Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01087/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01087-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Capcom USA, Inc.
Appellee
McRo, Inc.
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

MCRO, INC., DBA PLANET BLUE,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA INC., 

NAUGHTY DOG, INC., KONAMI DIGITAL 

ENTERTAINMENT, INC., SEGA OF AMERICA, 

INC., ELECTRONIC ARTS INC., OBSIDIAN 

ENTERTAINMENT, INC., DISNEY INTERACTIVE 

STUDIOS, INC., SQUARE ENIX, INC., NEVERSOFT 

ENTERTAINMENT, INC., TREYARCH 

CORPORATION, CAPCOM USA, INC., SONY 

COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT AMERICA LLC,

ATLUS U.S.A., INC., SUCKER PUNCH 

PRODUCTIONS, LLC, INFINITY WARD, INC., 

LUCASARTS, A DIVISION OF LUCASFILM 

ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY LTD. LLC, WARNER 

BROS. INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT, A 

DIVISION OF WARNER BROS. HOME 

ENTERTAINMENT INC., ACTIVISION 

PUBLISHING, INC., BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT, 

INC., VALVE CORPORATION, CODEMASTERS 

USA GROUP, INC., CODEMASTERS SOFTWARE 

INC., CODEMASTERS, INC., THE CODEMASTERS

SOFTWARE COMPANY LIMITED,

Defendants-Appellees

______________________ 

2015-1080, -1081, -1082, -1083, -1084, -1085, -1086, -1087, 

-1088, -1089, -1090, -1092, -1093, -1094, -1095, -1096, 

-1097, -1098, -1099, -1100, -1101

Case: 15-1087 Document: 4-1 Page: 1 Filed: 09/13/2016
2 MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA

______________________ 

Appeals from the United States District Court for the 

Central District of California in Nos. 2:12-cv-10322-GWFFM, 2:12-cv-10323-GW-FFM, 2:12-cv-10327-GW-FFM, 

2:12-cv-10329-GW-FFM, 2:12-cv-10331-GW-FFM, 2:12-cv10333-GW-FFM, 2:12-cv-10335-GW-FFM, 2:12-cv-10337-

GW-FFM, 2:12-cv-10338-GW-FFM, 2:12-cv-10341-GWFFM, 2:12-cv-10342-GW-FFM, 8:13-cv-01870-GW-FFM, 

2:14-cv-00332-GW-FFM, 2:14-cv-00336-GW-FFM, 2:14-cv00358-GW-FFM, 2:14-cv-00383-GW-FFM, 2:14-cv-00352-

GW-FFM, 2:14-cv-00417-GW-FFM, 8:13-cv-01874-GWFFM, 2:14-cv-00389-GW-FFM, 2:14-cv-00439-GW-FFM, 

Judge George H. Wu.

______________________ 

Decided: September 13, 2016

______________________ 

JEFFREY A. LAMKEN, MoloLamken LLP, Washington, 

DC, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by 

MICHAEL GREGORY PATTILLO, JR.; JOHN FRANCIS 

PETRSORIC, MARK STEWART RASKIN, ROBERT ALAN 

WHITMAN, Mishcon de Reya New York LLP, New York, 

NY; JOHN M. WHEALAN, Chevy Chase, MD. 

SONAL NARESH MEHTA, Durie Tangri LLP, San Francisco, CA, representing defendants-appellees Electronic 

Arts Inc., Capcom USA, Inc., Activision Publishing, Inc., 

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., argued for all defendantsappellees. 

EDWARD R. REINES, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, 

Redwood Shores, CA, for defendants-appellees Bandai 

Namco Games America Inc., Sega of America, Inc., Disney 

Interactive Studios, Inc., Neversoft Entertainment, Inc., 

Treyarch Corporation, Atlus U.S.A., Inc., Infinity Ward, 

Inc., LucasArts, a Division of LucasFilm Entertainment 

Case: 15-1087 Document: 4-1 Page: 2 Filed: 09/13/2016
MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA 3

Company Ltd. LLC, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a Division of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment 

Inc.

BASIL TRENT WEBB, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP, 

Kansas City, MO, for defendants-appellees Naughty Dog, 

Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC, Sucker 

Punch Productions, LLC. Also represented by JOHN D.

GARRETSON, BETH A. LARIGAN. 

WENDY J. RAY, Morrison & Foerster LLP, Los Angeles, CA, for defendants-appellees Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc., Square Enix, Inc. Also represented by 

BENJAMIN J. FOX. 

ANDREW DAVID TSU, Spach Capaldi & Waggaman 

LLP, Newport Beach, CA, for defendant-appellee Obsidian Entertainment, Inc. Also represented by THOMAS 

WALLING. 

JAN PATRICK WEIR, Michelman & Robinson, LLP, Irvine, CA, for defendant-appellee Valve Corporation. Also 

represented by JOSEPH JAMES MELLEMA; THEODORE J.

ANGELIS, DAVID T. MCDONALD, K&L Gates LLP, Seattle, 

WA.

KEVIN W. KIRSCH, Baker & Hostetler LLP, Cincinnati, 

OH, for defendants-appellees Codemasters, Inc., Codemasters USA Group, Inc., Codemasters Software Inc., The 

Codemasters Software Company Limited. Also represented by JARED A. BRANDYBERRY; BARRY EASTBURN 

BRETSCHNEIDER, Washington, DC.

