Ecommerce technology company Shopify has come out ahead in a federal court case brought by DKR Consulting, which asserted Shopify had infringed on patents related to ecommerce Buy buttons and social media.
DKR filed the case, DKR Consulting LLC v. Shopify Inc., last August within the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Shopify contends tech features are freed from patents
Shopify contended that its use of the technology features at issue involved general methods of ecommerce that weren’t patentable and requested a dismissal of the case in March. Judge Hernán D. Vera agreed and dismissed the case on Aug. 1.
Gregory H. Lantier, an attorney representing Shopify on the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, argued in court documents that the patents at issue referred to common online business practices and weren’t subject to patent law.
“The 4 patents asserted on this case (collectively, the “Buy Button Patents”) claim not more than the abstract idea of using conventional computer technology, equivalent to servers and web widgets to mix advertisements with order forms,” Lantier said. “Because the Federal Circuit has repeatedly recognized, this sort of computerization of a known business practice is just not patentable.”
The roots of DKR’s lawsuit grew out of its concerns that Shopify had worked from 2011 to 2015 with DIY Media Inc., which previously owned the asserted patents before DKR acquired them. (DIY Media is a nonparty within the DKR lawsuit.)
DKR asserts Shopify unfairly exploited social media trends
DKR claimed that Shopify benefitted from DIY Media’s methods for deploying ecommerce widgets in ways designed, partly, to “exploit social media marketing trends to have interaction in purchase transactions … over the rapidly growing variety of mobile networks and associated mobile devices.”
But Judge Vera agreed with Shopify’s contention that such methods were outside of what might be considered patentable.
“The Court concludes that the claims at issue listed here are directed to an abstract idea — specifically, that of mixing an order form with a product commercial, through using conventional computer technology,” Judge Vera wrote in his Order Granting Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. “While the Asserted Patents aver that they improve the effectiveness of web widgets to distribute content widely and enable merchants to utilize social media to have interaction customers, the thought of enhancing web widgets doesn’t constitute an advance in computer functionality. On the contrary, the claims at issue here use conventional computer technology as a tool to facilitate ecommerce.”
Shopify’s extensive reach in ecommerce
In May, Shopify filed a lawsuit against Shopline Commerce Pte. Ltd and Shopline US Inc., alleging they developed a copycat version of Dawn, a Shopify application used to develop customizable ecommerce storefront templates. That case remains to be pending within the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Latest York.
Shopify’s ecommerce technology, including its Shopify Plus platform, is widely utilized by each retail and B2B firms, equivalent to industrial paint equipment distributor Pittsburgh Spray Equipment Co.
In North America, 117 of the Top 1000 online retailers use Shopify as their ecommerce platform. The Top 1000 is Digital Commerce 360’s database of the most important online retailers within the region by annual web sales. In 2023, those 117 online retailers combined for greater than $9.72 billion in web sales.
Shopify didn’t immediately return a request for comment. Attorneys for DKR Consulting also didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. [email protected].
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