IP Law Daily, PATENT—N.D. Cal. Judgment on pleadings denied in aircraft collision detection system dispute, (Jun 5, 2024)

By Kevin M. Finson

Claims for detecting approaching aircraft and avoiding collisions were not unpatentable for being abstract because they possessed an inventive concept.

A patentee’s claims for a system to use acoustic sensors to detect aircraft was not shown at the pleading stage to be unpatentable as directed to an abstract idea because they plausibly recited an inventive concept, the U.S. District Court in San Francisco has held. Counterclaims and defenses based on inequitable conduct also were properly pleaded (Scientific Applications & Research Associates (SARA), Inc. v. Zipline International, Inc., No. 3:22-cv-04480-JSC (N.D. Cal. June 4, 2024)).

Scientific Applications & Research Associates (SARA), Inc. (SARA) was the owner of U.S. Patent No. 7,606,115 (the ’115 patent), which claimed a system for piloted and unmanned aircraft to use sound emitted from approaching aircraft to detect those aircraft, assess the risk of collision, and avoid a collision. SARA brought suit against Zipline International, Inc. (Zipline) for infringement and trade secret misappropriation for selling unmanned aerial vehicles incorporating acoustic detect and avoid technology. Zipline counterclaimed and filed affirmative defenses alleging that the patent was obtained by inequitable conduct. Zipline moved for judgment on the pleadings on the ground that the asserted claims were invalid for reciting patent-ineligible subject matter. SARA moved to dismiss the counterclaims and strike the affirmative defense.

Abstract idea. Applying the two-step Alice test, the court first found that the claimed invention consisted of collecting, filtering, and analyzing of information—in this case, sound received from an array of microphones on the aircraft. This was an abstract idea. However, on step two of the Alice test, the court found that the particular application of acoustic information to the problem of collision detection in aircraft had not been shown to be merely conventional, and so was not patent-ineligible, at least at the pleading stage. The court noted that the prior art only disclosed use of visual or radar-based systems.

Inequitable conduct. Zipline asserted six counterclaims and one affirmative defense all related to the alleged failure to disclose six prior art references during prosecution of the ’115 patent. SARA argued that the pleadings lacked specific facts showing a specific intent to deceive. The court found it had been plausibly alleged that the withholding of these prior art references was done with the intent to deceive because the named inventors, who were Zipline’s employees, were the authors of five of the six references and the remaining reference was also written by a Zipline employee. The authorship, combined with an allegation that SARA had mis-classified a slide presentation, disclosed in discovery as non-public despite having presented identical slides at a public conference, in order to conceal its knowledge of the publicly known art at the time of filing of the application, were sufficient to support the reasonable inference of an intent to deceive.

The court denied both motions.

The Case is No. 3:22-cv-04480-JSC.

Judge: Corley, J.

Attorneys: Brandon H. Stroy (Maynard Nexsen LLP) for Scientific Applications & Research Associates [SARA], Inc. Heidi Lyn Keefe (Cooley LLP) for Zipline International, Inc.

Companies: Scientific Applications & Research Associates [SARA], Inc.; Zipline International, Inc.

Cases: Patent CaliforniaNews