5 Key Takeaways | Making Sense of §102 Public Use and On Sale Bars to Patentability
Unexpected Paths to IP Law with Dan Young and Colin White
5 Key Takeaways | AI and Your Patent Management, Strategy & Portfolio
From Ideas to Ownership: Navigating IP and Employment Law Through the Lens of The Social Network — Hiring to Firing Podcast
A Guide to SEP: Standard Essential Patents for Tech Startups
Hilary Preston, Vice Chair at Vinson & Elkins, Discusses Energy Innovation: Protecting Your Intellectual Property Portfolio
(Podcast) The Briefing: A Very Patented Christmas – The Quirkiest Inventions for the Holiday Season
The Briefing: A Very Patented Christmas – The Quirkiest Inventions for the Holiday Season
4 Tips for Protecting Your AI Products
Innovating with AI: Ensuring You Own Your Inventions
Using Innovative Technology to Advance Trial Strategies | Episode 70
Rob Sahr on the Administration’s Aggressive Approach to Bayh-Dole Compliance
The Briefing: The Patent Puzzle: USPTO's Guidelines for AI Inventions
The Briefing: The Patent Puzzle: USPTO's Guidelines for AI Inventions (Podcast)
#WorkforceWednesday: Invention Ownership - Why the Tense Matters in Employee IP Provisions - Employment Law This Week® - Spilling Secrets Podcast
Patent Dual-application Strategy in China
How to Write a Technical Disclosure for Patent Drafting
The Utility Model System in China
Williams Mullen Manufacturing Edge: IP Considerations for Manufacturers
Risk Prevention Strategies: Ownership of Employee-Developed Inventions and Intellectual Property
On April 18, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a patent infringement suit brought by Recentive Analytics, Inc. against Fox Corporation. See Recentive Analytics, Inc. v....more
Blockchain is becoming central to more FinTech patent portfolios than ever – but it’s harder to obtain protection on blockchain than most other technologies. The US Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank (2014)...more
Chewy, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corporation - Before Moore, Chief Judge, Stoll and Cunningham. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York....more
A global consensus seems to be forming that an artificial intelligence (AI) system does not deserve—at least for now—to be named as an inventor on a patent application. The question is under consideration and being settled in...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
Should the recent bill entitled the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023 (PERA) become law, it would override the existing jurisprudence and redefine which inventions are eligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101. ...more
Innovators seeking patent protection for entertainment software inventions should be aware that all software inventions face patent-eligibility issues. Nevertheless, patent practitioners who are experienced in the art of...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
Since the Alice v. CLS Bank and Mayo v. Prometheus decisions, district courts and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has struggled to determine and navigate the boundary between what is and what is not...more
Nearly seven years after the landmark Supreme Court decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, subject matter eligibility for patent claims under 35 U.S.C § 101 remains a moving target. In Alice, the Court found claims for a...more
In recent years, the Supreme Court has decided a number of cases, including Bilski v. Kappos, Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad, and Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, which...more
Senators from both sides of the aisle expect to introduce a final bill this summer that could significantly improve the prospects for patent applicants with software and business method inventions. Congress recently held...more
Addressing the various factors a court may consider in order to determine whether a claim is “directed to” an abstract idea, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s dismissal of all claims...more
Much of the modern economy is driven by software development. Companies are creating and refining new apps that run on mobile devices, and using machine learning to provide users with personalized user interfaces and...more
Patent eligibility challenges under 35 U.S.C. §101 have been effective tools for defendants to obtain early dismissal of a case without extensive fact finding since the Supreme Court ruling in Alice. Whether a claim recites...more
Determining Whether a Claim Element or Combination of Elements Would Have Been Well-Understood, Routine, and Conventional Is a Question of Fact - In Aatrix Software, Inc. v. Green Shades Software, Inc., Appeal No....more
Berkheimer v. HP Inc., Appeal No. 2017-1437 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 8, 2018) - In Berkheimer v. HP Inc., the Federal Circuit reviewed the District Court’s summary judgment finding that certain claims of a patent were invalid as...more
On August 2nd 2017, the USPTO hosted a Bicoastal Biotechnology/Chemical/Pharmaceutical Customer Partnership that focused on the USPTO’s current thinking on patent-eligibility. The meeting followed the USPTO’s June 25th, 2017...more
Over the past two months, the trends I've discussed in my previous blogs on AliceStorm have continued and become more entrenched. In particular, the Federal Circuit has been quite active, issuing nine decisions since late...more
In a Section 101 analysis under Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Intl., “[a]n inventive concept can be found in the non-conventional and non-generic arrangement of known, conventional pieces”—even if individual claim...more
Of the three recognized judicial exceptions to Section 101—laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas—none has proved more resistant to reasoned judicial analysis than the last. From its inception in Gottschalk v....more
The PTAB cancelled claims of a financing patent as lacking patentable subject matter in Westlake Services LLC v. Credit Acceptance Corp., CBM2014-00176 (PTAB January 25, 2016, Order) (McKone, APJ). Westlake is interesting...more
On July 30, 2015, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office updated its subject matter eligibility guidance ("July Update"). The update provided recommendations and resources for examiners in addition to those in the Office's...more
Patenting - Patenting generally offers a superior means for legally protecting most inventions, particularly since: • copyright, when available, does not provide a broad scope of protection; and • the...more
Part I: #AliceStorm and Versata - July invokes images of hot days, cool nights, and fireworks. When it comes to #Alicestorm, the fireworks are happening in the courts, with the Federal Circuit lighting up the sky....more