Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Plaintiff DiStefano Website Innovations, LLC sued Defendants ByteDance Ltd., ByteDance Inc., TikTok Inc., and related entities, alleging that their applications—TikTok, CapCut, and Lemon8—infringed two patents related to website construction: U.S. Patent Nos. 11,763,316 and RE45,971. The patents describe methods for creating reciprocal hyperlinks and marketing arrangements between websites. Plaintiff alleged infringement of claims 1, 3-9, 11, and 13 of the ’316 Patent and claims 4, 8-9, and 12-13 of the ’971 Patent.
Defendants moved to dismiss the amended complaint on the basis that the asserted claims are not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. They argued that the claims failed the two-step inquiry in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International and that issue preclusion applied because a related patent had been found ineligible in DiStefano Patent Trust III, LLC v. LinkedIn Corp. Plaintiff opposed, arguing that the claims were directed to technological improvements and contained inventive concepts.
The order recounts that Plaintiff first sued in the Western District of Texas, dismissed that action, refiled in the Eastern District of Texas, and obtained a transfer to the Northern District of California before filing the amended complaint. After briefing, the court states that it carefully reviewed the parties’ briefs and heard argument on June 17, 2026.
The Court’s Holding
The court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss without leave to amend. At Alice step one, it found that the claimed advances in both patents focus on an abstract idea: reciprocal arrangements between websites, which the court characterized as a form of cross-marketing and a fundamental economic practice. The court rejected Plaintiff’s argument that the claims improved website creation, explaining that the claim language is result-focused and does not supply the specificity needed to claim a way of achieving the idea rather than the result itself.
At Alice step two, the court found no inventive concept, either individually or as an ordered combination. It concluded that the claims merely invoke generic computer components to perform conventional functions and do not describe a specific, discrete implementation of the abstract idea. The court also held that Plaintiff’s amended-complaint allegations do not allege facts; they merely repeat legal conclusions, so they do not preclude dismissal.
Finally, the court concluded that amendment would be futile because patent eligibility rests on the language of the patents themselves and the claims fail both Alice steps based on the intrinsic evidence. The court therefore dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice and without leave to amend.
Key Takeaways
- The asserted claims were directed to the abstract idea of reciprocal arrangements between websites, a form of cross-marketing, and were ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
- At Alice step one, the court treated the claims as addressing a fundamental economic practice rather than a specific technological improvement to computer functionality.
- At Alice step two, the court found no inventive concept because the claims used generic computer components in a conventional way without a specific, discrete implementation.
- The court treated Plaintiff’s inventiveness allegations as legal conclusions rather than factual allegations sufficient to avoid dismissal.
- Leave to amend was futile, and the dismissal was with prejudice and without leave to amend.
Why It Matters
The decision applies the Alice two-step framework at the motion-to-dismiss stage to website-linking patents and shows that claims reciting reciprocal arrangements implemented on generic computer components remain vulnerable under Section 101. It also illustrates that conclusory allegations of an unconventional combination do not by themselves create a factual dispute requiring denial of dismissal.
The ruling reinforces that amendment may be futile when the eligibility defect appears in the intrinsic patent language itself, because no complaint amendment can change what the patents say.