Posts Tagged: "Blue Calypso v. Groupon"

Federal Circuit reverses PTAB, says CBM patents must be financial in nature according to the claims

The CBM determination includes patents that are “financial in nature” according to the claims; not patents that are “complementary” or “incidental” to financial activity according to the specification or post-grant assertion of the patent… Further, the Board’s reliance on post-grant activity, that Secure Axcess alleged infringement against financial institutions, was improper. “Those choices do not necessarily define a patent as a CBM patent, nor even necessarily illuminate an understanding of the invention as claimed.”

In precedential decision, Federal Circuit further clarifies what constitutes a covered business method patent for CBM review

When applying that definition to the present case, the majority opinion rejected as too limiting Secure Axcess’s proposal that CBM review should be limited to “products and services such as credit, loans, real estate transactions, securities and investment products, and similar financial products and services”. However, the Federal Circuit also rejected the Board’s much more expansive approach that CBM review should apply to financial products or services that were merely “used in” and “incidental to” a financial activity… In dissent, Judge Lourie disagreed with the majority’s holding on the basis of Secure Axcess’s claims being “surely claims to ‘a method or corresponding apparatus for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service.’” This, he argued, was because “[t]here can be little doubt that such claims meet the ‘method or apparatus for performing data processing’ limitation of the statute.”