Posts Tagged: "patentable"

Alice at Age Four: Time to Grow Up

Four years later, the patent landscape demonstrates that Alice has become a train wreck for innovation… Unfortunately, the Federal Circuit failed to rein in this rout of Machiavellian creativity, which it could have done by relying on well-settled procedural process and patent doctrines… This year, the Federal Circuit appears finally to have awakened from its slumber. In two recent opinions, Aatrix v. Green Shades and Berkheimer v. HP, the Federal Circuit embraced long-established procedural rules and patent doctrines… Savvy and creative patent lawyering will prevail. To be successful, patent practitioners must show the PTO, the courts, and Congress the importance of our clients’ innovations and explain why the type of technology should not dictate whether there is enforceability.

USPTO begins process for finding new leadership at the PTAB

Just days prior to our interview an announcement was made that PTAB Chief Judge David Ruschke would be stepping down and assuming new responsibilities. “At the PTAB, we will have new leadership. For now, come September 2nd, the acting chief will be Scott Boalick, and the acting deputy chief will be Jackie Bonilla,” Director Iancu said. “We’re going to post the position, the vacancy. I want to encourage everybody out there, both inside the PTO and from the outside, who is interested, and thinks will do an excellent job, to apply. We are at the beginning of the process for finding new leadership at the PTAB.”

Narrowly Construing the Bright-line Eligibility Prohibition Does Not Prevent Policing of Overbroad Claiming

Narrowly construing the § 101 eligibility exception for abstract ideas is not only suggested by Supreme Court guidance, but also could potentially allow for increased coherence and consistency while simultaneously serving to solicit further Supreme Court guidance on eligibility. Even if the bright-line eligibility prohibition is construed narrowly, § 101 can still serve to police claiming at a level of abstraction that results in overbroad claiming.

In an Abstract Idea Context, Little Is Unmistakably Within the Bright-line Eligibility Prohibition

It seems clear that the Supreme Court did not intend to categorically prohibit patenting of everything which can be characterized as an abstract idea at some level because the Court indicated that there are at least some abstract ideas that are sufficient to confer patent eligibility: namely, inventive concepts.  The Court’s bright-line prohibition against patenting laws of nature and mathematical formulas clearly was not intended to categorically prohibit patenting of everything which can be characterized as an abstract idea because such a bright-line extension would bar patenting of inventive concepts, which by definition are capable of characterization as abstract ideas but which the Court explicitly acknowledged are sufficient to signal eligibility.

Understory Earns U.S. Patents for Weather Sensing Technology

Understory’s first patent covers the sensor device itself which consists of a stainless steel sphere sitting on top of a shaft, a configuration which one of the sensor’s designer called “God’s joystick.” “The sensor detects microdeflections from rain or hail pushing on the joystick,” Kubicek said. Such measurements take place on the order of 50,000 times each second and algorithms processed at the device separates each microdeflection into a data point which can be sent to a cloud-based network of weather data… One has to wonder though whether the Federal Circuit and Supreme Court, when they might get their hands on these patents, will find them to be directed to nothing more than an abstract idea. After all, sensing the weather has been done since at least the dawn of recorded history.