Podcast: Patentable Subject Matter in 2019
Drafting Software Patents In A Post-Alice World
Polsinelli Podcasts - Hear How the SCOTUS Ruling May Impact Patent-Eligible Subject Matter for Software
On September 9, the Federal Circuit reversed a Northern District of California decision that invalidated two video camera patents as being directed to patent-ineligible abstract ideas under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Contour IP...more
Blockchain is becoming central to more FinTech patent portfolios than ever – but it’s harder to obtain protection on blockchain than most other technologies. The US Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank (2014)...more
Chewy, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corporation - Before Moore, Chief Judge, Stoll and Cunningham. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York....more
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 Federal Circuit recently affirmed a district court’s grant of Zillow Group Inc.’s (“Zillow”) motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) because the two International Business Machines Corporation...more
Senior Circuit Judge Bryson of the Federal Circuit, sitting by designation in the District of Delaware, recently granted-in-part and denied-in-part a Rule 12(c) motion for judgment based on patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C....more
Precedential Federal Circuit Opinions - IN RE: FLOAT'N'GRILL LLC [OPINION] (2022-1438, 7/12/2023) (Prost, Linn, and Cunningham) - Linn, J. The Court affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decision “affirming the...more
On June 22, 2023, Sens. Thom Tillis and Chris Coons proposed the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023 (the Act). The new legislation is intended to clarify patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in view of the Supreme...more
Following the Supreme Court’s Alice Corp. Pty. v. CLS Bank Int’l decision in 2014, patent eligibility under Section 101 of the Patent Act has been increasingly invoked in early motion practice. In Hantz Software, LLC v. Sage...more
In a patent dispute between plaintiffs ChromaDex and Dartmouth College and defendant Elysium Health over spilled milk, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Delaware District Court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the...more
Avoiding § 101 Eligibility Issues in Internet-Centric Method Claims - In Weisner v. Google LLC, Appeal No. 21-2228, the Federal Circuit held that the specific implementation of an abstract idea, such as improving Internet...more
Since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2014 Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International ruling, patentees attempting to enforce their patents in the software arts have encountered a more significant hurdle for patent eligibility that has...more
As we’ve noted, the Supreme Court is once again considering whether to take up patent eligibility: it recently CVSGed two more Section 101 cases. While we wait for the government’s views, the Federal Circuit will continue...more
On August 2, 2022, Sen. T. Tillis introduced the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (S.4734) in an effort to clarify which inventions are actually patentable and to codify those that are not. Since the Supreme Court handed...more
In Integrated Technology Solutions v. iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations, 2022 WL 4356494, (D. Mass. Sept. 20, 2022), plaintiff ITS asserted at least U.S. Patent No. 10,046,231 claim 15 against iRacing. That claim reads...more
Subject-matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 has been a hot-button issue in United States patent law since 2014, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l. In that case, the Supreme Court decided...more
Linquet Technologies owns U.S. Patent No. 10,163,318, which claims a system for "detecting placement or misplacement of an abject." The patent introduces the invention: A wireless tag to be associated with the object to be...more
Sidekick Technology owns 12 patents broadly claiming systems, methods and apparatuses for providing automobile market information and performing or facilitating automobile transactions. Looking at the 12 patents-in-suit, the...more
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued a study entitled “Patent eligible subject matter: Public views on the current jurisprudence in the United States.” The report was prepared in response to a...more
Patent protection is perhaps the most contentious form of IP protection for software. There is no surer way to start a fight amongst the various interest groups interested in patents than to discuss software patents — both...more
In CosmoKey Solutions GMBH & Co. KG v. Duo Security LLC, the Federal Circuit held that an improved method for overcoming computer hacking by turning on and off the authentication process was patent eligible. The court held...more
There is a theme running through many patent-eligibility disputes that is analogous to baiting-and-switching. One party has claims that recite an invention. The other party characterizes those claims at a high level or...more
Judge Orrick in the Northern District of California recently granted a motion for summary judgment of invalidity for patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The court found that the claims recited the abstract...more
In 2014, the US Supreme Court announced its decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International. The decision ruled that patent claims for computer-implemented inventions may be abstract ideas, making it questionable if they...more
In Cosmokey Solutions Gmbh & Co. KG v. Duo Security LLC, on October 4, 2021, the Federal Circuit jumped straight to Step Two of the Supreme Court’s two-step method for determining patent eligibility and upheld a user...more