Posts Tagged: "SAP America v. InvestPic"

SAP Files Brief in InvestPic’s SCOTUS Appeal of ‘Physical Realm’ Test for Patent Eligibility

On May 15, SAP America, Inc. filed a respondent’s brief with the Supreme Court in InvestPic, LLC v. SAP America Inc., a case in which InvestPic’s patent claims covering systems and methods for performing statistical analyses of investment information were invalidated under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Petitioner InvestPic is asking the nation’s highest court to determine whether the “physical realm” test for patent eligibility under Section 101 that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit applied contravenes both the Patent Act and SCOTUS precedent. SAS’ brief contends in response that the mentions of “physical realm” are scant in the case record and that the present case provides a “textbook application” of Supreme Court precedent on claims involving mathematical equations.

Section 101 Motions to Dismiss Still Alive in District Courts

In Berkheimer and Aatrix, the Federal Circuit indicated that although patent eligibility under Section 101 is ultimately a question of law, the determination may have factual underpinnings that, at least in some cases, render it inappropriate for motions to dismiss or for summary judgment… However, following Berkheimer and Aatrix, the Federal Circuit has itself affirmed numerous Section 101 rulings that were made at the dismissal or pleadings stage. This article provides a summary of recent district court decisions granting Rule 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss under Section 101.

An Abdication of Collective Responsibility by the Federal Circuit

The Federal Circuit has often demanded some technical advantage under § 101 when none is required by U.S. patent law. The Federal Circuit has also made § 101 more burdensome, unpredictable and subjective than an obviousness determination under § 103, and § 101 is supposed to be a threshold test that acts to weed out only the most egregious attempts to patent fundamental principles. § 101 was never meant to weed out whole new areas of technology, particularly not nascent technologies. But that is exactly what is happening and the Court that has been charged to make sense of it all, the Federal Circuit, seems to be abdicating its collective responsibility by refusing to settle on a repeatable test that results in predictable outcomes.

Judge Taranto, Meet Judge Taranto

Contrary to Judge Taranto’s position, not only does the McRO claim not produce a physical improvement to a display (contrast In re Allapat), but as can be seen above a display is not even recited in the McRO claim.  Judge Taranto’s position is as best an assertion that a physical display somehow works better because of the content displayed is subjectively more appealing.  However, a colorized version of The Maltese Falcon does not improve the intrinsic qualities of a generic display.  Similarly, the intrinsic qualities of a Kindle reader are not improved based on the quality of an author’s style of writing.

Categorical Rules and Why the Investpic Holding Should Worry Everyone

This assertion is a mischaracterization of Alice Corp., which never held that the intermediated settlement claims at issue in Alice Corp. were abstract because of the risk hedging claims in Bilski were abstract.  Instead, the Supreme Court stated “that there is no meaningful distinc­tion between the concept of risk hedging in Bilski and the concept of intermediated settlement at issue here” because “[b]oth are squarely within the realm of ‘abstract ideas’ as we have used that term.”  That is: the claims in Bilski and Alice Corp. were comparable only because the underlying business methods were undoubtedly long-prevalent in the business community.  To hold otherwise is to ignore the vast bulk of both the Bilski and Alice Corp. decisions.