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On June 25, 2019, the Federal Circuit held that a trial court wrongly dismissed Cellspin Soft, Inc.’s (Cellspin), patent infringement lawsuits after determining that the four disputed patents were invalid and covered an abstract idea. Cellspin Soft, Inc. v. Fitbit, Inc., Fed. Cir., 18-1817, 6/25/19.

Cellspin sued many of the preeminent smartwatch makers in the world, including Garmin, FitBit, and Nike, and other companies, for infringing four of Cellspin’s patents. The patents all related to connecting data capturing devices, like smartwatches, to mobile devices. The Court agreed with the district court’s analysis in the first step of the Alice test that Cellspin’s patents covered the abstract idea of data transfer and didn’t describe technological improvements. But, the Court noted that the patents’ claims are directed to an inventive concept as required by the second step, noting that the district court should have found that the patents captured, transferred, and published data in a way that is inventive.