Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01985/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01985-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
FairWarning IP, LLC
Appellant
Iatric Systems, Inc.
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

FAIRWARNING IP, LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee

______________________ 

2015-1985

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Middle District of Florida in No. 8:14-cv-02685-SDMMAP, Judge Steven D. Merryday.

______________________ 

Decided: October 11, 2016

______________________ 

 SEAN A. PASSINO, Hauptman Ham, LLP, Alexandria, 

VA, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by 

RACHEL KAREN PILLOFF; MICHAEL S. HOOKER, JASON PAUL 

STEARNS, Phelps Dunbar LLP, Tampa, FL.

 LISA M. TITTEMORE, Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP, Boston, MA, argued for defendant-appellee. 

Also represented by BRANDON TAYLOR SCRUGGS. 

______________________ 

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 1 Filed: 10/11/2016
2 FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 

Before LOURIE, PLAGER, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.

STOLL, Circuit Judge. 

FairWarning IP, LLC, appeals a judgment of the 

United States District Court for the Middle District of 

Florida dismissing its suit with prejudice after holding

that the asserted patent, U.S. Patent No. 8,578,500, 

claims patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 

§ 101. Because we agree with the district court that 

FairWarning’s ’500 patent claims patent-ineligible subject 

matter, we affirm. 

BACKGROUND

FairWarning sued Iatric Systems, Inc. for infringing 

claims of the ’500 patent. The ’500 patent is titled “System and Method of Fraud and Misuse Detection” and 

discloses ways to detect fraud and misuse by identifying 

unusual patterns in users’ access of sensitive data. The 

specification describes systems and methods to detect 

fraud by an otherwise-authorized user of a patient’s 

protected health information (“PHI”). According to the 

specification, pre-existing systems were able to record 

audit log data concerning user access of digitally stored 

PHI. The claimed systems and methods record this data, 

analyze it against a rule, and provide a notification if the 

analysis detects misuse. Claim 1 recites: 

1. A method of detecting improper access of a patient’s protected health information (PHI) in a 

computer environment, the method comprising:

generating a rule for monitoring audit 

log data representing at least one of 

transactions or activities that are executed 

in the computer environment, which are 

associated with the patient’s PHI, the rule 

comprising at least one criterion related to 

accesses in excess of a specific volume, accesses during a pre-determined time inCase: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 2 Filed: 10/11/2016
FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 3

terval, accesses by a specific user, that is 

indicative of improper access of the patient’s PHI by an authorized user wherein 

the improper access is an indication of potential snooping or identity theft of the patient’s PHI, the authorized user having a 

pre-defined role comprising authorized 

computer access to the patient’s PHI;

applying the rule to the audit log data 

to determine if an event has occurred, the 

event occurring if the at least one criterion 

has been met;

storing, in a memory, a hit if the event 

has occurred; and

providing notification if the event has 

occurred.

’500 patent col. 16 ll. 27–46. 

Before the district court, Iatric moved to dismiss the 

complaint, arguing the asserted patent claimed patentineligible subject matter under § 101. FairWarning filed 

an amended complaint asserting all claims of the ’500 

patent, and Iatric again moved to dismiss. The district 

court granted Iatric’s motion and dismissed the case 

under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 

Following the two-step test for patent-eligibility identified in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 

2347 (2014), the court first found the claims were directed 

to a patent-ineligible abstract idea: “the concept of analyzing records of human activity to detect suspicious behavior.” FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., Inc., No. 8:14-

CV-2685, 2015 WL 3883958, at *2 (M.D. Fla. June 24, 

2015) (quotation marks omitted). This concept, the court 

explained, “is a basic and well-established abstract idea.” 

