The Solicitor General, responding to a call from the Supreme Court for the government’s views, in April filed a brief directed to the proper legal standard for the “abstract idea” exception to patent eligibility under 35...more
On March 15, 2022, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Eastern District of Texas’s dismissal of a patent infringement complaint because the asserted patent claims were directed to process automation and therefore not eligible...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
While there may have been no public tricks or treats from the Federal Circuit last week, the Court still managed to issue a range of precedential and non-precedential decisions. Below we provide our usual weekly statistics...more
Even though last week was argument week, that didn’t slow down the issuance of decisions at the Federal Circuit. Below we provide our usual weekly statistics and our case of the week—our highly subjective selection based on...more
CosmoKey asserted U.S. Patent No. 9,246,903 against Duo in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, alleging infringement. The District Court found the patent's claims to be ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101...more
Diamond v. Diehr, decided by the Supreme Court in 1981, seemed to establish a bedrock principle of statutory construction for patent law. The Court stated that "[t]he 'novelty' of any element or steps in a process, or even...more
Sensormatic asserted U.S. Patents 7,730,534, 7,936,370, 7,954,129, 8,208,019, and 8,610,772 against Wyze in the District of Delaware, alleging infringement. Wyze moved the District Court to dismiss under Rule 12(c), on the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that targeted advertising is still an abstract idea and that a system providing targeted advertising must utilize something more than generic features and routine...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
As with other rapidly-evolving technologies, the blockchain space is experiencing a frenzy of patent activity. The data shows that there are 3-4 times as many published applications as there are issued patents for these...more
This decision is bad. Not an American Axle level of bad, but still quite far from good. Simio sued FlexSim in the District of Utah for alleged infringement of its U.S. Patent No. 8,156,468. FlexSim moved for dismissal on...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 evolution of graphical user interfaces parallels the evolution of computing technology itself. As computers grow more powerful and sophisticated, so does their ability to display cutting-edge representations of...more
If we have learned anything from the last six-and-a-half years of patent eligibility jurisprudence, it is that nobody knows what's going on. Subject matter eligibility is a fundamental requirement for an invention to be...more
The District Court for the Northern District of Ohio dismissed Cybergenetics Corp.’s infringement suit after determining that the asserted claims—which recite mathematical algorithms for analyzing data taken from a DNA...more
274-1 Federal Circuit Revisits American Axle & Manufacturing; Case Remanded to Determine if One of the “Hooke’s Law” Claims is Ineligible under Other Theories of Eligibility - The Federal Circuit recently issued a modified...more
XY, LLC v. TRANS OVA GENETICS, LC - Before Wallach, Plager, and Stoll. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. Summary: Claims directed to improving a method of operating an apparatus...more
In XY, LLC v. Trans Ova Genetics, LC (Case 2019-1789, issued July 31, 2020), the Federal Circuit provided another example of a life sciences method claim avoiding patent ineligibility under the Alice framework at step one,...more
The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) recently designated its decision in Ex Parte HANNUN (Appeal 2018-003323) (“HANNUN”) as being informative regarding the application of the latest 2019 revised guidance on...more
KPN is a Dutch telecom company that owns a U.S. patent for detecting errors in data transmission. Last year, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware invalidated the patent as ineligible subject matter, but on...more
In a divided panel decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed that method claims for a mechanical invention were invalid under 35 USC § 10, and concluded that the claim was directed to a law of nature...more
On October 10, 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) issued a Final Written Decision in favor of Avepoint, Inc. (“Avepoint”) and against Onetrust, LLC (“Onetrust”) in an America Invents Act post grant review...more
In The Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Techtronic Industries Co., the Federal Circuit weighed in on the type of subject matter that can be characterized as an “abstract idea” and, thus, not eligible for patent protection....more
A divided Federal Circuit, in a precedential opinion, upheld a lower court’s finding that the claims of US Patent No. 7,774,911 ineligible for patenting under Section 101 because the claims are directed to a law of nature....more