Illumina has now filed its brief in opposition, completing the certiorari petitions/responses for all parties in the concurrent American Axle and Ariosa patent eligibility cases. True to form, neither of the filings in...more
For more than a decade, this blog has covered the topic of patentable subject matter. Over the years, we’ve addressed various issues regarding business methods, abstract ideas and other various topics. The “laws of nature”...more
On October 23, 2020, a Federal Circuit panel issued a unanimous decision in American Axle & Manufacturing v. Neapco Holdings—a case we’ve discussed on this blog several times before—in which the panel denied American Axle’s...more
Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its second and third decisions in American Axle & Manufacturing v. Neapco Holdings and Neapco Drivelines, the case we’ve previously discussed in which the...more
Sharply differing majority and dissenting opinions in the Federal Circuit’s recent American Axle & Manufacturing v. Neapco Holdings decision present yet another case where the Federal Circuit appears to be in need of further...more
In This Issue -
A Looming AI War: Transparency v. IP Rights -
As artificial intelligence systems become more prevalent in daily life, efforts to create a unifying set of AI principles have intensified. In the past few...more
8/21/2019
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Attorney's Fees ,
Bayh-Dole Act ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) ,
Federal Funding ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Iancu v. Brunetti ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventions ,
Lanham Act ,
Litigation Fees & Costs ,
Patent Applications ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Reform ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Scandalous/Immoral Marks ,
Trademarks
Back in March, I reported on the breadth of comments the USPTO received in response to its new Guidance on patent subject matter eligibility. Now, Congress has taken up the issue with a proposed draft of a new bipartisan,...more
7/1/2019
/ Article III ,
Experimental Use Exception ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Legislative Agendas ,
New Guidance ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Proposed Amendments ,
Section 101 ,
Standing ,
USPTO
In January, the USPTO announced it would seek comments on the new Guidance it had published on patent subject matter eligibility. We have previously discussed this Guidance and won’t repeat ourselves here. ...more
My last post focused on definitions for the terms “well-understood,” “routine,” and “conventional”—or W-URC—from the subject matter eligibility test set forth in Mayo and further described in Alice. Those terms relate to one...more
The Federal Circuit has now had enough opportunity to address Mayo’s “well-understood, routine, conventional” test that we should have a good understanding of it. We don’t (or at least I don’t).
...more
In reading post-Mayo/Alice decisions, some seem more comfortable than others. I’ve been having a tough time getting my head and heart around a recent decision from Judge Leonard Stark of the District of Delaware. The case is...more
3/15/2018
/ Abstract Ideas ,
Auto Parts ,
Bilski ,
CLS Bank v Alice Corp ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Invalidity ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Section 101
I was reminded of this question, often posed by my dad to remind me not to become a slave to statistics, by two dramatic things that happened last week. On the one hand, at the IAM 2017 Patent Law and Policy conference in...more
The press is all abuzz with reactions to Judge Mayer’s concurring opinion bluntly stating that “claims directed to software implemented on a generic computer are categorically not eligible for patent.” Intellectual Ventures...more
Last week, I reported on a September 4 decision from the District of Massachusetts in which the court emphasized that the presumption of validity applies to subject matter eligibility. This week, another judge in the same...more
On September 4, a Massachusetts district court issued an interesting ruling that calls into question many of the recent preliminary stage Alice-based invalidations we’ve seen over the past year. The decision, the latest...more
There has been significant commentary, both before and after the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice, that the various judicially created exceptions to patentability under 35 USC § 101 are not only sound, but are also...more
In my previous post, I provided an explanation of Abstract Ideas under Alice, emphasizing that to be an ineligible abstract idea, a claim must recite a fundamental building block of human ingenuity. How then does an examiner...more
In my recent analysis of the Alice decision, I wrote the following:
In Benson, the Court believed (wrongly it turned about, but that’s beside the point) that the claims covered the basic algorithm for converting...more
On the final day of its 2013 term, the Supreme Court issued some interesting orders in Section 101 cases dealing with computer-implemented business methods.
First, in WildTangent, Inc. v. Ultramercial, LLC (13-255),...more
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that patent claims directed to abstract ideas do not become patent eligible by the “mere recitation” of generic computer elements. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, No....more
6/23/2014
/ Alice Corporation ,
CLS Bank ,
CLS Bank v Alice Corp ,
Mayo v. Prometheus ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Popular ,
Risk Mitigation ,
SCOTUS ,
Software ,
USPTO
Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank is out and the result is not unexpected:
1) Alice's patents for computer-implemented methods and systems for financial risk intermediation are invalid.
2) The patents claim abstract idea,...more
January 2012 saw an explosion of controversy over two Internet-related bills that had been progressing through Congress: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic...more
9/26/2013
/ Advertising ,
Calculation of Damages ,
CLS Bank ,
CLS Bank v Alice Corp ,
Computer-Related Inventions ,
Copyright ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Damages ,
gTLD ,
ICANN ,
Infringement ,
Internet ,
Non-Disclosure Agreement ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Payment Processors ,
PIPA ,
Piracy ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Royalties ,
SOPA ,
Trade Secrets ,
Trademark Clearinghouse ,
Trademarks ,
Ultramercial v Hulu
Patent holders, inventors, and even the courts have recently struggled with the limits of what can be patented. The patentability of software, widely accepted for decades, has lately been questioned. The scope of...more