McDonald v. Vidal: Federal Circuit Affirms Unpatentability of Media Content Tipping Patent
Jarom McDonald, Angel Studios, VidAngel, and co-plaintiffs challenged the USPTO’s rejection of US15/454677 — a patent application covering tipping mechanisms for media content — before the Federal Circuit. The court unanimously affirmed the Board’s finding of both patent ineligibility under § 101 and obviousness, ending the applicants’ pursuit in 341 days.
Federal Circuit Shuts Door on Media Tipping Patent After Dual-Ground USPTO Rejection
Filed on 5 October 2023, Case No. 24-1015 brought Jarom McDonald, Angel Studios Inc., VidAngel Inc., Jeffrey Harmon, Neal Harmon, and Theron Brent Harmon before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The appellants sought to overturn a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision finding patent application US15/454677 — directed to tipping mechanisms for media content — unpatentable on both subject-matter eligibility and obviousness grounds.
On 10 September 2024, a Federal Circuit panel affirmed the Board’s decision in full, applying the two-part Alice/Mayo framework to confirm § 101 ineligibility and sustaining the obviousness finding independently. The court ordered each party to bear its own costs, signalling neither side was awarded the exceptional-case standard that would trigger fee-shifting. For the applicants, affirmance means US15/454677 cannot issue as granted and the claims as presented are exhausted at this appellate level.
A 341-day resolution is notably swift for Federal Circuit patent appeals, suggesting the panel found the Board’s analysis persuasive without requiring extended briefing scrutiny. What drove the outcome — whether claim drafting choices left the application exposed to abstract-idea rejection, or whether prior art was simply too close — remains within the Board record not fully visible from the appellate disposition. The applicants retain the theoretical option of en banc or Supreme Court review, though dual-ground affirmances on § 101 and obviousness substantially narrow those prospects.
Filing to Unpatentable in 341 days
341-day appeal — resolved faster than the median Federal Circuit patent case (~18 months)
Federal Circuit affirms: what the ruling means for both parties
Affirmance means the Board’s dual rejection stands without reversible error
When the Federal Circuit ‘affirms,’ it holds that the lower tribunal — here the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — committed no reversible error. The appellate court reviewed the § 101 patent-ineligibility and obviousness determinations and found both legally sound. The claims remain unpatentable as a matter of law; affirmance does not merely delay the outcome — it ends it at this court level.
No reversible error foundUS15/454677 cannot issue; applicants’ media-tipping claims are exhausted
For McDonald, Angel Studios, VidAngel, and the Harmon co-plaintiffs, affirmance forecloses the grant of US15/454677 under its current claim set. The dual-ground ruling — ineligibility and obviousness — is particularly constraining: even if § 101 doctrine shifted, the independent obviousness finding would persist. The applicants would need en banc rehearing or Supreme Court certiorari to revive the application, both low-probability paths after a clean affirmance.
Patent application extinguishedUSPTO’s rejection validated; Director Vidal’s position fully upheld
Defendant Katherine K. Vidal, defending the Board’s determination as USPTO Director, prevails entirely. The Federal Circuit’s affirmance validates the agency’s substantive examination and PTAB analysis on both grounds. The USPTO’s application of Alice/Mayo to media-tipping claims and its prior art-based obviousness assessment are now backed by Federal Circuit precedent, strengthening the agency’s hand in examining analogous fintech-media applications.
USPTO position validatedMedia monetisation innovators face a higher § 101 bar for tipping-style claims
The affirmance signals that tipping or micropayment incentive mechanisms directed at media content are vulnerable to abstract-idea challenges under Alice if claims are not carefully tethered to a specific technical improvement. Companies operating in creator economy, audience-funded content, or streaming tip platforms — including potential competitors to VidAngel and Angel Studios — should review pending applications covering similar payment-for-content mechanics to assess § 101 exposure before prosecution advances.
Creator economy IP risk elevatedFull party and counsel information
| Role | Name | Type | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plaintiff | Jarom Mcdonald | Individual | Media content platform group — applicants for US15/454677 covering tipping for media contentSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Co-Plaintiff | Angel Studios, Inc. | Company | Search in Eureka ↗ |
| Co-Plaintiff | Theron Brent Harmon | Individual | Search in Eureka ↗ |
| Co-Plaintiff | Vidangel, Inc. | Company | Search in Eureka ↗ |
| Co-Plaintiff | Jeffrey Harmon | Individual | Search in Eureka ↗ |
| Co-Plaintiff | Neal Harmon | Individual | Search in Eureka ↗ |
| Defendant | Katherine K. Vidal | Individual | Katherine K. Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and USPTO DirectorSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Plaintiff counsel | Joseph Morris Shapiro | Attorney | Counsel for Jarom McdonaldSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Plaintiff law firm | Shapiro IP Law | Law Firm | Representing Jarom McdonaldSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Defendant counsel | Amy J. Nelson | Attorney | Counsel for Katherine K. VidalSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Defendant counsel | Farheena Yasmeen Rasheed | Attorney | Counsel for Katherine K. VidalSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Defendant counsel | Kakoli Caprihan | Attorney | Counsel for Katherine K. VidalSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Defendant counsel | Robert Mcbride | Attorney | Counsel for Katherine K. VidalSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Presiding judge | Judge N/A | Judge | Court of Appeals for the Federal CircuitSearch in Eureka ↗ |
Official order — verbatim text
The panel’s language — ‘we affirm the Board’s decision on both patent ineligibility and obviousness’ — confirms a clean, dual-ground affirmance with no remand. At the Federal Circuit, the Board’s factual findings on obviousness are reviewed for substantial evidence, while § 101 eligibility is reviewed de novo. Sustaining both grounds on appeal signals the panel found the Board’s factual record compelling and identified no legal error in the abstract-idea analysis. The cost-neutrality order (‘the parties shall bear their own costs’) reflects a standard disposition in government-respondent patent appeals.
