Podcast: Blockchain Intellectual Property Considerations for Innovators and Investors
JUSTICE HÄAGEN-DAZS: Imagine King Tut lounging outside his pyramid, surrounded by gold and bad financial instincts. He's handing out chits left and right, "Good for one unit of gold, redeemable later." He's got an abacus guy...more
Automakers continue to face similar challenges that software and electronics companies are familiar with, such as being targeted by non-producing entities (NPEs) as discussed in a previous post. While software and electronics...more
Intellectual property protection for software has long been a concern, both for innovators seeking to protect their work as well as innovators seeking to make use of existing works for further development. The shifting...more
Those waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on Section 101 were, once again, disappointed this week. On Nov. 16, 2020, in the case of WhitServe LLC v. Donuts Inc. et al., case no. 20-325 (U.S. Supreme Court), the...more
Over the past half-decade, Congress and the courts have made aggressive efforts to curb the worst abuses of the patent system. In 2013, Congress passed the America Invents Act (AIA), which established the Patent Trial and...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
This post follows our previous post summarizing Federal Circuit cases upholding software patent claims on Alice Step 1 grounds. Here, Step 2 decisions are explored in more detail, with a focus on additional lessons learned...more
On December 5, 2016 the USPTO will hold its second Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Roundtable to discuss issues in patent eligibility. The USPTO published a list of eighteen questions in anticipation of the event, dealing...more
When it comes to Enfish, the PTAB may have just indicated that it prefers to cut bait. In Informatica Corp. v. Protegrity Corp., CBM2015-0021 (May 31, 2016), the PTAB held that U.S. Patent No 6,321,201 was void under Alice...more
In a recent book entitled Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck, author Adam Cohen examines the case of Buck v. Bell, where Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that "[t]hree...more
Due to the rapidly shifting requirement for subject matter eligibility, some patent examiners seem to believe that, when it comes to software inventions, they are entitled to assume the invention is not patent eligible...more
As 2015 drew to a close, the toll of the Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l decision on software and business method patents became apparent. Post Alice, approximately 70% of all patents challenged under 35 U.S.C. § 101 have been...more
Patent Claims (and Specification) Lacking in Detail Fail under 35 U.S.C. § 101 - The Federal Circuit issued an opinion on December 28, 2015 in the case captioned Vehicle Intelligence and Safety LLC v. Mercedes-Benz USA,...more
Two recent District Court decisions show examples of "weak" claims, which in the past would likely be found invalid as lacking novelty or being obvious, but today are struck down as being unpatentable under § 101. The cases...more
On July 30, 2015, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office updated its subject matter eligibility guidance ("July Update"). In the July Update, the Office provided recommendations and resources for examiners in addition to those...more