Id. Turning to step two, the court found that the claims 

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 3 Filed: 10/11/2016
4 FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 

contained nothing to “transform[] the abstract idea into a 

patentable concept.” Id. at *4. The court analyzed the 

elements of the claim individually and as an ordered 

combination, but found “nothing significantly more than 

an instruction to apply the abstract idea . . . using some 

unspecified, generic computer.” Id. (quoting Alice, 134 

S. Ct. at 2360) (alteration in original). 

FairWarning appealed. We have jurisdiction under 

28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

DISCUSSION

We review motions to dismiss under the law of the regional circuit. OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 

788 F.3d 1359, 1362 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 

701 (2015). The Eleventh Circuit reviews the dismissal of 

a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) de novo, “[a]ccepting all 

of the well-pleaded allegations in the complaint as true 

and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the 

plaintiff.” Montgomery Cty. Comm’n v. Fed. Hous. Fin. 

Agency, 776 F.3d 1247, 1254 (11th Cir. 2015).

I.

Section 101 defines patent-eligible subject matter as 

“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) (internal brackets omitted) (quoting Mayo 

Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 132 S. Ct.

1289, 1293 (2012)). 

To determine patent eligibility, “the Supreme Court 

set forth a two-step analytical framework to identify 

patents that, in essence, claim nothing more than abstract ideas.” BASCOM Glob. Internet Servs., Inc. v. 

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 4 Filed: 10/11/2016
FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 5

AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2016)

(citing Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1296–97). The inquiry’s first 

step requires a court to “determine whether the claims at 

issue are directed to a patent-ineligible concept.” Alice,

134 S. Ct. at 2355. If they are, the court must then, under 

the second step, “examine the elements of the claim to 

determine whether it contains an ‘inventive concept’ 

sufficient to ‘transform’ the claimed abstract idea into a 

patent-eligible application.” Id. at 2357 (quoting Mayo, 

132 S. Ct. at 1294, 1298). This inventive concept must do 

more than simply recite “well-understood, routine, conventional activity.” Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1298. 

A.

We find that, under step one, the claims of the ’500 

patent are directed to an abstract idea. As the ’500 patent 

specification explains, the invention “relates to a system 

and method of detecting fraud and/or misuse in a computer environment based on analyzing data such as in log 

files, or other similar records, including user identifier 

data.” ’500 patent col. 1 ll. 15–18. The district court 

found that “the ’500 patent is directed to or drawn to the 

concept of analyzing records of human activity to detect 

suspicious behavior.” FairWarning, 2015 WL 3883958, at 

*2 (quotation marks omitted). We agree. The patented 

method, as illustrated by claim 1 quoted above, collects 

information regarding accesses of a patient’s personal 

health information, analyzes the information according to 

one of several rules (i.e., related to accesses in excess of a 

specific volume, accesses during a pre-determined time 

interval, or accesses by a specific user) to determine if the 

activity indicates improper access, and provides notification if it determines that improper access has occurred. 

We have explained that the “realm of abstract ideas” 

includes “collecting information, including when limited 

to particular content.” Elec. Power Grp., LLC v. Alstrom 

S.A., No. 15-1778, 2016 WL 4073318, at *3 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 5 Filed: 10/11/2016
6 FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 

1, 2016) (collecting cases). We have also “treated analyzing information by steps people go through in their minds,

or by mathematical algorithms, without more, as essentially mental processes within the abstract-idea category.” 

Id. And we have found that “merely presenting the 

results of abstract processes of collecting and analyzing 

information, without more (such as identifying a particular tool for presentation), is abstract as an ancillary part 

of such collection and analysis.” Id. Here, the claims are 

directed to a combination of these abstract-idea categories. Specifically, the claims here are directed to collecting and analyzing information to detect misuse and 

notifying a user when misuse is detected. See id. 

