The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down many patents on the grounds that they are invalid as directed to an abstract idea, relying on the Supreme Court’s Alice decision. In In re Elbaum (Fed. Cir. 12/20/2023)...more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has again relied on the Supreme Court’s Alice case to invalidate patents on the grounds that they are directed to an abstract idea. Realtime Data LLC v. Fortinet Inc. ( Fed. Cir. 8/2/2023)...more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated seven patents owned by an AI technology company after applying the two-step Alice test. Scott Hervey and Audrey Millemann talk about this decision on this episode of The...more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated seven patents owned by an AI technology company after applying the two-step Alice test. Scott Hervey and Audrey Millemann talk about this decision on this episode of The...more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals continues to strike down patents directed to abstract ideas under the Alice test for patent subject matter eligibility. In People.ai, Inc. v. Clari Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2023) U.S. App. LEXIS...more
On Monday this week, the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that the PTO would be revisiting the test for patent subject matter eligibility. The announcement was made on the blog homepage of PTO...more
Not everything is patentable. First, only inventions are patentable. Second, only certain inventions are patentable. Four types of inventions are patentable: articles of manufacture, machines, processes, and compositions of...more
An inter partes review (IPR) is a procedure to challenge a patent in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). The IPR procedure was established by the American Invents Act, and was intended to be an improvement on the...more
A lot of things are patentable. Under 35 U.S.C. §101, machines, articles of manufacture, processes, and compositions of matter (including new chemical compounds) are patentable. But some things are not: the exceptions are...more
Some things are not patentable: laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas. The Supreme Court has long held that inventions falling within these categories are not patentable; they are patent-ineligible subject...more
Patent law is a complicated area of law governed by a confusing set of statutes and regulations that are interpreted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and the federal courts. Patents themselves are...more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has reminded the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in no uncertain terms that covered business method review has limits. In Unwired Planet, LLC v....more
The application of the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347. (2014) has made it almost impossible to patent software. The United States Patent and Trademark Office is...more
Although the general rule (based on 35 USC section 101) is that anything made by humans is patentable, there are exceptions. Laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable. Inventions that fall in...more
Patents covering software for use in the financial industry are increasingly being invalidated by the courts. Because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014), district...more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has applied the Supreme Court’s test for unpatentable abstract ideas to patents covering methods to determine a person’s likelihood of getting certain types of cancer....more