Court Opinion

ID: 9928930
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-01 17:01:16.791949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:56:54.411572
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1932       Document: 59           Page: 1       Filed: 02/01/2024

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                      ______________________

     EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED,
               Plaintiff-Appellant

                                     v.

   AMAZON.COM, INC., GOOGLE LLC, WALMART,
                     INC.,
             Defendants-Appellees

                ---------------------------------------------

                          GOOGLE LLC,
                          Plaintiff-Appellee

                                     v.

     EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED,
              Defendant-Appellant

 REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,
                  Defendant
            ______________________

       2022-1932, 2022-1933, 2022-1934, 2022-1935
                ______________________

     Appeals from the United States District Court for the
 Northern District of California in Nos. 4:15-cv-05446-JST,
 4:17-cv-01138-JST, 4:17-cv-03022-JST, 4:17-cv-03023-JST,
 Judge Jon S. Tigar.
Case: 22-1932    Document: 59      Page: 2    Filed: 02/01/2024

 2   EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

                   ______________________

                 Decided: February 1, 2024
                  ______________________

    JOHN BRUCE CAMPBELL, McKool Smith, P.C., Austin,
 TX, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by
 JOSHUA WRIGHT BUDWIN, JAMES ELROY QUIGLEY, JOEL
 LANCE THOLLANDER.

    CHARLES KRAMER VERHOEVEN, Quinn Emanuel Ur-
 quhart & Sullivan, LLP, San Francisco, CA, for defendant-
 appellee Google LLC. Also represented by JOCELYNE MA,
 DAVID ANDREW PERLSON; DEEPA ACHARYA, Washington,
 DC.

      GABRIEL K. BELL, Latham & Watkins LLP, Washing-
 ton, DC, argued for all defendants-appellees. Defendant-
 appellee Amazon.com, Inc. also represented by RICHARD
 GREGORY FRENKEL, DOUGLAS ETHAN LUMISH, Menlo Park,
 CA; JOSEPH HYUK LEE, Costa Mesa, CA; AMIT MAKKER, San
 Francisco, CA; JEFFREY H. DEAN, Amazon.com, Inc., Seat-
 tle, WA.

    MARK CHRISTOPHER FLEMING, Wilmer Cutler Pickering
 Hale and Dorr LLP, Boston, MA, for defendant-appellee
 Walmart, Inc.
                ______________________

     Before CHEN, BRYSON, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.
 STOLL, Circuit Judge.
     Eolas Technologies Inc. appeals from the United States
 District Court for the Northern District of California’s sum-
 mary judgment holding the asserted claims of Eolas’s U.S.
 Patent No. 9,195,507 invalid for claiming ineligible subject
 matter. Because we agree with the district court’s conclu-
 sion, we affirm.
Case: 22-1932     Document: 59      Page: 3     Filed: 02/01/2024

 EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.           3

                         BACKGROUND
                                I
     The ’507 patent claims priority from a patent filed in
 1994. The ’507 patent specification notes that the limited
 processing power of a typical client computer and the low
 bandwidth of the Internet prohibited most users from in-
 teracting with large data objects on the Internet. See ’507
 patent col. 5 ll. 39–52, col. 6 ll. 22–33. The specification de-
 scribes the present invention as taking advantage of dis-
 tributed hypermedia environments, such as that provided
 by the World Wide Web, and harnessing the remote com-
 puting power made available by distributed computing. 1
 Id. col. 6 ll. 57–67; see also id. col. 7 ll. 1–6.
     The specification explains that tasks that would nor-
 mally be resource or bandwidth-intensive for a single com-
 puter—such as rendering large images or calculating
 spreadsheet cells—can be performed more effectively with
 distributed computing. For example, a new viewpoint of a
 large image or an updated calculation for a large spread-
 sheet can be computed on a remote computer and then sent
 to the client computer for display. See id. col. 7 ll. 1–33.
     Figure 5, shown below, illustrates an embodiment of
 the invention.

