufacture or composition, 

the district court and the parties should have the flexibility to resolve patentability at this threshold. If the claims 

are unpatentable, any issue of abstractness, however 

defined, is mooted. And if the subject matter is patentable, it is not an abstract idea. We should clarify that such 

expediency is an available response to challenges on the 

ground of “abstract idea.”

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