5 Key Takeaways | Alice at 10: A Section 101 Update
5 Key Takeaways | Rolling with the Legal Punches: Resetting Patent Strategy to Address Changes in the Law
4 Key Takeaways | Updates in Standard Essential Patent Licensing and Litigation
5 Key Takeaways | Hot Topics in Biopharma
Podcast: The Briefing - A Prototypical Corporate Salesperson is Not Patentable
[IP Hot Topics Podcast] Innovation Conversations: Andrei Iancu
Nota Bene Episode 99: Unpacking the Pendulum of American Patent Policy Then, Now, and Forward with Rob Masters
IP(DC) Podcast: Patent Battles – New Patent Initiatives on the Hill & Notable CAFC/SCOTUS Decisions
Podcast: Patentable Subject Matter in 2019
Compiling Successful IP Solutions for Software Developers
Drafting Software Patents In A Post-Alice World
In a tale that boldly goes where few celebrity inventors have gone before, William Shatner—yes, that William Shatner—alongside two co-inventors, filed a patent application for a “Smartphone Organization System and...more
On March 11, 2021, in an Opinion by Judge Reyna, along with Chief Judge Prost and Judge Lourie, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision that the rejected claims of a patent application...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), on occasion, publishes certain Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions as precedential or informative. An informative decision provides PTAB norms on recurring issues,...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) recently designated three more decisions as informative, bringing the total number of informative decisions to 13 for 2019. Two decisions—one final and one on institution—address...more
Despite the prohibition on patenting “abstract ideas” and the tendency of computer software claims to fall into that category, claims directed at improving faulty software systems may still be patentable if they encompass an...more
In 2014, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al., 573 U.S. 208, which significantly altered the patentability of software, business methods,...more
Before Moore, Clevenger, and Wallach. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Summary: Claims directed to providing additional trading information on a prior art display, without more, are patent-ineligible under 35...more
Grunenthal GMBH v. Alkem Labs., Ltd., Appeal Nos. 2017-1153, -2048, -2049, -2050 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 28, 2019) - This week the Federal Circuit issued a rare decision concerning the utility doctrine in patent law. In general,...more
On January 7, 2019, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, a major update to the examination guidelines for evaluating whether a patent claim...more
As we’ve covered in other summaries, the Federal Circuit continues to define the line between computer-implemented claims that are patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for being directed to an abstract idea with no...more
Over the last year, several Federal Circuit judges have filed opinions lamenting the state of the case law that interprets the abstract idea exception to patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. For example, Judge Linn...more
On November 20, 2017, a district court denied a defendant’s Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 12(b)(6) motion that sought to dismiss the case on the ground that the asserted patents were ineligible under 35 U.S.C. §...more
In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court established the current framework for determining patent-eligible subject matter in Alice. The Alice framework is a two-part test, with step one requiring a determination regarding whether a...more
Nearly three years have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on patent eligibility in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l. The decision, which ushered in an unprecedented wave of cases invalidating...more
Apple successfully invalidated three patents for failure to recite patent eligible subject matter. Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc., 2015-1792, 2015-1793 (Fed. Cir. 2016). The patents relate to synchronous communication systems...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) recently held in Ex parte Itagaki and Nishiara (PTAB 2016) that claims reciting a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus are directed to ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §...more
It is axiomatic that the claims of a patent describe the invention, and for Alice challenges, define whether an invention is drawn to an abstract idea without an inventive concept. Of course, claims are construed in light of...more
Reversing a district court holding, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that two patents directed to a method for organizing data in a computer database did not claim an unpatentable...more