On March 28, Professor Robin Feldman of the University of California Hastings College of Law wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times entitled "Slowing the Patent Trolls". Unfortunately, like so many articles of its ilk,...more
On March 8th, The Economist published an article deriding both so-called "patent trolls" and "software patents" as being impediments to innovation in the United States. Unfortunately, as we have seen all too often when the...more
In a previous article, we discussed the background of this case, and provided an overview of the Petitioner Brief of patentee Alice Corp. In this article, we continue by covering the brief of the Respondent, CLS Bank....more
On December 6th, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to a case that presents the question of "[w]hether claims to computer-implemented inventions -- including claims to systems and machines, processes, and items of...more
On May 5, 2011, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“the Office”) kicked off a new program intended to give applicants and examiners an opportunity to discuss the substance of a patent application before a formal,...more
On Friday the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Intl., opening the door once again for the Justices to further carve out the landscape of patent-eligible software and business method claims....more
Recipe for a contentious Federal Circuit decision: empanel two judges who have different understandings of the patent-eligibility of computer-related inventions, sprinkle in a claim or two that could be viewed as a pure...more
On May 10, 2013, the Federal Circuit handed down the much-anticipated en banc decision in CLS Bank Int'l v. Alice Corp. This case is perhaps the most important 35 U.S.C. § 101 jurisprudence regarding the patent eligibility of...more
It has been just over a month since the Federal Circuit's fractured en banc ruling in CLS Bank Int'l v. Alice Corp. regarding patent-eligibility of computer-implemented inventions under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Last week, the Court...more
In an example of judicial reasoning rolling downhill, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) has struck down claims directed to a computer-implemented business method as failing to meet...more
A previous post presented the background of this case, as well as Judge Lourie's plurality concurrence. As noted in that post, Alice's claimed inventions involved the reduction of settlement risk using a third-party...more
On May 10, the Federal Circuit handed down a much anticipated en banc ruling regarding the patent eligibility of computer-implemented inventions under 35 U.S.C. § 101. In a per curiam opinion that is perhaps the most...more