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Alice/Mayo Appeals Abstract Ideas

Knobbe Martens

Result-Oriented Claims and Section 101: Claiming the How

Knobbe Martens on

US PATENT NO. 7,679,637 LLC v GOOGLE LLC - Before Moore, Hughes, and Stoll. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. Result-oriented claims were found ineligible under 35 U.S.C...more

A&O Shearman

Court Of Appeals For The Federal Circuit Invalidates In-Store Product Locator Patents As Abstract Under § 101

A&O Shearman on

On February 6, 2026, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, finding six patents owned by plaintiff invalid for claiming...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

Can’t patent idea of using asynchronous data streams during web conferencing

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a patent infringement suit, holding that the asserted web conferencing claims were directed to an abstract idea, lacked any inventive...more

Sheppard

Not A Categorical Ban: Federal Circuit Narrowed Spectrum of Patent Eligible Machine Learning Claims

Sheppard on

Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., No. 23-2437 (Fed. Cir. 2025) – On April 18, 2025, the Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s dismissal of the case on the ground that the patents were ineligible under § 101....more

Holland & Knight LLP

Signal Lost: Federal Circuit Says "Combining and Decoding" Doesn't Meet Section 101 Eligibility

Holland & Knight LLP on

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court judgment holding asserted claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,139,652 ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in Technology in Ariscale, LLC v. Razer USA Ltd.,...more

McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP

PTAB § 101 Appeal Stats for 2024: The More Things Stay the Same, the Worse They Remain

Each year since 2021, we have examined how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) has been deciding appeals of § 101 rejections from examiners. And so far, the numbers have been remarkably...more

Knobbe Martens

Federal Circuit Review | August 2025

Knobbe Martens on

In FMC Corp. v. Sharda USA, LLC, Appeal No. 24-2335, the Federal Circuit held that the district court erred by construing a claim term based on disclosures made in a provisional application and an unasserted patent in the...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

Feel the burn: Mechanical improvement is patent eligible under § 101

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a district court’s partial dismissal of the plaintiff’s patent claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101, finding that the claims were not directed to an abstract idea under Alice...more

Knobbe Martens

Can § 101 Carry the Weight?

Knobbe Martens on

POWERBLOCK HOLDING, INC. v. IFIT, INC. - Before Taranto, Stoll, and District Judge Scarsi. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Utah. Under step one of the Alice test, claims should be considered...more

Miller Johnson

Fed. Cir. Ends Approach Employed To Make Challenging Patents As Abstract Ideas More Difficult 

Miller Johnson on

Optis Cellular Tech., LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 22-1925 (Fed. Cir. June 16, 2025) - Over a decade ago, the U.S. Supreme Court arguably made it easier to invalidate a patent for claiming nonpatentable abstract ideas when it...more

Hudnell Law Group

Federal Circuit Issues First Word on AI Patent Eligibility

Hudnell Law Group on

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

McDermott Will & Schulte

Broadcast Alert! Applying Conventional Machine Learning to New Data Isn’t Patent Eligible

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s ruling that patents applying established machine learning methods to new data are not patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. §101. Recentive Analytics, Inc....more

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Common Sense Approach Prevails in Determining Subject Matter Eligibility of Compositions of Matter

Dorsey & Whitney LLP on

Over the last 15 years, the discussion over the types of subject matter that are considered patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 has been mostly focused on the software and biological fields. Several years ago, the Federal...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

Federal Circuit Polishes § 101’s Abstract Idea Test

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed and remanded a determination by the US International Trade Commission regarding subject matter ineligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The Court concluded that the...more

Knobbe Martens

Federal Circuit Review - September 2024

Knobbe Martens on

Combining Abstract Ideas Does Not Make Them Less Abstract - In Broadband Itv, Inc. v. Amazon.Com, Inc., Appeal No. 23-1107, the Federal Circuit held that when assessing patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, combining two...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

Stay Focused: New Point of View of Patent Eligibility

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

Knobbe Martens

Combining Abstract Ideas Does Not Make Them Less Abstract

Knobbe Martens on

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

McDermott Will & Schulte

Don’t Mess With Anna: Texas Town Schools Patent Owner on § 101

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

McDermott Will & Schulte

House Rules: Remote Gambling Activity Claims Go Bust

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

Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt PC

Latest Federal Court Cases - June 2024 #2

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

McDermott Will & Schulte

Struggling to Master the Alice Two-Step: Search Result Display Ineligible for Patent Protection

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

McDermott Will & Schulte

Should This Be an Alice Two-Step or a Section 112 Enablement Waltz?

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

McDermott Will & Schulte

Standard Computer Equipment Can Support Inventive Concept under Alice Step 2

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

Holland & Knight LLP

Federal Circuit: Method of Creating a Floral Arrangement is an Abstract Idea

Holland & Knight LLP on

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

McDermott Will & Schulte

Set Phase to Subject Matter Ineligible: More Accurate Haplotype Phase Method Still Abstract

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

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