CHARLES DUAN, Public Knowledge, Washington, DC, 

for amici curiae Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier 

Foundation. Also represented by VERA RANIERI, Electronic 

Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, CA.

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4 MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA

ANDREW JOHN PINCUS, Mayer Brown LLP, Washington, DC, for amicus curiae BSA I The Software Alliance. 

Also represented by PAUL WHITFIELD HUGHES. 

______________________ 

Before REYNA, TARANTO, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.

REYNA, Circuit Judge. 

This appeal is from a grant of judgment on the pleadings under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c) that the asserted claims of 

U.S. Patent Nos. 6,307,576 (‘‘the ’576 patent’’) and 

6,611,278 (‘‘the ’278 patent’’) are invalid. The United 

States District Court for the Central District of California 

found that the asserted claims are directed to patentineligible subject matter and are therefore invalid under 

35 U.S.C. § 101 (“§ 101”). McRO, Inc. v. Sony Computer 

Entm’t Am., LLC, 55 F. Supp. 3d 1214 (C.D. Cal. 2014) 

(“Patentability Op.”). We hold that the ordered combination of claimed steps, using unconventional rules that 

relate sub-sequences of phonemes, timings, and morph 

weight sets, is not directed to an abstract idea and is 

therefore patent-eligible subject matter under § 101. 

Accordingly, we reverse. 

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

The ’576 patent and the ’278 patent were both issued 

to Maury Rosenfeld and are both titled “Method for Automatically Animating Lip Synchronization and Facial 

Expression of Animated Characters.” The ’278 patent is a 

continuation of the ’576 patent and shares the same 

written description. 

1. Admitted Prior Art

The patents relate to automating part of a preexisting 

3-D animation method. As explained in the background 

of the patents, the admitted prior art method uses multiCase: 15-1087 Document: 4-1 Page: 4 Filed: 09/13/2016
MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA 5

ple 3-D models of a character’s face to depict various facial 

expressions made during speech. See generally ’576 

patent col. 1 l. 14 to col. 2 l. 37. To animate the character 

as it speaks, the method morphs the character’s expression between the models. The “neutral model” is the 3-D 

representation of the resting, neutral facial expression of 

an animated character. The other models of the character’s face are known as “morph targets,” and each one 

represents that face as it pronounces a phoneme, i.e., 

makes a certain sound. This visual representation of the 

character’s face making a sound is also called a “viseme.” 

McRO Br. 7. An example morph target for the “ahh” 

phoneme is shown below. Each of these morph targets 

and the neutral model has identified points, called “vertices,” in certain places on the face. The set of differences 

in the location of these vertices (and the corresponding 

point on the face) between the neutral model and the 

morph target form a “delta set” of vectors representing 

the change in location of the vertices between the two 

models. For each morph target, there is a corresponding 

delta set consisting of the vectors by which the vertices on 

that morph target differ from the neutral model. 

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Defs.’ Br. 8.1

Facial expressions are described as a function of the

amount each morph target, and its corresponding delta 

set, is applied to modify the character model. “In producing animation products, a value usually from 0 to 1 is 

assigned to each delta set by the animator and the value 

is called the ‘morph weight.’” ’576 patent col. 1 ll. 63–65. 

The set of morph weights for all the delta sets is called a 

“morph weight set.” The neutral model is represented by 

a morph weight set with all morph weights of 0. A desired morph target is represented by the morph weight of 

1 for that morph target’s delta set and a morph weight of

0 for all other delta sets. 

The power of this prior art animation method is in 

generating intermediate faces by using morph weights 

between 0 and 1 to blend together multiple morph targets. 

For example, the face halfway between the neutral model 

and the “oh” face can be expressed simply by setting the 

“oh” morph weight to 0.5, i.e., 50%, as shown below at the 

left. The model halfway to the next syllable, in turn, 

could be expressed by setting both the “oh” morph weight 

and that for the next syllable each to 0.5, creating a blend 

of those two delta sets. McRO Br. 11; see also Defs.’ Br. 

8–11. For each morph weight set, the resulting facial 

expression is calculated by determining the displacement 

of each vertex from the neutral model as the product of 

the morph weights in the morph weight set and the 

 

1 The images in this opinion are drawn from 

McRO’s claim construction tutorial presented to the 

district court, J.A. 3573, excerpts of which are used by 

both parties to explain the prior art method. Defendants 

dispute McRO’s depiction of the claimed method in that 

tutorial and we do not rely on any of those depictions. See

Defs.’ Br. 46.

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MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA 7

corresponding delta sets for the morph targets. ’576

patent col. 2 ll. 2–15.2

McRO Br. 11.

Animation of the character and lip synchronization 

preexisting the invention was generally accomplished by 

an animator with the assistance of a computer. Animators used “a ‘keyframe’ approach, where the artist set[]

the appropriate [morph] weights at certain important 

times (‘keyframes’)” instead of at every frame. ’576 patent 

col. 2 ll. 31–33. Animators knew what phoneme a character pronounced at a given time from a “time aligned 

phonetic transcription” (“timed transcript”). This listed 

the “occurrence in time” of each phoneme the character 

pronounced, as shown in the example below. Id. at col. 1 

ll. 32–34. 

 

2 |result| = |neutral| + ∑ |delta setx| ∗ morph weightx nn

xx=1

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McRO Br. 7.

Animators, using a computer, manually determined 

the appropriate morph weight sets for each keyframe 

based on the phoneme timings in the timed transcript. 