While the claims here recite using one of a few possible rules to analyze the audit log data, this does not make 

them eligible under our decision in McRO, Inc. v. Bandai 

Namco Games America Inc., No. 15-1080, 2016 WL 

4896481 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 13, 2016), which also involved 

claims reciting rules. In McRO we held that, in analyzing 

step one, “the claims are considered in their entirety to 

ascertain whether their character as a whole is directed to 

excluded subject matter.” Id. at *6 (quoting Internet 

Patents Corp. v. Active Network, Inc., 790 F.3d 1343, 1346 

(Fed. Cir. 2015)). Of course, claims cannot be directed to 

“laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas,” 

but must instead “claim patent-eligible applications of 

those concepts.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2355 (citing Mayo, 

132 S. Ct. at 1296–97). Indeed, even though a claim can 

be abstracted to the point that it reflects a patentineligible concept—for, “[a]t some level, ‘all inventions . . . 

embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of nature, 

natural phenomena, or abstract ideas,’” id. at 2354 (quoting Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1293)—that claim may nevertheless be patent eligible if the claim language is directed to

a patent-eligible application of that concept. See Rapid 

Litig. Mgmt. Ltd. v. CellzDirect, Inc., 827 F.3d 1042, 1050

(Fed. Cir. 2016). 

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 6 Filed: 10/11/2016
FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 7

The claims in McRO were not directed to an abstract 

idea, but instead were directed to “a specific asserted 

improvement in computer animation, i.e., the automatic 

use of rules of a particular type.” McRO, 2016 WL 

4896481, at *8. We explained that “the claimed improvement [was] allowing computers to produce ‘accurate and 

realistic lip synchronization and facial expressions in 

animated characters’ that previously could only be produced by human animators.” Id. at *8 (quoting U.S. 

Patent No. 6,307,576 col. 2 ll. 49–50). The claimed rules 

in McRO transformed a traditionally subjective process

performed by human artists into a mathematically automated process executed on computers. Id. at *8–9. 

Indeed, Defendants conceded that prior animating processes were “driven by subjective determinations rather 

than specific, limited mathematical rules,” such as the

mathematical rules articulated in McRO’s claimed method. Id. at *8. Thus, the traditional process and newly 

claimed method stood in contrast: while both produced a 

similar result, i.e., realistic animations of facial movements accompanying speech, the two practices produced 

those results in fundamentally different ways.

As such, we explained that “it [was] the incorporation 

of the claimed rules, not the use of the computer, that

‘improved [the] existing technological process’ by allowing 

the automation of further tasks.” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358). “This [was] unlike 

Flook, Bilski, and Alice, where the claimed computer-automated process and the prior method were carried 

out in the same way.” Id. (citing Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 

584, 585–86 (1978); Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 611 

(2010); Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2356). 

The claims here are more like those in Alice than 

McRO. FairWarning’s claims merely implement an old 

practice in a new environment. See Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 

2356. The claimed rules ask whether accesses of PHI, as 

reflected in audit log data, are 1) “by a specific user,” 

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 7 Filed: 10/11/2016
8 FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 

2) “during a pre-determined time interval,” or 3) “in 

excess of a specific volume.” ’500 patent col. 16 ll. 34–36. 

These are the same questions (though perhaps phrased 

with different words) that humans in analogous situations detecting fraud have asked for decades, if not centuries. Although FairWarning’s claims require the use of a 

computer, it is this incorporation of a computer, not the 

claimed rule, that purportedly “improve[s] [the] existing 

technological process” by allowing the automation of 

further tasks. Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358. 

Moreover, the claims here are not like those we found 

patent eligible in Enfish. In that case, we explained that 

the claims were “specifically directed to a self-referential

table for a computer database.” Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft 

Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2016). The claims 

were thus “directed to a specific improvement to the way 

computers operate,” rather than an abstract idea implemented on a computer. Id. at 1336. The claims here, in 

contrast, are not directed to an improvement in the way 

computers operate, nor does FairWarning contend as 

much. While the claimed system and method certainly 

purport to accelerate the process of analyzing audit log

data, the speed increase comes from the capabilities of a 

general-purpose computer, rather than the patented 

method itself. See Bancorp Servs., L.L.C. v. Sun Life 

Assurance Co. of Can. (U.S.), 687 F.3d 1266, 1278 (Fed. 

