The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed and remanded a district court’s decision that the asserted claims were patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101, finding that the district court improperly characterized...more
Before Dyk, Reyna, and Stark. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Summary: When assessing patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, combining two abstract ideas does not make...more
Before Lourie, Bryson, and Stark. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Summary: Patent claims that merely recite result-orientated, functional language without specifying the...more
On cross-appeals from a granted Fed. R. of Civ. Pro. 12(c) motion on subject matter eligibility, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that a patent directed to a method for “assist[ing] an investigator in...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit applied the Alice/Mayo framework to assess whether claims directed to remote gambling were patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and determined that the claims were directed to...more
Recently, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued an opinion in Beteiro, LLC v. DraftKings Inc.[1] This case is yet another case where the Federal Circuit upheld invalidity under § 101. Here, the patents...more
Reliably Determining Reasonable Royalty Rates from Lump Sum Licenses - In Ecofactor, Inc. V. Google LLC, Appeal No. 23-1101, The Federal Circuit held that license agreements containing a lump sum payment “based on” a royalty...more
Before Dyk, Prost, and Stark. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Summary: Recitations of a computer-implemented method can be an abstract idea and non-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101...more
Beteiro, LLC v. Draftkings Inc., Appeal Nos. 2022-2275, -2277, -2278, -2279, -2281, 2283 (Fed. Cir. June 21, 2024) In its only precedential patent opinion this week, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Rule 12(b)(6)...more
In a wide-ranging opinion, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment of invalidity for lack of patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101 with respect to...more
Pfizer Inc. v. Sanofi Pasteur Inc., Appeal Nos. 2019-1871, -1873, -1875, -1876, -2224 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 5, 2024) This week’s Case of the Week mostly resolves an appeal filed five years ago, following decisions from the...more
On February 9, in University of South Florida Board of Trustees v. United States, the Federal Circuit upheld royalty-free license rights of the U.S. government over a University of South Florida (USF) patent directed to...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a lawsuit involving two software patents directed toward enhancements to search result displays, finding that both patents claimed...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit for lack of subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 based on an Alice two-step analysis, with Judge Newman filing a sharp dissent...more
On December 16, in Adasa Inc. v. Avery Dennison Corporation, the Federal Circuit upheld patentability of claims reciting an RFID transponder with storage for a particular type of serial number—affirming the district court’s...more
Once again addressing the application of Alice, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit partially reversed a district court’s dismissal of several patents as subject matter ineligible for error in analyzing their...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned a district court dismissal of a patent case for errors in analyzing the claims’ patent eligibility under Alice. The Court found that regardless of whether the claimed...more
Provisur Technologies, Inc. v. Weber, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2021-1942, -1975 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 27, 2022) - In this week’s Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit reviewed an IPR decision and addressed the Patent Trial and Appeal...more
Addressing a challenge of the Alice/Mayo framework in the context of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial...more
Best Medical International, Inc. v. Elekta Inc., Appeal Nos. 2021-2099, -2100 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 26, 2022) - In this week’s Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit addressed issues of jurisdiction where a challenged claim was...more
In what may be another blow to diagnostic patents, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the patent ineligibility of claims that it held to be directed to detecting natural phenomena by conventional...more
The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in the closely observed case American Axle & Manufacturing, Inc., v. Neapco Holdings LLC. The Court’s refusal to hear the case disappointed patent practitioners nationwide—and...more
In Mentone Solutions LLC v. Digi International Inc., 2021 WL 5291802 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 15, 2021) the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware and former Chief...more
In the case of In re Sturgeon, 839 F. App'x 517, 520 (Fed. Cir. 2021), the patent application claimed a method of creating a floral arrangement on an electronic display screen with the following representative claim: A...more
In an appeal from a final rejection of a pending application, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that claims directed to methods for determining “haplotype phase” were correctly rejected as subject matter...more