“For each keyframe, the artist would look at the screen 

and, relying on her judgment, manipulate the character 

model until it looked right—a visual and subjective process.” McRO Reply Br. 4 (emphasis removed); Defs.’ 

Br. 10 (“Using the [timed transcript], the animator would 

decide what the animated face should look like at key 

points in time between the start and end times, and then 

‘draw’ the face at those times.”). Because the pronounced 

phoneme and drawn keyframe corresponded in time, this 

prior art process synchronized the lips and facial expression of the 3-D character. A computer program would 

then interpolate between the keyframes set by the animaCase: 15-1087 Document: 4-1 Page: 8 Filed: 09/13/2016
MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA 9

tor, creating the intermediate frames by determining the 

appropriate morph weight sets at intermediate points in 

time simply based on continuously transitioning between 

the keyframes. ’576 patent col. 2 ll. 32–36. 

2. Claimed Invention

The patents criticize the preexisting keyframe approach as “very tedious and time consuming, as well as 

inaccurate due to the large number of keyframes necessary to depict speech.” ’576 patent col. 2 ll. 35–37. They 

suggest the

present invention overcomes many of the deficiencies of the prior art and obtains its objectives by 

providing an integrated method embodied in computer software for use with a computer for the 

rapid, efficient lip synchronization and manipulation of character facial expressions, thereby allowing for rapid, creative, and expressive animation 

products to be produced in a very cost effective 

manner.

Id. at col. 2 ll. 38–44. “Accordingly, it is the primary 

object of this invention to provide a method for automatically . . . producing accurate and realistic lip synchronization and facial expressions in animated characters.” Id. 

at col. 2 ll. 45–50.

Essentially, the patents aim to automate a 3-D animator’s tasks, specifically, determining when to set 

keyframes and setting those keyframes. This automation 

is accomplished through rules that are applied to the 

timed transcript to determine the morph weight outputs. 

The patents describe many exemplary rule sets that go 

beyond simply matching single phonemes from the timed 

transcript with the appropriate morph target. Instead, 

these rule sets aim to produce more realistic speech by

“tak[ing] into consideration the differences in mouth 

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positions for similar phonemes based on context.” Id. at 

col. 10 ll. 6–7. 

One exemplary set of rules provided and applied in 

the specification of the ’576 patent is for a character 

transitioning from silence through saying “hello.” See

’576 patent col. 7 l. 36 to col. 9 l. 22. This exemplary set of 

rules provides for inserting a transition starting shortly 

before the first syllable after a silence. Id. at col. 8 ll. 24–

28. The transition marks when the character begins to 

transition from silence, shown by the closed-mouthed 

neutral model, to the morph target for the first syllable, 

with its open-mouthed shape. Id. at col. 8 ll. 61–63. That 

is, the rule automates a character’s facial expressions so 

the character will wait until shortly before it starts speaking to begin opening its mouth. In terms of the prior art 

method, the effect of this rule is to automatically create a 

keyframe at a point that no phoneme is being pronounced. 

Id. at col. 9 ll. 10–11. If instead no transition were placed 

at that position, the resulting animation would have an 

unrealistic quality. The character would open its mouth 

gradually from the beginning of the sequence through its 

first utterance as a result of the computer interpolating a 

continuous transition between those two points. In the 

prior art system, an animator would have to subjectively 

identify the problematic sequence and manually fix it by 

adding an appropriate keyframe. The invention, however,

uses rules to automatically set a keyframe at the correct 

point to depict more realistic speech, achieving results

similar to those previously achieved manually by animators. 

Claim 1 of the ’576 patent is representative and dispositive of the asserted claims3 for the purposes of appeal: 

 

3 McRO has asserted claims 1, 7–9, and 13 of the 

’576 patent and claims 1–4, 6, 9, 13, and 15–17 of the ’278 

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MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA 11

A method for automatically animating lip synchronization and facial expression of threedimensional characters comprising:

obtaining a first set of rules that define output 

morph weight set stream as a function of phoneme 

sequence and time of said phoneme sequence;

obtaining a timed data file of phonemes having a 

plurality of sub-sequences; 

generating an intermediate stream of output 

morph weight sets and a plurality of transition 

parameters between two adjacent morph weight 

sets by evaluating said plurality of sub-sequences 

against said first set of rules;

generating a final stream of output morph weight 

sets at a desired frame rate from said intermediate stream of output morph weight sets and said 

plurality of transition parameters; and

applying said final stream of output morph weight 

sets to a sequence of animated characters to produce lip synchronization and facial expression 

control of said animated characters. 

’576 patent, cl. 1, col. 11 ll. 27–47. 

 

patent. The district court focused its analysis on claim 1 

of the ’576 patent as representative. It held that neither 

the different text of the other independent claims nor the 

added limitations of the dependent claims in either patent 

affected the result regarding patentability. Patentability 

Op., 55 F. Supp. 3d at 1228–29. The parties do not dispute this conclusion or separately argue any other claims. 

See McRO Br. 19; Defs.’ Br. 40 n.12. We agree and focus 

our discussion on this claim.

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B. Procedural History

In 2012 and 2013, Plaintiff-Appellant McRO, Inc., 

d/b/a Planet Blue (“McRO”) filed lawsuits in the U.S. 