Cir. 2012) (“[T]he fact that the required calculations could 

be performed more efficiently via a computer does not 

materially alter the patent eligibility of the claimed 

subject matter.”). Thus here, as in Electric Power, “the 

focus of the claims is not on . . . an improvement in computers as tools, but on certain independently abstract 

ideas that use computers as tools.” Elec. Power, 2016 WL 

4073318, at *4. 

Because we find these claims are directed to an abstract idea at step one of the patent-eligibility inquiry, we 

turn to step two.

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 8 Filed: 10/11/2016
FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 9

B.

After “scrutiniz[ing] the claim elements more microscopically” under step two, id., we find nothing sufficient

“to ‘transform the nature of the claim’ into a patenteligible application,” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2355 (quoting 

Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1297). As the district court correctly 

explained, the claims generally require “(1) generating a 

rule ‘related to’ the number of accesses, the timing of 

accesses, and the specific users in order to review ‘transactions or activities that are executed in a computer 

environment’; (2) applying the rule; (3) storing the result; 

and (4) announcing the result.” FairWarning, 2015 WL 

3883958, at *3 (quoting ’500 patent col. 16 ll. 31–32, 34). 

The claim limitations, analyzed alone and in combination, 

fail to add “something more” to “transform” the claimed 

abstract idea of collecting and analyzing information to 

detect misuse into “a patent-eligible application.” See 

Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2354, 2357. 

FairWarning argues claims 12–13 and 14–17 separately, but none of these claims add limitations that 

impart patent eligibility. Claim 12 reads as follows: 

12. A system for detecting improper access of a 

patient’s protected health information (PHI) in a 

health-care system computer environment, the 

system comprising: 

a user interface for selection of at least 

one criterion related to accesses in excess 

of a specific volume, accesses during a predetermined time interval, accesses by a 

specific user, representing at least one of 

transactions or activities associated with 

the patient’s PHI that is indicative of improper access of the patient’s PHI within 

the health-care system computer environment by an authorized user wherein 

the improper access is an indication of poCase: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 9 Filed: 10/11/2016
10 FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 

tential snooping or identity theft of the patient’s PHI, the authorized user having a 

pre-defined role comprising authorized 

computer access to the patient’s PHI, and 

for selection of a schedule for application 

of a rule for monitoring audit log data representing at least one of the transactions

or the activities; 

a microprocessor in communication 

with the user interface and having access 

to the audit log data representing the 

transactions or the activities of the patient’s PHI, the microprocessor generating 

the rule based at least in part on the at 

least one criterion selected and applying 

the rule to the audit log data according to 

the schedule selected in order to determine if an event has occurred, 

wherein the event occurs if the at least 

one criterion has been met, 

wherein the microprocessor stores a 

hit if the event has occurred, and 

wherein the microprocessor provides 

notification if the event has occurred. 

’500 patent col. 17 l. 24 – col. 18 l. 2. Claim 12 and its 

dependent claim 13 are system claims that add the requirement that the system include a “user interface” for 

selection of a rule, as well as a microprocessor that analyzes audit log data under various rules. But, under our 

precedent, the features of claims 12 and 13 do not recite 

that “something more” required to make these claims 

patent eligible. As we have explained, the use of generic 

computer elements like a microprocessor or user interface 

do not alone transform an otherwise abstract idea into 

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 10 Filed: 10/11/2016
FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 11

patent-eligible subject matter. See DDR Holdings, LLC v. 

Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2014). 

Claim 14 is a system claim, but it recites limitations

that FairWarning admits are “analogous to that recited in 

[method] claim 1” and argues that they are patentable for 

the same reasons as claim 1. Appellant Br. 41. 

