USC IP PARTNERSHIP V META , FEDERAL CIRCUIT 2023 (SOFTWARE PATENTS)
USC brought suit for infringement against Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms, Inc.), asserting that its “News Feed” feature infringes claims 1–17 of U.S. Patent No. 8,645,300. The software patent relates to a search engine software method for predicting which webpages to recommend to a web visitor based on inferences of the visitor’s “intent.” The software patent states that website navigation can be enhanced “by recording a visitor’s intent and recording page rankings that indicate how well the pages of a website match the visitor’s intent.” The software patent further explains that visitor intent can be inferred from historical intent data, the Uniform Resource Locator, the user’s visits, and optional user intent confirmation. The lower court, the Western District…