District Courts for the Central District of California and 

for the District of Delaware. The defendants are generally video game developers and publishers. On January 15, 

2014, eight of the lawsuits originally filed in Delaware 

were transferred to the Central District of California. The 

five cases remaining in Delaware are not part of this 

appeal, but are stayed pending the resolution of this 

appeal.4 

The Central District of California (“district court”) consolidated the proceedings there for pre-trial purposes on 

two tracks.5 It held a claim construction hearing in the 

 

4 McRO, Inc. v. Bethesda Softworks LLC, No. 12-cv1509 (D. Del.); McRO, Inc. v. Harmonix Music Sys. Inc., 

No. 12-cv-1510 (D. Del.); McRO, Inc. v. Rockstar Games, 

Inc., No. 12-cv-1513 (D. Del.); McRO, Inc. v. Take-Two 

Interactive Software, Inc., No. 12-cv-1517 (D. Del.); McRO, 

Inc. v. 2K Games, Inc., No. 12-cv-1519 (D. Del.).

5 The Track 1 cases at the time the district court issued its Judgment on Pleadings were: McRO, Inc. v. 

Namco Bandai Games Am., Inc., CV-12-10322; McRO, 

Inc. v. Konami Digital Entm’t, Inc., CV-12-10323; McRO, 

Inc. v. Sega of Am., Inc., CV-12-10327; McRO, Inc. v. Elec. 

Arts, Inc., CV-12-10329; McRO, Inc. v. Obsidian Entm’t, 

Inc., CV-12-10331; McRO, Inc. v. Disney Interactive Studios, Inc., CV-12-10333; McRO, Inc. v. Naughty Dog, Inc., 

CV-12-10335; McRO, Inc. v. Capcom USA, Inc., CV-12-

10337; McRO, Inc. v. Square Enix, Inc., CV-12-10338; 

McRO, Inc. v. Neversoft Entm’t, Inc., CV-12-10341; McRO, 

Inc. v. Treyarch Corp., CV-12-10342; McRO, Inc. v. Atlus 

U.S.A., et al., CV-13-1870; McRO, Inc. v. Sucker Punch 

Prod.s, LLC, CV-14-0332; McRO, Inc. v. Activision Blizzard, Inc., CV-14-0336; McRO, Inc. v. Infinity Ward, Inc., 

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MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA 13

Track 1 cases on April 29, 2014, and issued its Rulings on 

Claim Construction on May 1, 2014. J.A. 4009, 4155–73.6

C. District Court’s § 101 Ruling

On July 10, 2014, all Central District of California defendants from both tracks (“Defendants”) jointly filed a 

motion for judgment on the pleadings that the asserted 

claims were directed to patent ineligible subject matter 

under § 101. Patentability Op., 55 F. Supp. 3d at 1216. 

After a hearing, the district court granted the motion on 

September 22, 2014, finding the asserted claims unpatentable. Id. at 1230. 

The district court’s analysis loosely tracks the twostep framework laid out by the Supreme Court in Alice 

Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2355 (2014) 

(“Alice”). First, the district court discussed the claims 

generally: “Facially, these claims do not seem directed to 

an abstract idea. They are tangible, each covering an 

approach to automated three-dimensional computer 

animation, which is a specific technological process.” 

Patentability Op., 55 F. Supp. 3d at 1224. “At first blush, 

it is therefore difficult to see how the claims might impli-

 

CV-14-0352; McRO, Inc. v. LucasArts Entm’t Co., CV-14-

358; McRO, Inc. v. Sony Comput. Entm’t Am., LLC, CV14-0383; McRO, Inc. v. Warner Bros. Interactive Entm’t 

Inc., CV-14-0417.

The Track 2 cases were: McRO, Inc. v. Valve Corp., 

CV-13-1874; McRO, Inc. v. Codemasters USA Grp., Inc., 

CV-14-0389; McRO, Inc. v. Codemasters, Inc., CV-14-

0439. Patentability Op., 55 F. Supp. 3d at 1216 n.1.

6 The parties do not argue that any of the district 

court’s constructions affect patent eligibility or contest the 

constructions arrived at by the district court. The parties 

raise two unrelated claim interpretation issues on appeal, 

discussed below. 

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cate the basic underlying concern that these patents tie 

up too much future use of any abstract idea they apply.” 

Id. (quotation marks omitted).

Second, the district court attempted to “factor out 

conventional activity” by comparing the claims to the 

admitted prior art process that the patent sought to 

improve. Id. at 1224. The court accepted as undisputed 

that “a central part of the patents is ‘using morph weight 

set representations of the facial shape coupled with 

rules . . . to generate keyframes.’” Id. at 1226. The court 

then looked to “whether the inclusion of that concept in 

the claims satisfies § 101 given (1) the prior art, and 

(2) the fact that the claims do not require any particular 

rules.” Id. 

After looking at each claim element in turn, the district court concluded, “the claim adds to the prior art . . .

the use of rules, rather than artists, to set the morph 

weights and transitions between phonemes.” Id. at 1227. 

Nonetheless, the district court found the claims too broadly preemptive to satisfy § 101. In the district court’s view, 

because the claims were not limited to specific rules,7 but 

rather “purport to cover all such rules,” the claims merely 

call for application of the abstract idea of using rules. Id.

at 1227 (citing Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358). The district 

court found that, “while the patents do not preempt the 

field of automatic lip synchronization for computergenerated 3D animation, they do preempt the field of such 

lip synchronization using a rules-based morph target 

approach.” Id. at 1227. The court concluded that the 

claims were unpatentable because “the novel portions of 

[the] invention are claimed too broadly.” Id. at 1230.