Claims 15–17 depend from claim 14 and, like claim 14, 

add nothing more than similar nominal recitations of

basic computer hardware, such as “a non-transitory 

computer-readable medium with computer-executable 

instructions” and a microprocessor. See ’500 patent 

col. 18 ll. 37–50. “While it is not always true that related 

system claims are patent-ineligible because similar method claims are, when they exist in the same patent and are 

shown to contain insignificant meaningful limitations, the 

conclusion of ineligibility is inescapable.” Accenture Glob. 

Servs., GmbH v. Guidewire Software, Inc., 728 F.3d 1336, 

1344 (Fed. Cir. 2013). The claims here are decidedly not 

the exception to that rule. The limitations added in 

FairWarning’s system claims merely graft generic computer components onto otherwise-ineligible method 

claims. As such, these claims are patent ineligible along 

with claim 1 and its dependents. 

Nonetheless, FairWarning argues that all of the 

claims, without exception, solve technical problems 

unique to the computer environment and thus should be 

patent eligible under DDR Holdings. Appellant Br. 44–48 

(citing DDR Holdings, 773 F.3d at 1257). FairWarning 

explains that, at the time of the ’500 patent’s filing, audit 

log data of patient health information “tended to have 

different file formats” and that this information was 

stored in different applications and data stores. Reply 

Br. 9 (citing ’500 patent col. 1 ll. 26–31). FairWarning

contends that its system allowed for the compilation and 

combination of these disparate information sources and 

that the patented method “made it possible to generate a 

full picture of a user’s activity, identity, frequency of 

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 11 Filed: 10/11/2016
12 FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 

activity, and the like in a computer environment.” Id. at

10. The mere combination of data sources, however, does 

not make the claims patent eligible. As we have explained, “merely selecting information, by content or 

source, for collection, analysis, and [announcement] does 

nothing significant to differentiate a process from ordinary mental processes, whose implicit exclusion from 

§ 101 undergirds the information-based category of abstract ideas.” Elec. Power, 2016 WL 4073318, at *4.

Furthermore, to the extent that FairWarning suggests 

that its claimed invention recites a technological advance 

relating to accessing and combining disparate information 

sources, its claims do not recite any such improvement. 

Rather, the claimed invention is directed to the broad 

concept of monitoring audit log data. The claims here do 

not propose a solution or overcome a problem “specifically 

arising in the realm of computer [technology].” DDR 

Holdings, 773 F.3d at 1257. At most, the claims require 

that these processes be executed on a generic computer. 

But, “after Alice, there can remain no doubt: recitation of 

generic computer limitations does not make an otherwise 

ineligible claim patent-eligible.” Id. at 1256 (citing Alice, 

134 S. Ct. at 2358). Thus, while the patent may in fact 

require that the claimed data relate to “transactions or 

activities that are executed in the computer environment,” Reply Br. 10, limiting the claims to the computer 

field does not alone transform them into a patent-eligible 

application. See Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358. 

After closely examining the claims of the ’500 patent 

in search of “something more” to transform the underlying 

abstract idea into a patent-eligible application, we conclude that there is nothing claimed in the patent—either 

by considering the claim limitations individually or as an 

ordered combination—that makes its claims patent 

eligible. 

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 12 Filed: 10/11/2016
FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 13

II.

FairWarning further alleges that the district court 

improperly granted Iatric’s motion under Rule 12(b)(6). 

