Posts Tagged: "new ground of rejection"

PTAB declares MRI machine an abstract idea, patent ineligible under Alice

In what can be described only as an utterly ridiculous, intellectually insulting, and idiotic decision, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has done the truly absurd. In Ex parte Hiroyuki Itagaki the PTAB has ruled a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine to be patent ineligible because it is an abstract idea, citing the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank for support.

Gene Quinn

January 3, 2017

Ex Parte Yudoovsky: Petitions Are (Sometimes?) Unnecessary to Traverse Unauthorized New Grounds of Rejection on Appeal

The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences did something fascinating in Ex Parte Yudoovsky. The Board sua sponte declined to consider an unauthorized new ground of rejection—even though the appellant never filed a petition. In other words, the Board refused to consider a new ground of rejection, because the Examiner failed to designate the ground as “new.”

Kip Werking

January 8, 2013