 

7 The claim term is “first set of rules,” but we will 

follow the shorthand adopted by the district court and 

parties of referring to the “rules” or “claimed rules.”

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The district court entered judgment against McRO on 

October 31, 2014. J.A. 24–26. McRO appeals. We have 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

II. PARTIES’ ARGUMENTS

The parties’ principal dispute is over the meaning and 

application of two Supreme Court cases in light of Alice: 

Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584 (1978) (“Flook”) and Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175 (1981) (“Diehr”). Both cases 

addressed the patentability of process claims that include 

steps requiring calculation. 

A. McRO’s Position

McRO argues that Diehr controls the outcome here

and dictates that the claims are not directed to an abstract idea. Specifically, McRO argues that the claims are 

not directed to an abstract idea because they generate a 

tangible product, namely “a video of a 3-D character 

speaking the recorded audio.” McRO Br. 38. According to 

McRO, the claimed process is technological because it 

provides “a method for getting a computer to automatically generate video of a 3-D animated character speaking in 

sync with pre-recorded dialogue—without requiring an 

artist’s constant intermediation.” McRO Br. 42.

McRO argues that even if we find the claims are directed to an abstract idea, they are nonetheless patent 

eligible because they “effect an improvement in [a] technology or technical field,” specifically 3-D computer generated lip-synchronization. McRO Br. 43 (quoting Alice, 

134 S. Ct. at 2359 (citing Diehr, 450 U.S. at 177–78)). 

This improvement, McRO argues, results from its method 

that “employs specific types of rules” and uses those rules 

in “a specific technological way.” McRO Br. 45 (emphasis 

in original). The claimed type of rules are only those 

“rules that define output morph weight set stream as a 

function of phoneme sequence and time of said phoneme

sequence.” Id. at 46 (quoting ’576 patent, cl. 1, col. 11 ll. 

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30–32). When applied, in McRO’s interpretation, these 

rules must “adjust for the fact that a phoneme may look 

different when spoken depending on the phonemes preceding and/or following it.” McRO Br. 46. 

These limitations are specific enough in McRO’s view 

because the rules will necessarily vary by character as, for 

example, “a swamp monster will use different rules than 

a tight-lipped cat.” Id. at 46. McRO argues that its 

claims cannot preempt the field because other techniques 

exist that automate facial synchronization by capturing

actors’ facial motions and applying those motions to 3-D 

animated characters. McRO Br. 50 (citing Barbara Robertson, Big Moves, Computer Graphics World (Nov. 2006), 

available at http://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2006/

Volume-29-Issue-11-Nov-2006-/Big-Moves.aspx).8 

B. Defendants’ Position

Defendants argue that Flook controls because the 

claims are unpatentable algorithms that “can be performed solely with pencil and paper.” Defs.’ Br. 28. The 

claims, in Defendants’ view, “merely purport to take a 

preexisting process and make it faster by automating it 

on a general-purpose computer.” Defs.’ Br. 19. Defendants argue that these claims fail even under Diehr because they do not result in any tangible product, instead 

only producing a “stream of output morph weight sets” 

that are applied “to produce lip synchronization” without 

requiring the production of anything tangible like a video. 

’576 patent, claim 1, col. 11 ll. 44–47; Defs.’ Br. 30. Even 

if specific processing steps are required, Defendants argue 

 

8 Defendants do not dispute this is an alternative 

method for automatic lip synchronization of 3-D animated 

characters; instead, they argue that “this technology is 

not remotely similar to the patented technology.” Defs.’ 

Br. 53.

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the claims remain directed to an abstract idea because 

they only require using “mathematical algorithms to 

manipulate existing information to generate additional 

information.” Defs.’ Br. 34 (quoting Digitech Image 

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

1351 (Fed. Cir. 2014)).

Echoing the district court, Defendants fault the claims 

for not specifically claiming particular rules, and instead 

requiring that the user provide the rules. Defs.’ Br. 40–

42; see also Patentability Op., 55 F. Supp. 3d at 1227, 

1230. Defendants dispute that the claimed rules depend 

on the preceding or succeeding phonemes, i.e., subsequences of phonemes, and fault McRO for failing to 

raise this interpretation as a claim construction issue 

before the district court. Defs.’ Br. 43–44. Defendants 

claim broad preemption occurs because the rules only 

reflect relationships “that any intelligible lipsynchronization process must consider.” Id. at 50 (emphasis original). The relationships expressed by these 

rules, Defendants argue, inevitably capture “a preexisting fundamental truth” about how a human mouth 

looks while speaking certain sounds over time, preempting all possible rules-based methods. Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 

2356; see Defs.’ Br. 16, 49–51.9

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review procedural aspects of the grant of judgment on the pleadings under the law of the regional

circuit, in this case the Ninth Circuit. Allergan, Inc. v. 

Athena Cosmetics, Inc., 640 F.3d 1377, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 

 

9 Amicus similarly argues that the claims are directed to a natural phenomenon instead of an abstract 

idea, specifically “the movement of the mouth to articulate sounds.” Amicus Public Knowledge Br. 11; see also

Defs.’ Br. 26. 

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18 MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA

2011). The Ninth Circuit reviews the grant or denial of 

judgment on the pleadings under Rule 12(c) de novo. 