     1   “Distributed” describes objects or processes that
 are located and/or processed across multiple computers on
 a network. See, e.g., ’507 patent col. 5 ll. 29–34; see Eolas
 Techs. Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 6:15-cv-01038,
 2016 WL 7155294, at *8 (E.D. Tex. Dec. 8, 2016) (Claim
 Construction Op.) (construing “distributed application” to
 mean an “application that is broken up and performed
 among two or more computers”).
Case: 22-1932      Document: 59    Page: 4    Filed: 02/01/2024

 4       EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

 Id. Fig. 5. In this embodiment, a browser client 208 on the
 user’s computer requests and parses through a data object
 (e.g., hypermedia document 212), 2 and identifies an appli-
 cation for the application client 210 to invoke in order to
 interact with the data object. See id. col. 9 ll. 4–20, col. 9
 ll. 29–33. The application client 210 communicates with
 the distributed network 206 (e.g., World Wide Web) to ac-
 cess the data object located on a server computer 204. Id.
 col. 9 ll. 34–40. Upon receipt of the data object from the
 application client 210, the browser client 208 displays the
 data object on the client computer 200. Id. col. 9 ll. 54–57;
 see also id. col. 9 l. 65–col. 10 l. 3. The specification also
 describes an example of an application performing multidi-
 mensional image visualization. Id. col. 9 ll. 34–35. In this

     2   A “hypermedia document” is a document presented
 to a user in a computer system in which “the user is able to
 click on images, sound icons, video icons, etc., that link to
 other objects of various media types, such as additional
 graphics, sound, video, text, or hypermedia or hypertext
 documents.” ’507 patent col. 2 ll. 22–30.
Case: 22-1932    Document: 59      Page: 5    Filed: 02/01/2024

 EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.        5

 example, application server 220 performs the rendering
 and transformation calculations as the user interacts with
 the three-dimensional data object, with application client
 210 updating the user’s view with each new viewpoint cal-
 culation. Id. col. 10 ll. 34–39, ll. 46–54. The specification
 describes a preferred embodiment in which the user inter-
 acts with the three-dimensional data object “within, or ad-
 jacent to, a window generated by browser client 208 that
 contains a display of hypermedia document 212.” Id. col. 9
 ll. 59–61.
      According to the ’507 patent, having the application
 server 220 use the computing resources of the server com-
 puter 204, as described in the three-dimensional visualiza-
 tion example, is much faster than having the application
 client 210 executing on the client computer 200. Id. col. 10
 ll. 60–64.
     Eolas argued before the district court that there is no
 substantial difference between method claims 32, 37, and
 39 and system claims 19, 24, and 26. The district court
 agreed and determined these method claims were repre-
 sentative of the system claims. See Eolas Techs. Inc. v. Am-
 azon.com Inc., No. 17-cv-03022, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
 243302, at *53–54 (N.D. Cal. May 16, 2022) (Summary
 Judgment Op.). Representative independent claim 32 re-
 cites:
     32. A method, performed by a server computer con-
     nected to the World Wide Web distributed hyper-
     media network on the Internet, for disseminating
     interactive content via the World Wide Web dis-
     tributed hypermedia network on the Internet, the
     method comprising:
         A. receiving, by the server computer, a re-
         quest for information; and
         B. transferring, by the server computer,
         the information onto the World Wide Web
Case: 22-1932    Document: 59      Page: 6     Filed: 02/01/2024

 6   EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

        distributed hypermedia network on the In-
        ternet, wherein:
            (i) a World Wide Web browser on a
            client computer connected to the
            World Wide Web distributed hyper-
            media network has been configured
            with a plurality of different interac-
            tive-content applications, each said
            interactive-content application be-
            ing configured to enable a user to
            interact, within one or more World
            Wide Web pages, with at least part
            of one or more objects while at least
            part of each of said one or more ob-
            jects is displayed to the user within
            at least one of said one or more
            World Wide Web pages, and
            (ii) at least part of the information
            is configured to allow the World
            Wide Web browser on the client
            computer to:
            a. detect at least part of an object to
            be displayed in a World Wide Web
            page, and
            b. cause a display of the World
            Wide Web page to a user,
            (iii) the World Wide Web browser
            has been configured to:
            a. select an interactive-content ap-
            plication, based upon the infor-
            mation, from among the different
            interactive-content    applications,
            and
Case: 22-1932      Document: 59      Page: 7    Filed: 02/01/2024

 EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.          7

              b. automatically invoke the se-
              lected interactive-content applica-
              tion to enable the user to employ
              the selected interactive-content ap-
              plication to interact within the
              World Wide Web page with at least
              part of the object while at least part
              of the object is displayed to the user
              within the World Wide Web page,
              wherein the automatically invoked
              interactive-content application has
              been configured to operate as part
              of a distributed application config-
              ured to enable a user to perform the
              interaction through the use of com-
              munications sent to and received
              from at least a portion of the dis-
              tributed application located on two
              or more distributed application
              computers connected to the World
              Wide Web distributed hypermedia
              network on the Internet, the two or
              more distributed application com-
              puters being remote from the client
              computer.
 ’507 patent col. 23 l. 25–col. 24 l. 2.
     Eolas argues that independent claim 45 is patent eligi-
 ble for additional reasons not present in representative
 claim 32. In particular, Eolas emphasizes that claim 45
 recites additional limitations of generating and sending
 computer commands to perform viewing transformations:
     45. A method performed by one or more computers
     for coordinating distributed processing to enable
     dissemination of interactive content to a client
     computer, the method comprising:
Case: 22-1932   Document: 59      Page: 8    Filed: 02/01/2024

 8   EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

        a. coordinating by the one or more comput-
        ers processing of at least part of a distrib-
        uted application to perform at least one
        task,
        b. coordinating by the one or more comput-
        ers communications sent to and received
        from at least a portion of the distributed
        application located on two or more separate
        computers connected to the World Wide
        Web distributed hypermedia network to
        enable the separate computers to work to-
        gether to perform the at least one task,
        wherein at least part of the distributed ap-
        plication has been implemented to be part
        of a distributed interactive-content applica-
        tion configured to enable a user to interact
        with at least part of an object, displayed
        within a World Wide Web page by the cli-
        ent computer, and
        c. generating and sending by the one or
        more computers commands over a network
        to coordinate activity of the separate com-
        puters working together to perform view-
        ing transformations to enable the
        interaction with at least part of the object,
        wherein:
            a. the two or more separate com-
            puters are remote from the client
            computer containing a World Wide
            Web browser configured to cause
            the display of the World Wide Web
            page,
            b. the World Wide Web browser has
            been configured with a plurality of
            different interactive-content appli-
            cations, each said interactive-
Case: 22-1932      Document: 59          Page: 9   Filed: 02/01/2024

 EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.             9

              content application being config-
              ured to enable a user to interact,
              within one or more World Wide
              Web pages, with at least part of one
              or more objects while at least part
              of each of said one or more objects
              is displayed to the user within at
              least one of said one or more World
              Wide Web pages,
              c. the World Wide Web browser has
              been enabled, by information that
              has been transferred onto the
              World Wide Web distributed hyper-
              media network, to detect at least
              part of the object and to display the
              world Wide Web Page,
              d. the World Wide Web browser
              has been configured to select an in-
              teractive-content       application,
              based upon the information, from
              among the different interactive-
              content applications, and automat-
              ically invoke the selected interac-
              tive-content application,
              e. the automatically invoked inter-
              active-content application has been
              configured to operate as part of the
              distributed interactive-content ap-
              plication.
 Id. col. 24 l. 56–col. 25 l. 37.
                                    II
     Eolas filed suit against Amazon.com, Inc.; Google LLC;
 and Walmart, Inc. (collectively, “Appellees”) in the Eastern
 District of Texas for infringing certain claims of the ’507
Case: 22-1932       Document: 59    Page: 10   Filed: 02/01/2024

