Posts Tagged: "patent eligible"

Newman Slams CAFC’s Flawed Eligibility Precedent in Dissent to 101 Loss for Realtime Data

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today affirmed a district court’s dismissal of Realtime Data, LLC’s patent infringement claims based on invalidity of the asserted claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101. In a previous ruling, the CAFC sent the case back to the district court asking for a more fleshed out Section 101 analysis. Judge Pauline Newman dissented to today’s judgment, calling current eligibility jurisprudence a “morass” and saying she would have remanded the case for determination of validity under Section 112, or possibly Sections 102 and 103.

Expert Declaration Opposing Section 101 Motion to Dismiss for Patent Invalidity Deemed Not a Written Instrument

Patent eligibility challenges under 35 U.S.C. § 101 have been effective tools at the pleading stage for parties defending allegations of patent infringement. Defendants often attempt to avoid the costs of litigation by filing a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“FRCP”) 12(b)(6), seeking to invalidate the asserted patent(s) on the grounds that the claims are directed to ineligible subject matter — such as an “abstract idea.” Previously, a key tactic for plaintiffs to overcome such “Section 101 motions” was by amending the complaint and annexing an expert declaration. Recently, however, this strategy has been called into question due to a recent decision in Marble VOIP Partners LLC v. Zoom Video Communications, Inc.,

CAFC Says Pure Post-AIA Patents Are Not Subject to Interference Proceedings

On July 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in SNIPR Technologies Limited v. Rockefeller University reversing a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that invalidated all claims from five SNIPR patents. In reversing, the Federal Circuit found that the PTAB erroneously subjected SNIPR’s patents to interference proceedings that Congress meant to eliminate when it enacted the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011.

Federal Circuit Says User-Matching Patent Claims are Abstract in Precedential Eligibility Decision

In a precedential decision authored by Judge Tiffany Cunningham on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruled that two patents for methods of connecting users based on their answers to polling questions were directed to patent ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. U.S. Patent Nos. 9,087,321 and 10,936,685 are owned by Trinity Info Media, LLC and are titled “Poll-Based Networking System.” The U.S. District court for the Central District of California granted Covalent, Inc.’s motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), finding that the claims were directed to the abstract idea of “matching users who gave corresponding answers to a question” and did not contain an inventive concept.

Michel Says He’s Confident Latest Eligibility Bill Will Curb Judicial Expansion of Section 101

On the evening of July 5, inventor advocacy group US Inventor hosted a webinar to discuss the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) recently introduced into the U.S. Senate by Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE). The featured guest speaker was Retired U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul Michel, who has been involved in the development of PERA’s draft legislative text and has personally supported PERA as an important step in “reviv[ing] the faltering U.S. innovation system” by abrogating the series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that greatly expanded judicial exceptions to patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101.