Judge Pitts Dismisses Valtrus's Search and CPU-Metering Patent Claims Against Google Under Section 101.

Valtrus Innovations Ltd. and Key Patent Innovations Limited filed Valtrus Innovations Ltd. v. Google LLC, No. 5:26-cv-02379, in the Northern District of California on March 18, 2026. According to the August 10, 2026 order, Valtrus first sued Google on the same three patents in the Northern District of Texas in January 2022; that litigation was consolidated and transferred to the Northern District of California as No. 5:25-cv-07063-PCP, where the court granted Google's motion to dismiss for lack of constitutional standing and claim splitting on March 16, 2026. Valtrus filed this suit two days later. Google moved to dismiss the first amended complaint (Dkt. No. 37), and on August 10, 2026, Judge P. Casey Pitts granted the motion under 35 U.S.C. 101, with prejudice and without leave to amend. (Order 1 to 2, 28.)

Patents and accused products

According to the August 10 order, the operative complaint alleged infringement of claims 1 to 6, 12, 13, and 15 to 17 of U.S. Patent 6,728,704, titled "Method and Apparatus for Merging Result Lists from Multiple Search Engines"; claims 1 to 20 of U.S. Patent 7,346,604, titled "Method for Ranking Hypertext Search Results by Analysis of Hyperlinks from Expert Documents and Keyword Scope"; and claims 2 to 5, 11, 13 to 17, 19, and 20 of U.S. Patent 6,816,809, titled "Hardware Based Utilization Metering." The order describes the patents as relating to search engine software and hardware-based CPU metering. The original complaint alleges, on information and belief, that Google infringes the '704 and '604 patents through Google Search and the '809 patent through Google Cloud. (Order 1 to 5; Compl. paragraphs 28 to 29, 85, 92, 146 to 147.)

What the patents cover

Claim 1 of U.S. Patent 6,728,704, as quoted in the order, is a method of merging result lists from multiple search engines: transmitting a query to a set of search engines, receiving a result list from each, selecting a subset of entries from each result list, assigning each selected entry a scoring value, assigning each subset a representative value based on its entries' scoring values, and producing a merged list in a predetermined manner based on those representative values. (Order 3, 9.)

Claim 1 of U.S. Patent 7,346,604, as quoted in the order, is a computer-implemented method for searching hypertext documents in accordance with a search query: forming a set of expert documents from all crawled hypertext documents without reference to the query, ranking the expert documents in accordance with the query, ranking target documents pointed to by the ranked expert documents, and returning a results list based on the ranked target documents. (Order 16 to 17.)

Claim 1 of U.S. Patent 6,816,809, as quoted in the order, is a hardware-based utilization metering device with an idle indicator, coupled to a processor, that receives an indication when the processor is in a first state; a counter, coupled to the idle indicator and to a system clock, that generates a counter value indicative of the time the processor is in that state; and a data usage provider that can provide the counter value. Asserted claim 2 depends from claim 1 and specifies that the first state is a busy state. Asserted method claim 13 covers determining when any of a plurality of processors is busy, providing a busy indication to a counter, receiving system time at the counter, incrementing a counter value based on the busy indication and busy time, and maintaining the counter value. (Order 5, 21 to 22.)

The section 101 dismissal

The court held that every asserted claim fails both steps of Alice. For the '704 patent, it held the claims directed to the abstract idea of ranking and merging subsets of search results, a method that "merely describes receiving information and returning it in modified form," and found no inventive concept at step two. For the '604 patent, it held the claims drawn to the abstract idea of generating a subset of documents and ranking them in response to a user's search query. For the '809 patent, the court noted Google's acknowledgment that the claims recite a hardware-based solution, but held them drawn at such a high level of generality that they are directed to the abstract idea of tracking busyness, which it said can be done by humans with pen and paper. For each patent, the court found ineligibility apparent from the face of the claim language and dismissed with prejudice and without leave to amend. It did not reach Google's remaining arguments on the sufficiency of the allegations and claim splitting. (Order 9 to 10, 13, 16 to 17, 21 to 22, 27 to 28.)

Notice of appeal

The district court docket shows a notice of appeal to the Federal Circuit filed August 11, 2026 (ECF No. 49), the day after the order and judgment (ECF Nos. 47 and 48), its transmission to the Federal Circuit on August 13, and a Federal Circuit case number entry on August 20, 2026 (ECF No. 52). Separately, on October 19, 2026, the Federal Circuit affirmed in No. 2024-1945 the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision that Google had not shown claims 1 to 23 of the '704 patent unpatentable in IPR2022-01545.

What to watch next

Watch for briefing in the Federal Circuit appeal from the August 10 dismissal.