NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

PLANET BINGO, LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

VKGS LLC (doing business as Video King),

Defendant-Appellee.

______________________ 

2013-1663

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Western District of Michigan in No. 12-CV-0219, Judge 

Robert Holmes Bell.

______________________ 

Decided: August 26, 2014

______________________ 

KAREN J.S. FOUTS, Weiss & Moy, P.C., of Grand Rapids, Michigan, argued for plaintiff-appellant. With her on 

the brief were VERONICA-ADELE R. CAO and KENNETH M.

MOTOLENICH-SALAS, of Scottsdale, Arizona. 

STEVEN L. UNDERWOOD, Price Heneveld LLP, of 

Grand Rapids, Michigan, argued for defendant-appellee. 

With him on the brief was MATTHEW J. GIPSON. 

______________________ 
2 PLANET BINGO, LLC v. VKGS LLC

Before TARANTO, BRYSON, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.

HUGHES, Circuit Judge.

Planet Bingo, LLC, owns two patents for computeraided management of bingo games. After Planet Bingo 

filed an infringement action against VKGS, LLC, the 

district court granted summary judgment of invalidity, 

concluding that the patents do not claim patentable 

subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Because a straightforward application of the Supreme Court’s recent holding

in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347

(2014), leads us to the same result, we affirm.

I 

Planet Bingo alleged that VKGS infringed U.S. Patent 

Nos. 6,398,646 and 6,656,045. The ’045 patent states that 

it is a continuation of the ’646 patent. The claims at issue 

recite computer-aided methods and systems for managing 

the game of bingo. Generally, the claims recite storing a 

player’s preferred sets of bingo numbers; retrieving one 

such set upon demand, and playing that set; while simultaneously tracking the player’s sets, tracking player 

payments, and verifying winning numbers. See, e.g., ’646 

patent col. 8 l. 45–col. 9 l. 18, col. 9 l. 33–col. 10 l. 13. 

Variations between the claims include display capabilities 

and options to purchase sets of bingo numbers. 

Following a Markman order, VKGS filed a motion for 

summary judgment that the asserted claims are directed 

to a patent-ineligible concept. Applying the majority

opinion’s approach in CLS Bank International v. Alice 

Corp., 685 F.3d 1341 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (en banc), the district court determined that “each method claim encompasses the abstract idea of managing/playing the game of 

Bingo.” Planet Bingo, LLC v. VKGS, LLC, 961 F. Supp. 

2d 840, 851 (W.D. Mich. 2013). The district court determined that the use of a computer in the method claims 

“adds nothing more than the ability to manage . . . Bingo 
PLANET BINGO, LLC v. VKGS LLC 3

more efficiently,” id. at 852, and that “the limitations of 

the system claims are the same as the limitations of the 

method claims that failed to result in an ‘inventive concept,’” id. at 854. The district court stated that the system claims employ a computer “only for its most basic 

functions,” including “storing numbers, assigning identifiers, allowing for basic inputs and outputs, printing of a 

receipt, displaying of numbers, and/or matching . . . for

verification.” Id. at 854–55. The court granted summary 

judgment on the grounds that all of the asserted claims 

are invalid under § 101. Id. at 857.

Planet Bingo appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

II

We review the grant of summary judgment under the 

law of the regional circuit. Charles Mach. Works, Inc. v. 

Vermeer Mfg. Co., 723 F.3d 1376, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2013). 

The Sixth Circuit reviews the grant or denial of summary 

judgment de novo. Tompkins v. Crown Corr, Inc., 726 

F.3d 830, 837 (6th Cir. 2013). We review de novo whether 

a claim is valid under § 101. In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 

1352 (Fed. Cir. 2007). 

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

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

2107, 2116 (2013)); see also Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 

63, 67 (1972) (“Phenomena of nature, though just discovered, mental processes, and abstract intellectual concepts 

are not patentable, as they are the basic tools of scientific 

and technological work.”). But the application of these

concepts to new and useful ends remains eligible for 
4 PLANET BINGO, LLC v. VKGS LLC

patent protection. Id. at 2355. Accordingly, the Court 

has described a framework for identifying patent-eligible 

claims, wherein a court must determine whether the 

claims at issue are directed to a patent-ineligible concept 

and, if so, whether additional elements in the claims 

transform the claims into a patent-eligible application. 

Id.

A 

As a preliminary matter, we agree with the district 

court that there is no meaningful distinction between the 

method and system claims or between the independent 

and dependent claims. See Planet Bingo, 961 F. Supp. 2d 

at 854, 857. The system claims recite the same basic 

process as the method claims, and the dependent claims 

recite only slight variations of the independent claims. 

In this case, the claims at issue are drawn to patentineligible subject matter. The ’646 and ’045 patents claim 

managing a bingo game while allowing a player to repeatedly play the same sets of numbers in multiple sessions. 

