Posts Tagged: "Trading Technologies International"

Supreme Court Denies Trading Technologies, ChargePoint Petitions

The U.S. Supreme Court today denied two petitions for certiorari filed by Trading Technologies and one by ChargePoint, Inc. asking the Court to review their cases related to the patent eligibility of their inventions. Trading Technologies’ inventions relate to graphical user interface tools, while ChargePoint’s invention is for a vehicle charging station. The denials are not surprising following the High Court’s refusal to allow a number of other petitions dealing with Section 101 earlier this month, including Athena Diagnostics v. Mayo Collaborative Services and HP Inc. v. Berkheimer. Athena was thought to have the best chance of being granted, especially after the United States Office of the Solicitor General (SG) in December weighed in on the petition in Hikma Pharmaceuticals v. Vanda Pharmaceuticals, recommending against granting cert in that case in favor of hearing one like Athena instead.

Trading Technologies, ChargePoint Ask High Court for Help with Federal Circuit’s Conflicted Approach to Patent Eligibility

Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT) has filed a second petition with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to review a Federal Circuit holding that computer-implemented inventions that do not improve the basic functions of the computer itself are directed to abstract ideas and therefore patent ineligible. The present petition relates to U.S. Patent Nos. 7,685,055 (the “’055 patent”); 7,693,768 (the “’768 patent”); and 7,725,382 (the “’382 patent”). The petition TT filed in September relates to Patent Nos. 7,533,056, 7,212,999, and 7,904,374. The patents are all from the same family as three other patents found patent eligible by the CAFC in 2017. The latest petition argues that the Federal Circuit “simply declined to address conflicting Federal Circuit authority involving the same patent family or the line of other Federal Circuit decisions adopting and applying that authority’s reasoning,” and, therefore, clarification is needed from the High Court. The company’s argument may also get a boost from another petition filed recently appealing the controversial decision in ChargePoint v. Semaconnect, in which the Federal Circuit held that a vehicle charging station was not patent eligible.

Trading Technologies Files New Request for En Banc Rehearing of ‘Ladder Tool’ Patent Decision at Federal Circuit

On August 15, Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT) petitioned the Federal Circuit again for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc of its recent decision that found TT’s Ladder Tool invention to be subject to the USPTO’s Covered Business Method (CBM) review process and abstract under Section 101. TT argues that the PTAB did not follow the precedent of the Supreme Court or Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) when reviewing its patent claims. The latest brief relates to U.S. Patent No. 7,725,382 (the ‘382 patent), while TT’s request for rehearing filed July 31 related to U.S. Patent No. 7,693,768.

Software Patent Eligibility at the Federal Circuit 2017

If there was a theme that emerged in 2017 it is the necessity to have what is specifically innovative disclosed in the claims. While not a particularly new concept, there were cases in 2017 where the Federal Circuit acknowledged that a patent eligible innovation may well have been disclosed in the specification, but which was not found in the claims. With many legacy software patents the description of the technology (if one actually existed) was only in the specification while the claims were written to be quite broad. The Federal Circuit requires both a thick technical description of the innovation and why it is an improvement (see Enfish) and incorporation of what is innovative into the claims… What follows picks up where my 2016 article left off and provides summary and analysis of the notable software patent eligibility cases decided by the Federal Circuit in 2017.

The PTAB is a thoroughly broken tribunal incapable of being fixed

One Administrative Patent Judge — Judge Meredith Petravick — dissented. Petravick said it was inappropriate for the PTAB to terminate the ‘304 patent CBM because the parties were different when compared to the Federal Circuit case. Petravick said that the review should be limited to the record of the ‘304 patent and not consider extraneous, out of record matters such as a Federal Circuit determination that the very same claims are, in fact, patent eligible. Petravick dissented saying that he would find the claims to the graphical user interface just found patent eligible by the Federal Circuit to be patent ineligible.