US15/454677 — Tipping for Media Content: Claim & Eligibility Analysis
US15/454677 (published as US20180260796A1) is a patent application in the financial technology and digital media intersection, covering methods and systems by which audiences can send tips or micropayments to creators or rights-holders of media content. Filed through application number US15/454677, the application entered USPTO examination within the post-Alice era when § 101 eligibility scrutiny for fintech and content-monetisation claims was at its most stringent. The claimed subject matter appears directed to an economic concept — incentivising content consumption or creation through financial rewards — applied in a digital media context.
Strategically, a granted patent on tipping-for-media-content would have been commercially significant for VidAngel and Angel Studios, whose business models rely on audience-funded and direct-support content distribution. In the fast-growing creator economy — spanning streaming, podcast, and social media platforms — such a patent could have been used offensively against competitor tip-jar features or defensively to preserve a distribution advantage. Its failure to issue leaves the companies without IP protection in this specific mechanics layer, and the Federal Circuit’s affirmance sets a persuasive precedent making analogous claims harder to advance at the PTAB or in district court.
Should you run an FTO against US15/454677 and similar media-tipping applications?
Any product team building audience-tipping, media micropayment, or creator-reward functionality should assess the landscape around US15/454677 and related applications. Although this specific application has been ruled unpatentable, the original applicants — including VidAngel and Angel Studios — may have filed continuation, divisional, or related applications covering overlapping technical ground. The Federal Circuit’s ruling does not extinguish the entire family; it disposes only of the claims at issue before the Board in this appeal.
PatSnap Eureka’s FTO Search Agent can map the full patent family around US15/454677, identify any surviving continuation or foreign counterpart applications, and flag claim language that remains potentially asserted. For R&D and product teams building monetisation features for streaming or creator platforms, Eureka’s AI-driven claim analysis can highlight where design-arounds may be needed and where the field is now clear following this Federal Circuit ruling.
Run a freedom-to-operate analysis on US20180260796A1 to assess your product’s exposure
Run FTO in Eureka →Similar Federal Circuit Appeals: Media Fintech and § 101 Patent Eligibility Cases
Cases at the Federal Circuit involving § 101 patent eligibility challenges to fintech and media monetisation technology — the same court and domain as McDonald v. Vidal.
What this case signals for the media fintech and creator economy IP landscape
The Federal Circuit’s dual-ground affirmance sends a clear signal to innovators building tipping and micropayment systems for digital media.
Abstract-idea risk is acute for media payment and tipping-mechanic patents
Claims covering tipping or audience-funding for media content sit squarely in Alice’s crosshairs unless they recite a concrete technical improvement — not merely an abstract financial incentive applied to a digital medium. This case confirms the Federal Circuit will not disturb PTAB § 101 rejections in this space absent a clear inventive concept beyond the underlying economic method.
Dual-ground invalidity rulings dramatically limit post-appeal rescue paths
Where a PTAB decision rests on both § 101 ineligibility and obviousness, defeating the ruling on appeal requires overturning both independent grounds. Applicants and prosecutors should treat any single-ground rejection as an opportunity to address all potential invalidity vectors — waiting until appeal to contest the second ground is a high-risk strategy, as this case illustrates.
Mcdonald v Katherine — key questions answered
The Federal Circuit affirmed the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s determination that patent application US15/454677 — covering tipping for media content — is unpatentable on both § 101 patent-ineligibility (abstract idea) and obviousness grounds. The decision, issued 10 September 2024, ended the appellants’ pursuit of the application with each party bearing its own costs.
The Board applied the Alice/Mayo two-step framework and determined the claims were directed to an abstract idea — essentially an economic concept of tipping for media content applied in a digital context — without a sufficient inventive concept to transform them into patent-eligible subject matter. The Federal Circuit found no reversible error in that analysis and affirmed. The specific technical details of the Board’s reasoning are contained in the underlying PTAB record.
No. The appellants retain the theoretical option of petitioning for en banc rehearing before the full Federal Circuit, or seeking a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court. However, a clean dual-ground affirmance — sustaining both § 101 and obviousness independently — substantially narrows the prospects for either path, as overturning the ruling requires defeating both independent grounds.
The ruling disposes of the claims at issue in US15/454677 as presented before the PTAB and Federal Circuit. It does not automatically extinguish any continuation, divisional, or foreign counterpart applications in the same patent family that were not part of this appeal. Competitors and product teams should conduct a full patent family search to identify any surviving related applications before concluding the field is entirely clear.
In Federal Circuit patent appeals involving the USPTO as respondent, cost-neutrality orders are standard and do not reflect on the merits or the conduct of the parties. Unlike district court patent cases where an ‘exceptional case’ finding under 35 U.S.C. § 285 can trigger attorney-fee awards, appeals from USPTO Board decisions typically resolve with each side absorbing its own appellate costs, as occurred here.
PatSnap Eureka searches patents and litigation data to answer instantly.