Kotrous v. Goss-Jewett Co., 523 F.3d 924, 929 (9th Cir. 

2008). We also review de novo whether a claim is invalid 

under the judicially created exceptions to § 101. Ariosa 

Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371, 1375 

(Fed. Cir. 2015).

IV. DISCUSSION

A. Claim Interpretation

As an initial matter, we note that, in this case, claim 

construction is helpful to resolve the question of patentability under § 101. Specifically, the parties’ dispute about 

whether the “first set of rules” must evaluate sequential 

phonemes or can evaluate individual phonemes is resolved by the claim language. We agree with McRO that 

the claims are limited to rules that evaluate subsequences consisting of multiple sequential phonemes. 

This limitation is apparent on the face of the claims. See 

Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 

2005) (en banc). In particular, the intermediate morph 

weight sets and transition parameters are generated “by 

evaluating said plurality of sub-sequences against said 

first set of rules.” ’576 patent, cl. 1, col. 11 ll. 36–39.10 

This limitation could not be satisfied by rules that only 

evaluate individual phonemes. Instead, the claimed “first 

set of rules” must be formulated to evaluate subsequences of phonemes.11

 

10 The limitation with the same effect in independent claim 1 of the ’278 patent is “applying said first set of 

rules to each sub-sequence” at column 11 lines 53–54. 

11 The parties also dispute whether the rules must 

take into account the pacing of speech based on the “and 

time of said phoneme sequence” limitation. Resolution of 

this question is neither necessary to resolve of the issues 

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B. Patentability Under § 101

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,” subject to the other limitations of the 

Patent Act. Apart from the Patent Act, the courts have 

created exceptions to the literal scope of § 101. “Laws of 

nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not 

patentable.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2354 (quoting Ass’n for 

Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 

2107, 2116 (2013) (“Myriad”)). This appeal involves the 

abstract idea exception.

In Alice, the Court applied a two-step framework for 

analyzing whether claims are patent eligible. First, we 

determine whether the claim at issue is “directed to” a 

judicial exception, such as an abstract idea. Alice, 134 S.

Ct. at 2355. Mathematical formulas are a type of abstract 

idea. Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 64 (1972) (“Benson”). The abstract idea exception prevents patenting a 

result where “it matters not by what process or machinery

the result is accomplished.” O’Reilly v. Morse, 56 U.S. 62, 

113 (1854). We do not assume that such claims are directed to patent ineligible subject matter because “all 

inventions at some level embody, use, reflect, rest upon, 

or apply laws of nature, natural phenomena, or abstract 

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

Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1293 (2012) (“Mayo”); see also In re 

TLI Commc’ns LLC Patent Litig., 823 F.3d 607, 611 (Fed. 

Cir. 2016) (“TLI Commc’ns”). Instead, “the claims are 

considered in their entirety to ascertain whether their 

 

on appeal nor indisputably resolved by the claim language. We therefore decline to address this issue in the 

first instance and express no opinion on whether McRO 

has waived these arguments or is bound by them for 

purposes of infringement.

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20 MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA

character as a whole is directed to excluded subject matter.” Internet Patents Corp. v. Active Network, Inc., 790 

F.3d 1343, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015). If the claims are not 

directed to an abstract idea, the inquiry ends. If the 

claims are “directed to” an abstract idea, then the inquiry 

proceeds to the second step of the Alice framework.

In step two we consider whether the claims contain an 

“inventive concept” sufficient to “transform the nature of 

the claim into a patent-eligible application.” Alice, 134 S.

Ct. at 2355 (quotation omitted). To do so we look to both 

the claim as a whole and the individual claim elements to 

determine whether the claims contain “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. (quoting 

Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1294) (alteration in original). 

In Alice, the Court applied some of its § 101 jurisprudence that preceded the two-step framework, including 

Flook and Diehr. In Flook, claims requiring the use of a 

specific equation were unpatentable because they “simply 

provide[d] a new and presumably better method of calculating alarm limit values.” Flook, 437 U.S. at 594–95. 

The mathematical “formula itself was an abstract idea”

and “the computer implementation was purely conventional” because “the ‘use of computers for “automatic 

monitoring-alarming’” was ‘well known’.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. 

at 2358 (quoting Flook, 437 U.S. at 594). “Flook stands 

for the proposition that the prohibition against patenting 

abstract ideas cannot be circumvented by attempting to 

limit the use of [the idea] to a particular technological 

environment.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358 (quoting Bilski v. 

Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 610–611 (2010) (“Bilski”)) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). 

The claims in Diehr, in contrast, were patentable. 

The claims likewise “employed a ‘well-known’ mathematical equation.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358 (quoting Diehr, 

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450 U.S. at 177). A computer performed the calculations

as part of a broader process for curing rubber, but “the 

process as a whole [did] not thereby become unpatentable 

subject matter.” Diehr, 450 U.S. at 187. Instead, the 

Court looked to how the claims “used that equation in a 

process designed to solve a technological problem in 

‘conventional industry practice.’” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358 

