William Morriss Image

William Morriss

Partner

Frost Brown Todd

William is a Partner at Frost Brown Todd where his practice focuses particularly on the law as it relates to software and other technology. Since joining the firm, William has represented inventors seeking to obtain protection for software implemented inventions before the United States Patent and Trademark Office; has represented businesses and individuals in patent infringement litigation, both in defending against allegations of infringement, and in enforcing patents against accused infringers, and has assisted clients in business transactions which include software, both in negotiating and drafting contracts, and in performing due diligence review of agreements in the context of potential acquisitions, including the review for a $335 million acquisition.

William performs pro-bono legal services through Volunteer Lawyers for the Poor. He is an expert chess player and a black belt in Aikido (a Japanese martial art).

Recent Articles by William Morriss

Defanging Descriptive Material Rejections

Non-functional descriptive material is a throwback to an earlier time. Historically, the non-functional descriptive matter doctrine was used by examiners to argue that limitations related to the content of information should be given little to no patentable weight. However, current subject matter eligibility jurisprudence provides tools to simply treat content-based inventions as ineligible (e.g., Electric Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A.), and so it is not clear that non-functional descriptive material rejections should continue to play a role in examination. Nevertheless, the doctrine still exists, and so this article presents three examples illustrating how you can respond to non-functional descriptive material rejections when they arise in your practice.

In re Stanford: Ruined by a Processor and a Memory

Computer boilerplate – such as including “a processor and a memory” in claims – is commonplace in patent applications. However, the recent case of In re Stanford shows that this can be a double-edged sword, having the potential to both undermine an application and to ruin an opinion that could otherwise have shed light on several of the thorniest open questions in patent eligibility jurisprudence. Skeptical that such a common practice could be so counterproductive? Read on.