Cases Updated in CNIPA Guidelines - Eligibility & Inventiveness for AI & Business Method Applications
Polsinelli Podcasts - Hear How the SCOTUS Ruling May Impact Patent-Eligible Subject Matter for Software
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down many patents on the grounds that they are invalid as directed to an abstract idea, relying on the Supreme Court’s Alice decision. In In re Elbaum (Fed. Cir. 12/20/2023)...more
The interpretation of 35 U.S.C. 101 has been in flux for over a decade. Please join MBHB Partner Michael Borella, Ph.D., as he discusses its latest iteration, how patent eligibility is currently viewed by the USPTO and...more
F45 Training Pty Ltd. v. Body Fit Training USA Inc., 2022 WL 17177621 (D. Del. Nov. 17, 2022) - On November 17, 2022, the District of Delaware adjudicated a perfect storm of international patent enforcement: a method claim...more
In cxLoyalty Inc. v. Maritz Holdings Inc., 986 F.3d 1367, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2021), Patent No. 7,134,087 explained that loyalty programs often issue points to customers as a reward for certain activities and allow the customers...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the Federal Reserve Banks of several cities are “persons” under the America Invents Act (AIA) and therefore may petition for post-issuance review under the AIA....more
PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - GS CleanTech Corp. v. Adkins Energy LLC, Appeal No. 2016-2231, 2017-1838, 2017-1832 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 2, 2020) - In this week’s Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s...more
In 2014's Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l case, Justice Thomas famously wrote, "we need not labor to delimit the precise contours of the 'abstract ideas' category in this case." Instead, he found the claims of patentee Alice...more
United States Automobile Association (USAA) is a financial services company that provides insurance, banking, investment, and retirement products and services for members of the military and their families. On June 7, 2018,...more
Earlier this week, the Federal Circuit reviewed a PTAB affirming the examiner’s rejection of claims directed to a computer-conducted method of "assigning and managing the rights to receive taxes when amounts are disbursed...more
Following guidance from the Federal Circuit, the PTAB has vacated a previous Board decision granting Covered Business Method review in Apple, Inc. v. Universal Secure Registry LLC (P.T.A.B. Dec. 3, 2018). The PTAB’s...more
Companies involved in mobile checking should watch case closely - The United States Automobile Association (USAA) owns a portfolio of patents aimed at mobile check deposit technology. One group of these patents is targeted...more
State Sovereignty Principles Do Not Allow a State to Bring a Patent Infringement Suit in an Improper Venue - In Board of Regents v. Boston Scientific Corp., Appeal No. 2018-1700, the Federal Circuit ruled that the patent...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) recently issued a Final Written Decision in favor of Comcast Cable Communications, LLC (“Comcast”) and against Promptu Systems Corporation (“Promptu”) in a covered business method...more
The Federal Circuit vacated a PTAB decision invalidating all challenged claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,908,842 (’842 Patent) and ordered the PTAB to reconsider whether the patent should have been disqualified from covered...more
SIPCO, LLC v. EMERSON ELECTRIC CO. Before O’Malley, Reyna, and Chen. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Reyna concurring-in-part and dissenting-in-part Summary: The language “unobvious over the prior art” in...more
Last week, the Federal Circuit reversed a District of Minnesota decision and found a patent directed to a system and method for processing paper checks to be abstract and not eligible for patent protection. Judge Chen wrote...more
Is the little-used CBM patent review program the key to passage of § 101 legislation? Congress is currently considering legislation to drastically alter the patent eligibility statute, 35 U.S.C. § 101. The unabashed...more
Addressing the standard for qualifying as a covered business method (CBM) patent and the procedure for analyzing the claims of such patents under 35 USC § 101, the US Court of Appeals found that the challenged claims were...more
PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - ThermoLife Int’l LLC v. GNC Corp., Appeal Nos. 2018-1657, 2018-1666 (Fed. Cir. May 1, 2019) - In an appeal from a district court decision, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently issued three interesting, related opinions interpreting and applying the “technological invention” exception to Covered Business Method Review (“CBM Review”). These...more
Before Moore, Clevenger, and Wallach. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Summary: Claims directed to providing additional trading information on a prior art display, without more, are patent-ineligible under 35...more
On Thursday, the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Trading Technologies International, Inc. v. IBG Interactive Brokers, LLC, No. 17-2257 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 18, 2019), that provides another data point on how CBM...more
PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - E.I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co. v. Unifrax I LLC, Appeal No. 2017-2575 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 17, 2019) - Our featured case of the week revolved primarily on the construction of a single claim term in...more
In a nonprecedential per curiam decision, the Federal Circuit vacated the PTAB’s final written decisions in five covered business method (“CBM”) reviews on four related e-trading patents as “arbitrary and capricious” because...more
Under 35 U.S.C. § 325(d), the PTAB has discretion regarding whether to institute a covered business method review if the arguments presented in the petition are the same, or substantially the same, as those previously...more