(quoting Diehr, 450 U.S. at 178). When looked at as a 

whole, “the claims in Diehr were patent eligible because 

they improved an existing technological process, not 

because they were implemented on a computer.” Alice, 

134 S. Ct. at 2358.

1. Specific Limitations

The district court determined that claim 1 of the ’567 

patent is “drawn to the [abstract] idea of automated rulesbased use of morph targets and delta sets for lipsynchronized three-dimensional animation.” Patentability Op., 55 F. Supp. 3d at 1226. We disagree. We have 

previously cautioned that courts “must be careful to avoid 

oversimplifying the claims” by looking at them generally 

and failing to account for the specific requirements of the 

claims. TLI Commc’ns, 823 F.3d at 611; see also Diehr, 

450 U.S. at 189 n.12. Here, the claims are limited to rules 

with specific characteristics. As the district court recognized during claim construction, “the claims themselves 

set out meaningful requirements for the first set of rules: 

they ‘define[] a morph weight set stream as a function of 

phoneme sequence and times associated with said phoneme sequence.’” J.A. 4171 (Dist. Ct. Claim Construction 

Op. 16) (quoting ’567 patent, cl. 1). They further require 

“applying said first set of rules to each sub-sequence . . . of 

timed phonemes.” Id. Whether at step one or step two of 

the Alice test, in determining the patentability of a method, a court must look to the claims as an ordered combination, without ignoring the requirements of the individual

steps. The specific, claimed features of these rules allow 

for the improvement realized by the invention. 

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22 MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA

As the specification confirms, the claimed improvement here is allowing computers to produce “accurate and 

realistic lip synchronization and facial expressions in

animated characters” that previously could only be produced by human animators. ’576 patent col. 2 ll. 49–50. 

As the district court correctly recognized, this computer 

automation is realized by improving the prior art through 

“the use of rules, rather than artists, to set the morph 

weights and transitions between phonemes.” Patentability Op., 55 F. Supp. 3d at 1227. The rules are limiting in 

that they define morph weight sets as a function of the 

timing of phoneme sub-sequences. See, e.g., ’576 patent 

col. 3 ll. 19–33. Defendants do not dispute that processes 

that automate tasks that humans are capable of performing are patent eligible if properly claimed; instead, they 

argue that the claims here are abstract because they do 

not claim specific rules.12 This argument echoes the 

district court’s finding that the claims improperly purport 

to cover all rules. Patentability Op., at 1227. The claimed 

rules here, however, are limited to rules with certain 

common characteristics, i.e., a genus. 

Claims to the genus of an invention, rather than a 

particular species, have long been acknowledged as patentable. E.g., Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 

305 (1980) (patentable claim to “a bacterium from the 

genus Pseudomonas containing therein at least two stable 

energy-generating plasmids, each of said plasmids providing a separate hydrocarbon degradative pathway.”). 

 

12 See, e.g., Hearing Tr. at 14:00–15:09 (Defendants’ 

counsel acknowledging that a process for autopilot or 

facial recognition using rules could be patented, but 

arguing the claims here are unpatentable because they do 

not claim specific rules), available at http://

oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/default.aspx?fl=2015-

1080.mp3. 

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Patent law has evolved to place additional requirements 

on patentees seeking to claim a genus; however, these 

limits have not been in relation to the abstract idea

exception to § 101. Rather they have principally been in 

terms of whether the patentee has satisfied the tradeoff of 

broad disclosure for broad claim scope implicit in 35 

U.S.C. § 112. E.g., Carnegie Mellon Univ. v. Hoffmann-La 

Roche Inc., 541 F.3d 1115, 1122 (Fed. Cir. 2008). It is 

self-evident that genus claims create a greater risk of 

preemption, thus implicating the primary concern driving 

§ 101 jurisprudence, but this does not mean they are 

unpatentable. 

The preemption concern arises when the claims are 

not directed to a specific invention and instead improperly 

monopolize “the basic tools of scientific and technological 

work.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2354 (quoting Myriad, 133 S.

Ct. at 2116). The abstract idea exception has been applied to prevent patenting of claims that abstractly cover 

results where “it matters not by what process or machinery the result is accomplished.” Morse, 56 U.S. at 113; see 

also Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1301. “A patent is not good for an 

effect, or the result of a certain process” because such 

patents “would prohibit all other persons from making the 

same thing by any means whatsoever.” Le Roy v. Tatham, 55 U.S. 156, 175 (1853). A patent may issue “for the 

means or method of producing a certain result, or effect, 

and not for the result or effect produced.” Diehr, 450 U.S. 

175, 182 n.7. We therefore look to whether the claims in 

these patents focus on a specific means or method that 

improves the relevant technology or are instead directed 

to a result or effect that itself is the abstract idea and 

merely invoke generic processes and machinery. Enfish, 

LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 

2016) (“Enfish”); see also Rapid Litig. Mgmt. Ltd. v. 

CellzDirect, Inc., No. 2015-1570, 2016 WL 3606624, at *4

(Fed. Cir. July 5, 2016). 

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2. Claims Directed To

Claim 1 of the ’576 patent is focused on a specific asserted improvement in computer animation, i.e., the 

automatic use of rules of a particular type. We disagree

with Defendants’ arguments that the claims simply use a 

computer as a tool to automate conventional activity. 

