Posts Tagged: "graphical user interfaces"

Federal Circuit Affirms PTAB Ruling Finding Graphical User Interface Claims Patent Ineligible

In Trading Technologies International, Inc. v. IBG LLC, Interactive Brokers LLC (2018-1063), the Federal Circuit agreed with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that the contested claims of Trading Technologies International, Inc’s patents for graphical user interfaces (GUI) for electronic trading, numbers 7,533,056, 7,212,999, and 7,904,374, were eligible for covered business method (CBM) review and also patent ineligible. The claims at issue were claims 1–15 of the ’056 patent, claims 1–35 of the ’999 patent, and claims 1–36 of the ’374 patent. To be eligible for CBM review, a patent must claim “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, except that the term does not include patents for technological inventions.” In previous Federal Circuit cases, Trading Technologies (TT) patents had been determined not eligible for CBM review as they were technological inventions or were found patent eligible. The court rejected the argument that this weighed in favor of finding similarly in the present case. “We are not bound by non-precedential decisions at all, much less ones to different patents, different specifications, or different claims,” wrote the Court.