TS Patents LLC v. Yahoo! Inc.

Dismissal for failure to state a claim, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), requires a court to take as true all factual assertions. In a patent case, such assertions include historical facts about what knowledge was routine and conventional at the time of the invention. At the same time, a U.S. patent is presumed valid, 35 U.S.C. § 282, and can be invalidated only upon clear and convincing evidence, Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Ltd. P’ship, 564 U.S. 91 (2011). This Court has never affirmatively approved the invalidation of a patent under Rule 12(b)(6) when the patent’s validity depends on whether elements of the invention were well-understood, routine, or conventional. Nor has the Court disapproved of it. This Court also has not defined what, if any, aspects of patent-eligibility constitute historical facts that must be assumed true at the pleading stage. Question Presented: Can a court dismiss a patent infringement complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), for a lack of patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, when the complaint and patent assert that the invention yields novel technical improvements over existing technologies, or must those factual assertions be presumed true, consistent with Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009)?