Qtechnologies, Inc. v. Walmart, Inc.

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
Q TECHNOLOGIES, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
WALMART, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2024-1667
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Western District of Texas in No. 6:21-cv-00779-ADA, Judge
Alan D Albright.
______________________
Decided: February 5, 2026
______________________
RAYINER HASHEM, MoloLamken LLP, Washington, DC,
argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by
JENNIFER ELIZABETH FISCHELL, WALTER H. HAWES, IV,
JEFFREY A. LAMKEN; BENOIT QUARMBY, Hexagon Advo-
cates, New York, NY.
GABRIEL K. BELL, Latham & Watkins LLP, Washing-
ton, DC, argued for defendant-appellee. Also represented
by KATHRYN RILEY GRASSO, DLA Piper LLP (US),
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Q TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. WALMART, INC. 2
Washington DC; STANLEY JOSEPH PANIKOWSKI, III, San Di-
ego, CA.
______________________
Before LOURIE, BRYSON, and REYNA, Circuit Judges.
LOURIE, Circuit Judge.
Q Technologies, Inc. (“Q Tech”) appeals from a final de-
cision of the United States District Court for the Western
District of Texas holding that, as a matter of law, all as-
serted claims of U.S. Patents 9,635,108 (“the ’108 patent”),
10,567,473 (“the ’473 patent”), and 10,594,774 (“the ’774
patent”) are ineligible and hence invalid under 35 U.S.C.
§ 101. Q Techs., Inc. v. Walmart, Inc., No. 6:21-CV-00779-
ADA, 2024 WL 1146150 (W.D. Tex. Mar. 6, 2024) (“Deci-
sion”). For the following reasons, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Q Tech sued Defendant-Appellee Walmart Inc.
(“Walmart”), alleging infringement of the ’108, ’473, and
’774 patents. The ’108 patent is the parent of the ’473 pa-
tent, which is in turn the parent of the ’774 patent. All
three patents share a common specification. Q Tech ulti-
mately asserted claims 1 and 10 of the ’108 patent, claims
14 and 16 of the ’473 patent, and claims 1, 3, 4, and 14 of
the ’774 patent. As the district court ruled, and the parties
agree on appeal, claim 1 of the ’108 patent is exemplary for
purposes of the § 101 analysis such that all asserted claims
rise and fall with that claim. Decision, 2024 WL 1146150,
at *3; Q Tech Op. Br. 11, 15, 32; Walmart Resp. Br. 6.
The ’108 patent is “generally directed to methods [and
systems] for content sharing using uniquely generated
identifiers.” ’108 patent col. 1 ll. 23–25. The specification
discloses a system in which a first client sends shared con-
tent, a “unique identifier,” and its location to a server,
which “may store the shared content.” Id. at col. 1 ll. 25–
31. A second client may then request that content by
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providing the identifier and its own location. Id. at col. 1
ll. 31–33. Finally, the server “may send the shared content
to the second client” if it determines the second location is
within a predefined distance of the first client or the iden-
tifier matches stored identifiers. Id. at col. 1 ll. 33–38.
Walmart moved for summary judgment at the trial
court, arguing that the asserted claims were patent ineli-
gible under § 101 as a matter of law. The court agreed and
held that claim 1 of the ’108 patent, and therefore all as-
serted claims, are patent ineligible under the two-step
framework set forth in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l,
573 U.S. 208 (2014). Decision, 2024 WL 1146150, at *6. At
Alice step 1, the court concluded that exemplary claim 1
was “directed to the abstract idea of sharing content using
a unique identifier.” Id. at *4. At Alice step 2, the court
concluded that “[w]hether taken individually or as an or-
dered combination,” the claims contain no inventive con-
cept because they merely recite “well understood, routine
and conventional activities, identifiers and components,
such as servers and clients.” Id. at *6. The court therefore
granted Walmart’s motion for summary judgment of ineli-
gibility and hence invalidity under § 101. Id. at *7.
Q Tech timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).
DISCUSSION
Q Tech argues that the district court’s “summary judg-
ment [holding] that the ’108 patent family claims are inel-
igible under §101, is erroneous.” Q Tech Op. Br. 3.