 10       EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

 patent. The cases were later transferred to the Northern
 District of California.
     During claim construction, the district court construed
 the claim limitation “World Wide Web browser on a client
 computer” to not require that the interactive content appli-
 cations be internal to the World Wide Web browser. 3 See
 Claim Construction Op., 2016 WL 7155294, at *12–13. In
 other words, the district court determined that the claim
 did not require relocation of the interactive content appli-
 cation into the World Wide Web browser.
     Appellees filed a motion for summary judgment, argu-
 ing that the claims 19, 24, 26, 32, 37, 39, and 45 are ineli-
 gible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Applying the
 two-step test set forth in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Interna-
 tional, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), the district court concluded
 that under Alice step one, the asserted claims are “directed
 to the abstract idea of enabling interactivity with remote
 objects on a client computer browser using distributed com-
 puting.” Summary Judgment Op., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
 243302, at *20. The district court determined under Alice
 step two that the purported inventive concepts of distrib-
 uted computing and improved security, whether

      3  The court specifically construed the claim term
 “the World Wide Web browser on a client computer” to
 mean “a client computer application, separate from the in-
 teractive-content application, that allows a user to access
 the World Wide Web.” Claim Construction Op., 2016 WL
 7155294, at *13 (emphasis added). This separation cuts
 against the notion that the interactive content application
 must be in the browser. Also, the court’s construction is
 consistent with the title of the ’507 patent, which refers to
 “Automatically Invoking External Application” and Fig-
 ure 8A of the preferred embodiment, which refers to
 launching an external application at step 290. ’507 patent
 Fig. 8A, col. 15 ll. 4–7, ll. 17–18.
Case: 22-1932    Document: 59     Page: 11    Filed: 02/01/2024

 EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.       11

 individually or as an ordered combination, embodied the
 abstract idea, and thus could not transform the claim be-
 yond the abstract idea as required to demonstrate eligibil-
 ity under Alice step two. Id. at *60–61. It also explained
 that the remaining aspects of the asserted claims lacked an
 inventive concept to transform the abstract idea into a pa-
 tent-eligible application because they cite generic computer
 components and functions. See id. at *61–62. The district
 court therefore held the asserted claims ineligible under
 § 101 and granted summary judgment in Appellees’ favor.
 Id. at *67–68.
     Eolas appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
 § 1295(a)(1).
                         DISCUSSION
     When reviewing a district court’s grant of summary
 judgment, we apply the law of the regional circuit. See Syn-
 opsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp., 839 F.3d 1138, 1146
 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Summary judgment in the Ninth Circuit
 is appropriate when, after drawing all reasonable infer-
 ences in favor of the non-moving party, there remains no
 genuine issue of material fact precluding the grant of sum-
 mary judgment. See Comite de Jornaleros de Redondo
 Beach v. City of Redondo Beach, 657 F.3d 936, 942 (9th Cir.
 2011).
     Patent eligibility under § 101 is a question of law that
 may involve underlying questions of fact. See Mortg.
 Grader, Inc. v. First Choice Loan Servs. Inc., 811 F.3d
 1314, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2016). We review the district court’s
 ultimate conclusion on eligibility de novo. See Intell. Ven-
 tures I LLC v. Capital One Fin. Corp., 850 F.3d 1332, 1338
 (Fed. Cir. 2017). We look to the two-step test articulated
 in Alice to determine whether a claim is eligible for patent-
 ing under § 101. See 573 U.S. at 217–18. For Alice step
 one, we must assess whether the claims at issue are di-
 rected to a patent-ineligible concept, namely a law of na-
 ture, natural phenomenon, or abstract idea. Id. at 217. If
Case: 22-1932    Document: 59     Page: 12   Filed: 02/01/2024

