Podcast: Patentable Subject Matter in 2019
Drafting Software Patents In A Post-Alice World
Polsinelli Podcasts - Hear How the SCOTUS Ruling May Impact Patent-Eligible Subject Matter for Software
PowerBlock Holdings, Inc. v. iFit, Inc., No. 2024-1177 (Fed. Cir. (D. Utah) Aug. 11, 2025). Opinion by Stoll, joined by Taranto and Scarsi (sitting by designation). PowerBlock sued iFit for infringement of a patent directed...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a district court’s partial dismissal of the plaintiff’s patent claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101, finding that the claims were not directed to an abstract idea under Alice...more
POWERBLOCK HOLDING, INC. v. IFIT, INC. - Before Taranto, Stoll, and District Judge Scarsi. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Utah. Under step one of the Alice test, claims should be considered...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed and remanded a district court’s decision that the asserted claims were patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101, finding that the district court improperly characterized...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that a representative claim was directed to a patent-eligible improvement to computer functionality, and therefore reversed a decision authored by Judge Leonard P....more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that targeted advertising is still an abstract idea and that a system providing targeted advertising must utilize something more than generic features and routine...more
Precedential Federal Circuit Opinions - SIMIO, LLC v. FLEXSIM SOFTWARE PRODUCTS [OPINION] (2020-1171, 12/29/20) (Prost, Clevenger, Stoll) - Prost, J. Affirming dismissal because claims were ineligible under § 101....more
Introduction - Packet Intelligence sued NetScout in the Eastern District of Texas, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,665,725, 6,839,751, and 6,954,789. The District Court ruled that all three patents were valid...more
There are (at least) two ways of looking at the course of the Federal Circuit's evolving interpretation of the Supreme Court's subject matter eligibility jurisprudence under Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Labs.,...more
Last month, in Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., the Federal Circuit reversed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey finding certain claims of U.S. Patent...more
The Federal Circuit recently held certain method of treatment claims patent eligible under step one of Alice, reversing a district court’s judgment on the pleadings. In that same case, the Federal Circuit upheld the district...more
The Appointments Clause: Ensuring That PTAB Decisions Are Subject to Constitutional Checks and Balances In Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., Appeal No. 18-2251, the Federal Circuit ruled that, under the then-existing...more
Addressing an issue of software subject matter eligibility, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment on the pleadings under 35 USC § 101, finding claims related to error checking...more
KONINKLIJKE KPN N.V. v. GEMALTO M2M GMBH - Before Dyk, Chen, and Stoll. Appeal from the District of Delaware. Summary: Claims directed to improving the functionality of one tool that is part of a system do not...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found claims directed to using data from a check to credit a merchant’s account before scanning the check to be subject matter ineligible under 35 USC § 101 as reciting an...more
Broad Claim Language and Unpredictability in the Art Lead to Non-Enablement - In Enzo Life Sciences, Inc. v. Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2017-2498, -2499, -2545, -2546, broad patent claims were invalid as...more
Last week, the Federal Circuit reversed a District of Minnesota decision and found a patent directed to a system and method for processing paper checks to be abstract and not eligible for patent protection. Judge Chen wrote...more
Reasonably Continuous Diligence Is Not Negated If an Inventor Works On Improvements or Evaluates Alternatives to the Claimed Invention - In ATI Technologies ULC v. IANCU, Appeal Nos. 2016-2222, -2406, -2608, the Federal...more
Just Because Something May Result From a Prior Art Teaching Does Not Make it Inherent in that Teaching - In Personal Web Technologies, LLC v. Apple, Inc., Appeal No. 2018-1599, the Federal Circuit clarified that the mere...more
The U.S. Supreme Court presented a two-step framework for determining whether a claim contains patentable subject matter under the abstract idea exception to 35 U.S.C. § 101 in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l....more
Federal Circuit Finds Claims Issued from Reexamination Co-Pending with Appeal Ineligible Where the Changes Did Not Affect Section 101 Eligibility - In SAP AMERICA, Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, Appeal No. 2017-2081, the...more
PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - Data Engine Technologies, LLC v. Google LLC, Appeal No. 2017-1135 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 9, 2018) - In one of two Section 101 cases this week, the Federal Circuit affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-part, and...more
Federal Circuit Summary - Before Judges Reyna, Bryson, and Stoll. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. Summary: A claim that recites a specific method for navigating through...more
Gust, Inc. v. AlphaCap Ventures, LLC, Appeal No. 2017-2414 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 28, 2018) In an appeal from a district court decision awarding fees pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1927, the Federal Circuit reversed. The decision makes...more
Ericsson Inc. v. Intellectual Ventures I LLC (No. 2017-1521, 8/27/18) (Reyna, Taranto, Chen) Reyna, J. - Vacating and remanding the PTAB’s IPR decision because the PTAB erred in not considering portions of the petitioner’s...more