A claim chart is a widely used device in US patent infringement litigation. It is a convenient and effective means for analyzing and presenting information regarding a patent claim. In each, typically, there are two columns: the left column contains the language of the patent claim under analysis, separated into the successive limitations (e.g. elements or steps, integers, parts) of the claim; the right column contains the information relating to the claim element at its left.
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Types of claim chart
There are three principal types of claim chart:
Other claim chart types include initial or preliminary infringement contentions (PICs); domestic industry (DI) charts employed in International Trade Commission (ITC) importation actions; expert claim charts; "parts list" charts used for example as demonstrative exhibits; claim charts presented during licensing or settlement negotiations; and design patent charts.
Illustrative example of claim chart
The following illustrative chart of references to show the invalidity of a hypothetical patent is based on a chart that was prepared by the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and is found in its Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP), § 2214:
Alice and Bob chart
There is an additional type of chart similar to a claim chart but recently come in to use only in cases involving computer-implemented business methods or other methods or system for organizing human activity or conduct. An Alice and Bob chart is somewhat similar to the PTO's chart shown above, but its purpose is to show that the subject matter of the patent in suit is a familiar and commonplace human or business activity, such as headhunting, matchmaking, shopping in a store—this is in aid of an argument that the patent is directed to a patent-ineligible abstract idea.
The left column of this type of chart is the same as that of the claim charts described above. In the right column, the steps or elements of a well known business expedient or way of organizing human activity are listed (in an anecdote performed by a notional Alice and Bob). The purpose is to show that the claimed process or system is well known with the addition only of "do it with a computer" (or something similar). Under the Supreme Court's decision in Alice v. CLS Bank such a patent claim is usually invalidated as a mere abstract idea (unless implemented in an inventive manner).
The first recorded use of an Alice and Bob table appears to have been in Google's briefs in Walker Digital, LLC v. Google, Inc. The court said that the chart showed: "As the following hypothetical [case] (articulated by Google, and not meaningfully distinguished by Walker) shows, these steps can and routinely are performed by, for example, human job headhunters." This is the chart from the Walker Digital case:
As a result of its review of the chart, the Walker Digital court concluded:
Even after carefully reviewing the parties’ briefs and the patents, and questioning the parties about Google’s hypothetical at the hearing, the Court is unable to discern any reason why, in Google’s hypothetical, Carol would not be liable for infringement of Walker’s ’270 patent. Based on the undisputed evidence, and drawing all reasonable inferences in Walker’s favor, the Court concludes that every step of claim 1 of the ’270 patent is performed in Google’s routine headhunting hypothetical. It follows that all the steps of the ’270 patent are routine and []conventional. To allow the claim to survive would disproportionately risk preempting a building block of human interaction, retarding rather than promoting progress, contrary to the very purpose patents are granted.
Accordingly, the court held the patent invalid.
Here is another example, taken from commentary on a business-method patent claim at issue in Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Manufacturers & Traders Trust Co.