Specifically, Q Tech argues that, at Alice step one, the dis-
trict court erred by characterizing the claims as directed to
the abstract idea of “sharing content using a unique iden-
tifier,” because such a characterization ignores express lim-
itations requiring location determination and proximity-
based notification, which instead direct the claims to a spe-
cific, location-based file-sharing method rooted in real-
world technological processes. Id. at 2–3. At Alice step
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two, Q Tech contends that the district court improperly re-
solved factual disputes by labeling the claims “well under-
stood, routine, [and] conventional,” despite unrebutted
evidence that the claimed use of location and proximity in-
formation to control access and notify users was novel and
inventive, thereby creating at least a genuine issue of ma-
terial fact and precluding summary judgment. Id. at 4.
We disagree. We discuss each Alice step in turn.
For matters unrelated to patent law, “we apply the law
of the regional circuit, here the Fifth Circuit.” Core Wire-
less Licensing S.A.R.L. v. LG Elecs., Inc., 880 F.3d 1356,
1361 (Fed. Cir. 2018). “The Fifth Circuit reviews motions
for summary judgment and motions for judgment as mat-
ter of law de novo.” Id. “Summary judgment is appropriate
when the evidence shows that no genuine issue of material
fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as
a matter of law.” BSG Tech LLC v. Buyseasons, Inc.,
899 F.3d 1281, 1285 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (citation modified).
Moreover, we apply our own law to questions of patent law,
and, as relevant here, determinations of subject-matter el-
igibility under § 101 are reviewed de novo. Id.
Section 101 of the Patent Act defines the subject matter
eligible for patent protection: “any new and useful process,
machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any
new and useful improvement thereof.” 35 U.S.C. § 101.
However, “this provision contains an important implicit ex-
ception: Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract
ideas are not patentable.” Alice Corp. Pty. v. CLS Bank
Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 216 (2014) (quoting Assoc. for Molecular
Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S. 576, 589
(2013)). Those exceptions help prevent field “pre-emption”
because they protect “the basic tools of scientific and tech-
nological work.” Id. (citation modified). Under the two-
step framework in Alice, we first ask whether the claims
are directed to “one of those patent-ineligible concepts,”
and, if so, we next ask whether they include an “inventive
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concept” sufficient to transform that ineligible concept into
patent-eligible subject matter. Id. at 217.
We agree with the district court that, at Alice step one,
exemplary claim 1 of the ’108 patent is directed to “the
abstract idea of sharing content using a unique identifier,”
by matching a unique identifier with a location, and does
not claim a technological improvement to computer
networks or file-sharing technology itself. Decision,
2024 WL 1146150, at *4. The use of location or proximity
information merely limits when or with whom content is
shared, which does not render the claims any less abstract,
but instead reflects the application of an abstract idea
using generic networking components operating in their
conventional manner. See Beteiro, LLC v. DraftKings Inc.,
104 F.4th 1350, 1355–57 (Fed. Cir. 2024) (holding claims
abstract at step one where they recite generic, result-
focused steps for exchanging information and permitting or
denying an activity based on user location, reflecting a
longstanding economic practice implemented with
conventional computer functions).
We also agree with the district court that claim 1 of the
’108 patent does not supply an inventive concept at Alice
step two. The district court correctly concluded that,
“[w]hether taken individually or as an ordered combina-
tion,” claim 1 recites only “well understood, routine and
conventional activities, identifiers and components, such
as servers and clients.” Decision, 2024 WL 1146150, at *6.
The asserted reliance on location information and a pur-
ported “hybrid architecture,” Q Tech Op. Br. 51, does not
transform the abstract idea into patent-eligible subject
matter, as the claims do not recite any nonconventional im-
plementation or improvement in computer functionality it-
self. See In re TLI Commc’ns LLC Pat. Litig., 823 F.3d 607,
615 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (holding claims ineligible at step two
because “the recited physical components behave exactly
as expected according to their ordinary use”); ’108 patent
col. 18 l. 65–col.19 l. 35.
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In sum, the district court properly determined that no
genuine dispute of material fact precluded summary judg-
ment, and we therefore affirm its judgment of patent ineli-
gibility and thus invalidity under § 101.
CONCLUSION
We have considered Q Tech’s remaining arguments but
find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we
affirm.
AFFIRMED
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