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 April 18, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a patent infringement suit brought by Recentive Analytics, Inc. against Fox Corporation. See Recentive Analytics, Inc. v....more
While a district court in California remained “skeptical” of the patent eligibility of three computer-implemented patents, the court denied a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The court found that claim...more
The Federal Circuit recently affirmed a district court’s dismissal because the claims directed to an interactive video game for learning to play guitar were patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. In its ruling, the court...more
Uniloc, owner of U.S. Patent No. 6,993,049, brought an action for infringement of that patent against LG in the Northern District of California. The District Court granted LG's motion to dismiss on the pleadings, agreeing...more
On Tuesday, the Federal Circuit affirmed a District of Delaware decision without a written opinion. The Delaware decision, from late 2018, granted LinkedIn's motion to dismiss the plaintiff's patent suit, finding the asserted...more
The District of Delaware recently found a patent directed to onsite data backup to be abstract and ineligible for patent protection. The court's discussion went beyond the standard Alice inquiry, and touched on the roles of...more
Just Because Something May Result From a Prior Art Teaching Does Not Make it Inherent in that Teaching - In Personal Web Technologies, LLC v. Apple, Inc., Appeal No. 2018-1599, the Federal Circuit clarified that the mere...more
Addressing the various factors a court may consider in order to determine whether a claim is “directed to” an abstract idea, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s dismissal of all claims...more
Federal Circuit Summary - Before Prost, Reyna, and Taranto. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Summary: An abstract idea cannot be used to supply an inventive concept that renders a claim...more
In two recent decisions, judges of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit expounded on the standards under which software-related patent claims are subject matter eligible under 35 USC § 101. Ancora Techs. v. HTC...more
On May 3, 2018, Nike filed a lawsuit against Puma in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts accusing Puma of infringing seven of its utility patents related to footwear. In an earlier post on this blog, we...more
Patent eligibility challenges under 35 U.S.C. §101 have been effective tools for defendants to obtain early dismissal of a case without extensive fact finding since the Supreme Court ruling in Alice. Whether a claim recites...more
Federal Circuit Finds Claims Issued from Reexamination Co-Pending with Appeal Ineligible Where the Changes Did Not Affect Section 101 Eligibility - In SAP AMERICA, Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, Appeal No. 2017-2081, the...more
Federal Circuit Summary - Before Reyna, Wallach, and Hughes. Appeal from the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Summary: When the only unconventional feature of the patent claim is what has already been...more
In 2014, the United States Supreme Court in a landmark decision in the field of Patent Law (Alice Corp. v. CLS Int’l) invalidated software patents related to mitigating settlement risk. Relying on the now-infamous Section...more
“We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!” -Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy It seems that Douglas Adams has a great many fans in the universe of IP law. While he almost...more
On November 20, 2017, a district court denied a defendant’s Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 12(b)(6) motion that sought to dismiss the case on the ground that the asserted patents were ineligible under 35 U.S.C. §...more
On October 16, 2017, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling that the claims in Secured Mail Solutions LLC, v. Universal Wilde, Inc. (“Secured Mail”) were directed to patent-ineligible subject matter under 35...more
Visual Memory v. Nvidia reverses the grant of a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), ruling that the claims recite an enhanced computer memory system and not an abstract idea under § 101. In Georgetown Rail v. Holland, the...more
On November 29, 2016, District Judge Katherine B. Forrest (S.D.N.Y.) vacated the February 22, 2016 decision of Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, which had granted a motion to dismiss, brought by alleged infringers TNS Media...more
On November 10, 2016, Judge David C. Godbey of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that two video upload patents were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The patents, owned by Youtoo...more
Burke. M. J. Report and recommendation recommending that defendants’ motions to dismiss based on section 101 non-patent-eligible subject matter be denied. The disputed patent relates to methods and devices for managing a...more
In a recent decision from the District of Massachusetts, Judge Indira Talwani denied a motion to dismiss a patent suit under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim due to patent ineligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 . In...more
Alice is clear that inventions drawn to automating well-known concepts are not patent-eligible. However, this area of the law becomes a bit murky when the automated concept is one that involves concrete or physical devices....more
It is axiomatic that the claims of a patent describe the invention, and for Alice challenges, define whether an invention is drawn to an abstract idea without an inventive concept. Of course, claims are construed in light of...more