Posts Tagged: patentable subject matter
USPTO Update from John Cabeca, Silicon Valley Director
One area the Office is reviewing is in the area of Examiner Time Analysis. The Office hasn’t changed the classification of applications (i.e., complex versus …
How the New USPTO Director Can Impact Patent Subject Matter Eligibility and Post-Patent Grant Challenge Proceedings
As the challenge proceedings and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board mark their fifth anniversary, we should reflect on whether they have achieved their intended purpose. About …
Federal Circuit Reverses Rule 12(b)(6) Eligibility Dismissal Under First Step of Alice
In Visual Memory LLC v. NVIDIA Corp., a district court dismissed a patent infringement complaint under FRCP 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, because the patent …
Placing limits on innovation may exclude great inventions before it’s known what has been excluded
Since U.S. patents are granted with exclusive right to exclude, the only way to realize values of inventions is licensing, suing for damages or both. This …
Federal Circuit says computer memory system claims patent eligible, not abstract
The majority determined that the patent claims drawn to a computer memory system did not cover an abstract idea and, therefore, the second step of the Alice …
Patent ‘gold rush’ to blame for patent sharks, patent trolls
Patent trolls – as well as calls for changes to the law to prevent them – date back to at least the 1800’s. A look at their history suggests …
The Problem of Reducing Patentability to Novelty
Ironically, judicial decisions on patent eligibility tend to depend on inventiveness, with tests of originality that tend to refer to novelty, reducing the issue of patentability to …
Revising Section 101 of the Patent Act: What’s at Stake?
These revisions favor patent owners, according to Palmer, but not everyone is supportive. For instance, Bilski, Mayo, Myriad, and Alice have given several accused infringers an additional …
Patent Bar Groups Propose Legislation to Fix Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Problems
Over the past few months, several of the major intellectual property organizations have developed proposed legislative fixes to patent subject matter holdings by the courts. The American …
Federal Circuit says Cleveland Clinic Diagnostic Patents Ineligible Under § 101
The Cleveland Clinic’s diagnostic or “testing” patents at issue dealt with a process by which an enzyme was measured and correlated against known levels of the …
Federal Circuit Affirms CBM Unpatentability Holding; Finding Estoppel Did Not Apply
In Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Servs. the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) in a Covered Business Method (“CBM”) …
Patentability Overview: When can an Invention be Patented?
Unfortunately, the patentability requirements are frequently misunderstood. For many who are not well versed in patent law one of the reasons it can be confusing when considering …
Alice Who? Over Half the U.S. Utility Patents Issued Annually are Software Related!
I have always argued that software patent eligibility is a must in a country where patent rights are guaranteed by the Constitution. That is, all fields of …
It is time to define the term ‘Abstract Idea’
The industry is collapsing all because no one in a black robe has the guts to define the critical term that is the core of a test …
Through the Looking Glass: Recent Federal Circuit Decisions Do Not Change the Need for Action on Alice
The few CAFC cases (since Alice) that have found inventions to be subject matter eligible is certainly a welcome development. These cases indicate that the CAFC does …