The district court correctly concluded that managing the 

game of bingo “consists solely of mental steps which can 

be carried out by a human using pen and paper.” Planet 

Bingo, 961 F. Supp. 2d at 851. Claim 7 of the ’646 patent, 

for example, recites the steps of selecting, storing, and 

retrieving two sets of numbers, assigning a player identifier and a control number, and then comparing a winning 

set of bingo numbers with a selected set of bingo numbers. 

’646 patent col. 9 l. 33–col. 10 l. 13. Like the claims at 

issue in Benson, not only can these steps be “carried out 

in existing computers long in use,” but they also can be 

“done mentally.” 409 U.S. at 67.

Planet Bingo argues that “in real world use, literally 

thousands, if not millions of preselected Bingo numbers 

are handled by the claimed computer program,” making it 

impossible for the invention to be carried out manually. 

Appellant’s Reply Br. 14. But the claimed inventions do 
PLANET BINGO, LLC v. VKGS LLC 5

not require as much. At most, the claims require “two 

sets of Bingo numbers,” “a player,” and “a manager.” ’646 

patent col. 8 ll. 54–55, col. 9 l. 17; see also ’045 patent 

col. 9 ll. 5–6. We need not, and do not, address whether a 

claimed invention requiring many transactions might tip 

the scales of patent eligibility, as the claims fall far short 

of capturing an invention that necessarily handles “thousands, if not millions” of bingo numbers or players.

Moreover, the claims here are similar to the claims at 

issue in Bilski v. Kappos, 130 S. Ct. 3218 (2010), and 

Alice, 134 S. Ct. 2347, which the Supreme Court held 

were directed to “abstract ideas.” For example, the claims 

here recite methods and systems for “managing a game of 

Bingo.” ’646 patent col. 8 l. 46; see also id. col. 9 l. 33; ’045 

patent col. 8 l. 64. This is similar to the kind of “organizing human activity” at issue in Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2356. 

And, although the ’646 and ’045 patents are not drawn to 

the same subject matter at issue in Bilski and Alice, these 

claims are directed to the abstract idea of “solv[ing a] 

tampering problem and also minimiz[ing] other security 

risks” during bingo ticket purchases. Appellant’s Br. 10, 

20. This is similar to the abstract ideas of “risk hedging” 

during “consumer transactions,” Bilski, 130 S. Ct. at 3231, 

and “mitigating settlement risk” in “financial transactions,” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2356–57, that the Supreme 

Court found ineligible. Thus, we hold that the subject 

matter claimed in the ’646 and ’045 patents is directed to

an abstract idea. 

B 

Abstract ideas may still be patent-eligible if they contain an “‘inventive concept’ sufficient to ‘transform’ the 

claimed abstract idea into a patent-eligible application.” 

Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2357 (quoting Mayo Collaborative 

Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1294, 

1298 (2012)). 
6 PLANET BINGO, LLC v. VKGS LLC

Apart from managing a game of bingo, the claims at 

issue also require “a computer with a central processing 

unit,” “a memory,” “an input and output terminal,” “a 

printer,” in some cases “a video screen,” and “a program 

. . . enabling” the steps of managing a game of bingo. ’646 

patent col. 8 ll. 45–53, col. 9 l. 29. These elements, in 

turn, select, store, and retrieve two sets of numbers, 

assign a player identifier and a control number, and then 

compare a winning set of bingo numbers with a selected 

set of bingo numbers.

“[I]f a patent’s recitation of a computer amounts to a 

mere instruction to ‘implemen[t]’ an abstract idea ‘on . . . 

a computer,’ . . . that addition cannot impart patent 

eligibility.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358 (quoting Mayo, 132 

S. Ct. at 1301). In this case, the claims recite a generic 

computer implementation of the covered abstract idea.

Planet Bingo argues that the patents recite “significantly more” than an abstract idea because the invention 

includes “complex computer code with three distinct 

subparts.” Appellant’s Br. 33, 38. We disagree. The ’646 

and ’045 patents do not claim the “accounting program,” 

“ticket program,” and “verification program” that Planet 

Bingo identifies in its briefs. Instead, the claims recite a 

program that is used for the generic functions of storing, 

retrieving, and verifying a chosen set of bingo numbers 

against a winning set of bingo numbers. And, as was the 

case in Alice, “the function performed by the computer at 

each step of the process is ‘[p]urely conventional.’” Alice, 

134 S. Ct. at 2359 (quoting Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1298). 

Accordingly, we hold that the claims at issue do not 

have an ‘inventive concept’ sufficient to ‘transform’ the 

claimed subject matter into a patent-eligible application. 

III

We have considered Planet Bingo’s remaining arguments and find them unpersuasive. Applying the Su-
PLANET BINGO, LLC v. VKGS LLC 7

preme Court’s precedents, the claims at issue are invalid 

under § 101. 

AFFIRMED