The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit applied KSR and its obviousness progeny, finding that patent claims directed to location plotting were obvious under 35 USC § 103. Uber Techs., Inc. v. X One, Inc., Case No. 19-1164 (Fed. Cir. May 5, 2020) (Prost, CJ).

X One sued Uber Technologies asserting a patent directed to exchanging location information between mobile devices, such that a user could add other mobile device users to a “Buddy List,” share her location with listed buddies or temporary “instant buddies,” and see the locations of her buddies on a map. The patent’s purported novelty lay in “two way position information sharing,” creation of location sharing “groups,” and “temporary location sharing” that “automatically expires.”

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