Slippery Slope's End

It had to happen sooner or later.

A court ruling that real is abstract.

Thales Visionix v. USA wins the prize.

"The parties agree that the ‘159 patent at issue in this case is extraordinarily complicated, ... “standard inertial tracking systems . . . [would] not function correctly if operated on a moving platform ... the “system” is merely a generic, physical application of the mathematical formulae. ... TVI argues that the placement of a second inertial sensor on the moving reference frame is unique, and allowed the inventors to overcome any novelty or obviousness rejections ... Ultimately, the invention requires the inertial trackers to gather orientation data from the moving object and moving reference frame and then apply that data to the navigation equation.

The legal question before the Court is whether this system of generic inertial trackers and a novel navigation equation together form a patentable subject matter. ... The modern test for patent eligibility, derived from Alice, consists of two parts: ... The Court declines to perform any claim construction before ruling on the validity of the claimed subject matter ...

Put simply, the system in Claim 1 appears to be an arrangement of generic data-gathering elements designed to feed orientation data into the navigation equations, which are described in Claim 22.
Here, the Court similarly finds that TVI fails the first prong of the Alice analysis because the independent claims of the ‘159 Patent are directed to mathematical equations for determining the relative position of a moving object to a moving reference frame. Derived from Newtonian principles of motion ... The claims allow for the application of the navigation equation in almost endless environments, and are not limited to a fighter jet and a pilot’s helmet. ... By claiming various generic inertial trackers and receivers for gathering orientation data, the inventors would preempt anyone who sought to use the equations because the only feasible way to gather orientation data from moving objects and reference frames would be from devices like the ones broadly described in the patent. Thus, the claims here are potentially endless in their scope, and would not allow for others to use the mathematical equation at their core.

Plaintiff’s attempt to characterize the patent process as a “transformation of sensor data into helmet-orientation information” belies the scope of the patent’s claims, which are not limited to a helmet’s interface. Instead, the data is entered into a navigation equation and solved to provide the moving object’s position and orientation relative to a moving reference frame. ... The Court finds that solving a mathematical equation incorporating Newtonian principles of motion does not “transform” sensor data in to motion tracking information any more than Einstein’s discovery of the natural law E=mc^2 transforms a mass measurement into energy information. Contrary to Plaintiff’s characterizations, the data is not fed into one side of a machine and pushed out the other as something new. In stead, the tracking information is derived from mathematical calculations based on a combination of the sensor data and natural laws of motion. Plaintiff therefore fails the transformation prong of the machine-or-transformation test."

Yah all think yah gonna fool this country judge with them fancy suits and all them fancy equations, don't yah?

How many yoots at 4 degrees off top dead center? Come again?