We disagree. “We have repeatedly recognized that in 

many cases it is possible and proper to determine patent 

eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.” Genetic Techs. Ltd. v. Merial L.L.C., 818 F.3d 1369, 

1373–74 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (citing OIP Techs., 788 F.3d at 

1362; Content Extraction & Transmission LLC v. Wells 

Fargo Bank, Nat’l Ass’n, 776 F.3d 1343, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 

2014); buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355 

(Fed. Cir. 2014)). We have also acknowledged, however,

that plausible factual allegations may preclude dismissing 

a case under § 101 where, for example, “nothing on th[e] 

record . . . refutes those allegations as a matter of law or 

justifies dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6).” BASCOM, 

827 F.3d at 1352. 

FairWarning argues that the district court wrongly 

found facts outside of the pleadings and construed disputed facts in a light unfavorable to FairWarning. It argues 

that the court erred in finding, on a motion to dismiss, 

that the ’500 patent is not necessarily rooted in computer 

technology. It points to the ability of its system and 

method to collect and analyze disparate data sources in 

real time. And it claims that the court, drawing all reasonable inferences in its favor, could not resolve this issue 

on a motion to dismiss. We disagree. As we explained 

above, the practices of collecting, analyzing, and displaying data, with nothing more, are practices “whose implicit 

exclusion from § 101 undergirds the information-based 

category of abstract ideas.” Elec. Power, 2016 WL 

4073318, at *4. The district court correctly dismissed 

FairWarning’s purportedly factual claims as insufficient 

to impart patent eligibility.

FairWarning also contends that the court erred by 

finding that “the human mind can perform each step” 

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 13 Filed: 10/11/2016
14 FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 

because there is no support in the complaint or the patent 

for this finding. Appellant Br. 30–34. It argues that the 

large number of calculations required in its patents 

precludes a pen and paper test. Id. at 32. First of all, we 

do not rely on the pen and paper test to reach our holding 

of patent eligibility in this case. At the same time, we 

note that, in viewing the facts in FairWarning’s favor, the 

inability for the human mind to perform each claim step 

does not alone confer patentability. As we have explained, “the fact that the required calculations could be 

performed more efficiently via a computer does not materially alter the patent eligibility of the claimed subject 

matter.” Bancorp Servs., 687 F.3d at 1278.

FairWarning further argues that the district court incorrectly found that its patents preempt the field of 

HIPAA regulation compliance. FairWarning contends 

that, while HIPAA regulations require certain privacy 

protections for PHI, they do not mandate a particular set 

of specific response measures. But even assuming that 

the ’500 patent does not preempt the field, its lack of 

preemption does not save these claims. As this court 

explained in Ariosa, “[w]hile preemption may signal 

patent ineligible subject matter, the absence of complete 

preemption does not demonstrate patent eligibility.” 

Ariosa, 788 F.3d at 1379; see also OIP Techs., 788 F.3d at 

1362–63. So too here. That the ’500 patent’s claims 

might not preempt the entire field of HIPAA compliance 

“do[es] not make them any less abstract.” OIP Techs., 788 

F.3d at 1363. 

Finally, FairWarning argues that “there is an identified claim construction issue” that precludes dismissal 

under Rule 12(b)(6). Appellant Br. 19. FairWarning 

appears to argue that, under a correct construction, the 

district court would have understood the term audit log 

data to “exist[] in the computer environment after at least 

one of [the] transactions or activities . . . are executed in 

the computer environment by an authorized user.” Id. at 

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 14 Filed: 10/11/2016
FAIRWARNING IP, LLC v. IATRIC SYSTEMS, INC. 15

30 (emphases omitted). The implication of this construction, FairWarning argues, would be that “the ‘500 patent 

is necessarily rooted in computer technology.” Id. But 

this is the same argument we dismissed above, cloaked as 

claim construction. Simply requiring computer implementation of an otherwise abstract-idea process, as FairWarning would require of the claim, does not make the 

claims patent eligible. Regardless of the resolution of this 

construction issue, the ’500 patent claims patentineligible subject matter. 

CONCLUSION

We have considered FairWarning’s remaining arguments and find them unpersuasive. For the forgoing 

reasons, we affirm the district court’s determination that 

the claims of the ’500 patent recite patent-ineligible 

subject matter under § 101 and its dismissal of FairWarning’s infringement suit.

AFFIRMED

Case: 15-1985 Document: 32-2 Page: 15 Filed: 10/11/2016