              Case: 23-1101            Document: 15         Page: 248   Filed: 05/09/2023

                                         PUBLIC VERSION



        These claims are expressly directed to technical improvements to then-existing

technology, namely those associated with electronically programmable thermostats and other

HVAC controls. See Alice, 573 U.S. at 217 (claims patent-eligible as a matter of law if “they

improve an existing technological process”). Therefore, the administrative law judge finds that

the asserted claims are patent-eligible as a matter of law. Id.

        Moreover, the specification provides further evidence that this claimed system and

method is a significant departure and improvement over the existing electronic thermostat and

HVAC control system. For example, “conventional” electronic thermostats and other HVAC

controls had “no mechanism by which it might take the thermal mass of the structure into

account, but thermal mass significantly affects many parameters relating to energy efficiency.”

JX-0001 (’497 patent) & JX-0002 (‘322 patent) at col. 3, lns. 1-4; col. 2, lns. 52-67. The claims

of the ’322 and ’497 patents purport to overcome the limitations in the conventional electronic

thermostat HVAC control system at the time. For instance, the inventions use a networked

thermostat HVAC control system to “measure[] temperature” in a building and “reporting said

temperature measurements as well as the status of an HVAC control system over the Internet.”

Id. at col. 3, ln. 62 – col. 4, ln. 14, col. 6, lns. 14-59, Fig. 1.

        The administrative law judge thus finds that respondents have not shown that the asserted

claims of the of the ’497 and ’322 patents are directed to an abstract idea, devoid of a concrete or

tangible application.

                                  b.      Alice Step Two

        Respondents argue, in part:

               None of the claims of either the ’497 or ’322 patent provide any inventive
        concept under step two of Alice. As EcoFactor’s own experts and the named
        inventor admit, the claimed components of the asserted claims of the ’497 and ’322

                                                     423

                                                  Appx1919