 12   EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

 the answer is yes, we then consider the claim elements,
 both individually and as an ordered combination, to deter-
 mine whether they contain an “inventive concept” suffi-
 cient to “‘transform the nature of the claim’ into a patent-
 eligible application.” Id. at 217–18 (quoting Mayo Collab-
 orative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 72–
 73, 78 (2012)). In other words, we must determine whether
 the claims recite additional features beyond the abstract
 idea, rendering the claims eligible for patenting. Those ad-
 ditional features must be more than “well-understood, rou-
 tine, conventional activity.” Mayo, 566 U.S. at 79–80.
     Starting with Alice step one, the district court deter-
 mined that representative claim 32 of the ’507 patent “is
 directed to the abstract concept of enabling interactivity
 with remote objects on a client computer browser using dis-
 tributed computing.” Summary Judgment Op., 2022 U.S.
 Dist. LEXIS 243302, at *27.
      On appeal, Eolas argues that this characterization is
 overgeneralized in that it fails to acknowledge the claim’s
 recitation of objects on the World Wide Web. See Appel-
 lant’s Br. 43–44. We agree. Eolas’s claims are not directed
 to computers, networks, or interacting with content gener-
 ally; rather, they recite interacting with content on the
 World Wide Web. For example, the body of claim 32 recites
 certain configuration requirements of a World Wide Web
 browser, World Wide Web pages, and the World Wide Web
 distributed hypermedia network. The district court’s char-
 acterization “disregard[s] th[e]se express claim elements”
 in a way that is “‘untethered from the claim language.’”
 TecSec, Inc. v. Adobe Inc., 978 F.3d 1278, 1295 (Fed. Cir.
 2020) (quoting Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d
 1327, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2016)); see also Enfish, 822 F.3d
 at 1337 (warning against “describing the claims at such a
 high level of abstraction” in the § 101 analysis). The spec-
 ification further supports our understanding of what the
 claimed invention is directed to in that it describes
Case: 22-1932    Document: 59     Page: 13    Filed: 02/01/2024

 EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.       13

 problems specific to the World Wide Web and explains how
 the invention purports to solve them.
      At the same time, we are concerned that the district
 court’s characterization of what the claims are directed to
 is too specific in that the court included implementation de-
 tails—i.e., using distributed computing—that may be best
 left for consideration under Alice step two. See Summary
 Judgment Op., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 243302, at *60–61.
 In narrowly articulating what the invention was directed
 to under Alice step one and concluding that this subject
 matter was abstract, the district court eliminated any op-
 portunity to consider whether distributed computing trans-
 forms the invention into eligible subject matter under Alice
 step two. See BSG Tech LLC v. Buyseasons, Inc., 899 F.3d
 1281, 1290 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (“After identifying an ineligible
 concept at step one, we ask at step two ‘[w]hat else is there
 in the claims before us?’” (quoting Mayo, 566 U.S. at 78
 (modification in BSG)).
     We nonetheless agree with the district court that, even
 under our slightly modified view of what the claims are di-
 rected to, the claims are directed to an abstract idea under
 Alice step one. Simply put, interacting with data objects
 on the World Wide Web is an abstraction. See Ultramer-
 cial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709, 714–15 (Fed. Cir.
 2014).
     Eolas contends that it developed new functionality that
 was not previously available and thus its claims are eligi-
 ble under § 101. We are not persuaded by this particular
 argument. At best, the specification explains that prior art
 systems provided users “very little, if any, interaction with
 the[] data objects” on the World Wide Web due to the con-
 straints of client computers, ’507 patent col. 6 ll. 22–34,
 and thus “it [wa]s desirable to allow a user to manipulate
 data objects in an interactive way to provide the user with
 a better understanding of information presented and to al-
 low the user to accomplish a wider variety of tasks,” id.
Case: 22-1932    Document: 59     Page: 14    Filed: 02/01/2024

 14   EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

 col. 6 ll. 37–41. But an abstract idea that is new or ground-
 breaking is not any less abstract. See Ultramercial,
 772 F.3d at 714 (rejecting argument that “abstract ideas
 remain patent-eligible under § 101 as long as they are new
 ideas, not previously well known, and not routine activ-
 ity”).
      Case law from the Supreme Court and this court sug-
 gests that claims purporting to improve a technological
 process are not directed to an abstract idea under § 101.
 See Alice, 573 U.S. at 223; Visual Memory LLC v. NVIDIA
 Corp., 867 F.3d 1253, 1260 (Fed. Cir. 2017). According to
 Eolas, the ’507 patent claims capture “specific technologi-
 cal solutions to [three] specific technological problems,”
 and thus, the claims are not abstract under Alice step one.
 Appellant’s Br. 25. First, Eolas asserts that at the time of
 the invention, user interaction with data objects was lim-
 ited to downloading data objects “onto their client comput-
 ers and then launching external applications that would
 [then] permit manipulation” of the data objects. Appel-
 lant’s Br. 23. Eolas asserts that with the claimed inven-
 tion, “rather than downloading objects to be manipulated
 with outside-the-Web-browser helper applications, objects
 are embedded within Web pages and Web browsers are
 configured with applications that can be automatically in-
 voked to permit manipulation while the object is displayed
 within the Web page.” Appellant’s Br. 24. In other words,
 Eolas claims that inside-the-browser applications facilitate
 object manipulation. Second, Eolas contends that in addi-
 tion to relocating applications to reside within the Web
 browser, the claims address scalability with its distributed
 computing configuration: “new applications are broken up
 and distributed, with one part working in the browser and
 other parts on remote distributed application computers.”
 Id. Third, Eolas contends that, by invoking only applica-
 tions that are configured to be used with the Web browser,
 the invention improves security. Appellant’s Br. 24–25. In
 the alternative, Eolas relies on these same three aspects of
Case: 22-1932    Document: 59      Page: 15    Filed: 02/01/2024

 EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.        15

 the invention as alleged inventive concepts that would ren-
 der the claims eligible under Alice step two. See Appel-
 lant’s Br. 55–58. As noted above, Alice step two requires
 determining whether an element, or a combination of ele-
 ments, in the claim contains an inventive concept sufficient
 to “‘transform the nature of the claim’ into a patent-eligible
 application.”    Alice, 573 U.S. at 217 (quoting Mayo,
 566 U.S. at 72, 79). Finally, Eolas contends that claim 45’s
 additional limitation of “viewing transformations” provides
 an inventive concept that renders claim 45 patent-eligible.
 Appellant’s Br. 35.
     Whether analyzed as technological improvements un-
 der Alice step 1 or as inventive concepts under Alice step 2,
 none of Eolas’s three alleged concepts for representative
 claim 32 make the claim eligible. We likewise conclude
 that claim 45 does not recite additional features beyond the
 claimed abstract idea that render the claim eligible for pa-
 tenting. We consider each of Eolas’s alleged inventive con-
 cepts in turn below.
      First, Eolas contends that relocation of the interactive
 content application from outside to inside the World Wide
 Web browser itself was an important new structural
 change that improved interactivity with the World Wide
 Web. But we do not see this limitation anywhere in the
 claims and thus it cannot satisfy Alice step two. And Eolas
 did not challenge the district court’s claim construction,
 which does not require that the interactive content appli-
 cation be internal to the World Wide Web browser, on ap-
 peal. Furthermore, Eolas did not present this alleged
 inventive concept of relocating the interactive application
 in the web browser in its § 101 arguments before the dis-
 trict court below. Thus, not only do the claims not recite
 locating the interactive content applications within the
 browser, but it appears that Eolas waived this argument
 by not presenting it below. Relocation of the interactive
 content application within the web browser is therefore not
Case: 22-1932    Document: 59      Page: 16    Filed: 02/01/2024

 16   EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

 an inventive concept that renders the claims eligible under
 Alice step 2.
     Second, Eolas asserts that the claims recite the in-
 ventive concept of distributed processing between the ap-
 plication in the browser and applications on remote
 distributed computers. But it is undisputed that, at the
 time of the invention, distributed processing was well-un-
 derstood, routine, conventional activity. See Summary
 Judgment Op., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 243302, at *61 n.12;
 Appellees’ Br. 54. For example, one of the named inventors
 of the ’507 patent confirmed that the inventors did not in-
 vent distributed computing, servers, or applications.
 J.A. 16647, 16649 (Martin Depo. at 63:9–18, 65:8–24).
     Moreover, as the district court explained, the claims
 merely describe a desired function or outcome without
 providing details of the claimed distributed processing.
 Specifically, claim 32 requires an automatically invoked in-
 teractive-content application “configured to operate as part
 of a distribution application” that “enable[s] a user” to in-
 teract with data objects within a World Wide Web Page.
 ’507 patent col. 23 ll. 54–62. And the rest of the claim re-
 cites that “a portion of the distributed application [is] lo-
 cated on two or more distributed application computers
 connected to the World Wide Web distributed hypermedia
 network on the Internet [with] the two or more distributed
 application computers being remote from the client com-
 puter.” Id. col. 23 l. 61–col. 24 l. 2. The claim thus recites
 distributed processing, but does not specify how the
 claimed configuration for distributed processing is any dif-
 ferent than generic distributed processing. For example,
 the claim does not specify how the processing is distributed
 among the distributed application computers. Nor does it
 require distributed processing among applications internal
 and external to the web browser. Without more, the dis-
 tributed processing as claimed is not an inventive concept
 that transforms claim 32 into a patent-eligible invention.
Case: 22-1932     Document: 59      Page: 17    Filed: 02/01/2024

 EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.          17

       Third, Eolas alleges its claims alleviate certain security
 concerns existing at the time of the invention by limiting
 the invoked interactive content applications to those con-
 figured to operate within the Web browser. But this al-
 leged inventive concept is not within the scope of the claims
 because, as noted above, the claims do not actually require
 that the interactive content applications be located within
 the browser. Indeed, the claims merely recite that the
 browser invokes interactive-content applications (which,
 under the district court’s construction, are separate from—
 i.e., external to—the “World Wide Web browser”). See ’507
 patent col. 23 ll. 50–53 (“[T]he World Wide Web
 browser . . . select[s] an interactive-content application . . .
 from among the different interactive-content applica-
 tions.”); see also id. Title (“Distributed Hypermedia Method
 and System for Automatically Invoking External Applica-
 tion Providing Interaction and Display of Embedded Ob-
 jects within a Hypermedia Document”); id. col. 15 ll. 4–7,
 ll. 15–30. Thus, the claims are not eligible under either Al-
 ice step one or Alice step two based on this contention.
     Finally, turning to claim 45, Eolas asserts that the ad-
 ditional limitation requiring remote computers to generate
 and send computer commands to perform “viewing trans-
 formations” offers a 3D view that improves a computer net-
 work system’s specific technical features or operations.
 Appellant’s Br. 35. This additional limitation does not
 transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible claim.
 The district court construed “viewing transformations” to
 mean “operations performed on data for visual display to a
 user.” Claim Construction Op., 2016 WL 7155294, at *16.
 This broad construction, which is unchallenged on appeal,
 encompasses visual display generally, something well-
 known in the art at the time of the invention. See, e.g.,
 J.A. 16655–56 (Martin Depo. 145:18–146:2) (Inventor Mar-
 tin denying having invented sending commands to a re-
 mote server to perform visualization processes);
 J.A. 12150–51 (prior art publication describing sending
Case: 22-1932    Document: 59      Page: 18     Filed: 02/01/2024

 18   EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES INCORPORATED v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

 scientific visualization to remote computers); ’507 patent
 col. 6 ll. 2–4 (explaining in background of the invention sec-
 tion that “a variety of visualization techniques . . . have
 been developed”); J.A. 13047 (Inventor Doyle describing ex-
 isting visualization systems in a 1994 proposal). Nor does
 anything else in the claim or the specification show how the
 recited viewing transformation differs from conventional
 visual display. Thus, the “viewing transformations” limi-
 tation in claim 45—construed as “operations performed on
 data for visual display to a user”—fails to transform the
 abstract idea into an eligible technical solution. See, e.g.,
 Elec. Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1355
 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (stating that “‘displaying concurrent visu-
 alization’ of two or more types of information . . . is ‘insuf-
 ficient to pass the test of an inventive concept in the
 application’ of an abstract idea’” (quoting buySAFE, Inc.
 v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1353, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2014)).
     For all of the above reasons, we conclude that the
 claims are directed to an abstract idea under Alice step 1
 and that the alleged inventive concepts identified by Eolas
 do not otherwise transform the abstract nature of the
 claims to render the claims patent-eligible. We thus agree
 with the district court’s judgment that the asserted claims
 of the ’507 patent are not eligible for patenting.
                         CONCLUSION
     We have considered Eolas’s remaining arguments and
 find them unpersuasive. Because the district court cor-
 rectly concluded that the ’507 patent claims are directed to
 ineligible subject matter, we affirm.
                         AFFIRMED