While the rules are embodied in computer software that is 

processed by general-purpose computers, Defendants 

provided no evidence that the process previously used by 

animators is the same as the process required by the 

claims. See Defs.’ Br. 10–15, 39–40. In support, Defendants point to the background section of the patents, but 

that information makes no suggestion that animators 

were previously employing the type of rules required by 

claim 1. Defendants concede an animator’s process was 

driven by subjective determinations rather than specific, 

limited mathematical rules. The prior art “animator 

would decide what the animated face should look like at 

key points in time between the start and end times, and 

then ‘draw’ the face at those times.” Defs.’ Br. 10. The 

computer here is employed to perform a distinct process to 

automate a task previously performed by humans. McRO 

states that animators would initially set keyframes at the 

point a phoneme was pronounced to represent the corresponding morph target as a starting point for further fine 

tuning. J.A. 3573 at 8:53 (McRO’s Claim Construction 

Presentation). This activity, even if automated by rules, 

would not be within the scope of the claims because it 

does not evaluate sub-sequences, generate transition 

parameters or apply transition parameters to create a 

final morph weight set. It is 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. Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358. 

This is unlike Flook, Bilski, and Alice, where the claimed 

computer-automated process and the prior method were 

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carried out in the same way. Flook, 437 U.S. at 585–86;

Bilski, 561 U.S. at 611; Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2356. 

Further, the automation goes beyond merely “organizing [existing] information into a new form” or carrying out 

a fundamental economic practice. Digitech, 758 F.3d at

1351; see also Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2356. The claimed 

process uses a combined order of specific rules that renders information into a specific format that is then used 

and applied to create desired results: a sequence of synchronized, animated characters. While the result may not 

be tangible, there is nothing that requires a method “be 

tied to a machine or transform an article” to be patentable. Bilski, 561 U.S. at 603 (discussing 35 U.S.C. 

§ 100(b)). The concern underlying the exceptions to § 101 

is not tangibility, but preemption. Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at

1301. 

The limitations in claim 1 prevent preemption of all 

processes for achieving automated lip-synchronization of 

3-D characters. McRO has demonstrated that motion 

capture animation provides an alternative process for 

automatically animating lip synchronization and facial 

expressions. Even so, we have recognized that “the absence of complete preemption does not demonstrate 

patent eligibility.” Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, 

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

concern here is whether the claimed genus of rules 

preempts all techniques for automating 3-D animation 

that rely on rules. Claim 1 requires that the rules be 

rendered in a specific way: as a relationship between subsequences of phonemes, timing, and the weight to which 

each phoneme is expressed visually at a particular timing 

(as represented by the morph weight set). The specific 

structure of the claimed rules would prevent broad 

preemption of all rules-based means of automating lip 

synchronization, unless the limits of the rules themselves

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26 MCRO, INC. v. BANDAI NAMCO GAMES AMERICA

are broad enough to cover all possible approaches.13 

There has been no showing that any rules-based lipsynchronization process must use rules with the specifically claimed characteristics. 

Defendants’ attorney’s argument that any rules-based 

lip-synchronization process must use the claimed type of 

rules has appeal, but no record evidence supports this 

conclusion. Defendants again rely only on the patents’ 

description of one type of rules, but the description of one 

set of rules does not mean that there exists only one set of 

rules, and does not support the view that other possible 

types of rules with different characteristics do not exist. 

The only information cited to this court about the relationship between speech and face shape points to the 

conclusion that there are many other possible approaches 

to automating lip synchronization using rules. For example, Amicus cites Kiyoshi Honda, Physiological Processes

of Speech Processing, in Springer Handbook of Speech 

Production 7 (Jacob Benesty et al. eds., 2008) (“Honda”),

as support for the proposition that the claimed rules 

reflect natural laws. Amicus Public Knowledge Br. 12. 

Honda shows, however, that the interaction between 

vocalization and facial expression is very complex, and 

there are relationships present other than those required 

by the claimed rules. Honda at 24 (“Physiological processes during speech are multidimensional in nature as 

described in this chapter.”). This complex interaction

permits development of alternative rules-based methods 

of animating lip synchronization and facial expressions of 

three-dimensional characters, such as simulating the 

 

13 This is not a case where the patentee’s principal 

contribution was in discovering relationships that existed 

in nature, e.g., Myriad, 133 S. Ct. at 2112; animators were 

previously able to naturally depict the relationship between speech, timing, and facial expression. 

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muscle action underlying characters’ facial expressions. 

Under these circumstances, therefore, we need not assume that future alternative discoveries are foreclosed. 

Here, the structure of the limited rules reflects a specific implementation not demonstrated as that which “any 

[animator] engaged in the search for [an automation 

process] would likely have utilized.” Myriad, 133 S. Ct. at 

2119–20 (quotation marks omitted). By incorporating the

specific features of the rules as claim limitations, claim 1 

is limited to a specific process for automatically animating

characters using particular information and techniques

and does not preempt approaches that use rules of a 

different structure or different techniques. See Morse, 56 

U.S. at 113. When looked at as a whole, claim 1 is directed to a patentable, technological improvement over 

the existing, manual 3-D animation techniques. The 

claim uses the limited rules in a process specifically 

designed to achieve an improved technological result in 

conventional industry practice. Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358 

(citing Diehr, 450 U.S. at 177). Claim 1 of the ’576 patent, 

therefore, is not directed to an abstract idea.

Because we find that claim 1 is not directed to ineligible subject matter, we do not reach Alice step two. Enfish, 

822 F.3d at 1339.

V. CONCLUSION

Claim 1 is not directed to an abstract idea and recites 

subject matter as a patentable process under § 101. 

Accordingly, we reverse and hold that claims 1, 7–9, and 

13 of the ’576 patent and claims 1–4, 6, 9, 13, and 15–17 

of the ’278 patent are patentable under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

REVERSED AND REMANDED 

COSTS

No costs.

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