The appeal
The case is Piranha Media Distribution LLC v. Hulu, LLC, No. 2025-1038 (Fed. Cir.), on appeal from Piranha Media Distribution LLC v. Hulu, LLC, No. 2:24-cv-00498-JLS-KS (C.D. Cal.), Judge Josephine L. Staton. Piranha sued in January 2024 on U.S. Patents 10,986,403 and 11,463,768. The opinion says the '768 patent is a continuation of the '403 patent. The parties agreed that claim 1 of the '403 patent is representative of all asserted claims of both patents for the eligibility question. The district court granted Hulu's motion to dismiss under 35 U.S.C. 101. Piranha Media Distrib., LLC v. Hulu, LLC, 748 F. Supp. 3d 928, 938-39 (C.D. Cal. 2024).
What claim 1 recites
Claim 1 of the '403 patent, as set out in the opinion (slip op. at 3-5), recites in part: "A digital media player device for controlling digital media presentations, the digital media player device comprising: one or more processors for receiving data comprising digital media content and digital advertising content; a user interface input for allowing a user to control a course of presentation of the digital media content received; an intersplicer for controlling one or more insertion points of the digital advertising content into the digital media content thereby sequencing the digital media content and the digital advertising content, . . . in response to user input updating a current play position in the content stream to a new play position in the content stream, the one or more processors using one or more adaptive preference rules to adaptively modify a presentation position of the digital advertising content from at least one of the one or more initially sequenced insertion points to one or more alternatively sequenced insertion points in the digital media content, . . . such that at least one of the alternatively sequenced insertion points is positioned at a play position in the digital media content that satisfies a condition selected from: the play position being a predetermined length of time after the new play position, the play position being a predetermined number of digital media data blocks after the new play position; and a user interface output for causing presentation of the content stream . . . ; and at least a first memory for storing a setting to indicate a first state of play, the setting including a first value to indicate presentation of a required part of the digital advertising content is in progress during presentation of the content stream such that responsive to detecting the first value in the first memory, the user interface input is disabled to prevent commands comprising at least one of a user volume control or a user navigation control from altering a course of presentation of the content stream while presentation of the required part of the digital advertising content is in progress."
The opinion describes the '768 patent as claiming a digital media system, a method in the form of executable instructions, and a computer program product, all relating to insertion points for digital advertising content. This page does not separately paraphrase a '768 claim.
The holding
The court applied the two-step framework of Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012), and Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014). At step one, it held that claim 1 of the '403 patent is directed to the abstract idea of preventing skipping advertisements by receiving, organizing, displaying, and controlling access to data. At step two, it held that the limitations of claim 1, individually or as an ordered combination, recite "'well-understood, routine conventional activit[ies],' either by requiring conventional computer activities or routine data-gathering steps," quoting OIP Technologies, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015), which in turn quoted Alice, 573 U.S. at 225. It affirmed.
The district court had rejected Hulu's argument that a 2020 Board decision, rejecting earlier claims in the application that led to the '403 patent, precluded Piranha from litigating eligibility. The Federal Circuit does not reach whether that Board decision has any preclusive effect. It notes that the district court did not rely on preclusion and considered the Board decision only to the extent the court found the reasoning persuasive.
What to watch next
Watch for any petition for rehearing, and for how district courts cite this nonprecedential affirmance in later section 101 motions on ad-insertion and playback-control claims.