Podcast: Blockchain Intellectual Property Considerations for Innovators and Investors
JUSTICE HÄAGEN-DAZS: Imagine King Tut lounging outside his pyramid, surrounded by gold and bad financial instincts. He's handing out chits left and right, "Good for one unit of gold, redeemable later." He's got an abacus guy...more
Senior Circuit Judge Bryson of the Federal Circuit, sitting by designation in the District of Delaware, recently granted-in-part and denied-in-part a Rule 12(c) motion for judgment based on patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C....more
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is at it again, gaslighting the public in its ongoing crusade against patents. While the EFF does perform some commendable work, mostly in the areas of individual privacy rights, its...more
In the case USADATA Inc. v. DataWidget LLC, No. CV-21-00526-PHX-DLR, 2021 WL 5084283 (D. Ariz. Nov. 1, 2021), the patent at issue is titled, "System and Method for Selling Customer-Specific Data Subsets on a Third-Party...more
A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit highlights the importance of describing any improvements to technology in the specification. In the case of Whitserve LLC v. Dropbox, Inc., WhitServe...more
The Supreme Court's Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l case has been criticized for setting forth a patent eligibility analysis that is unworkably subjective. As a consequence, the validity of particular types of inventions,...more
Stanford University applied for a U.S. patent for statistical methods of predicting haplotype phase. In 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejected the application as ineligible subject matter. Last week, a panel of the...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit looked at a patent directed to a data privacy system that described users operating mobile device apps to "socialize, bank, shop, and navigate." As users operate such apps,...more
In 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah dismissed Simio's lawsuit against FlexSim Software, finding that the asserted patent was ineligible under Section 101. Simio responded by asking the court to vacate...more
This decision is bad. Not an American Axle level of bad, but still quite far from good. Simio sued FlexSim in the District of Utah for alleged infringement of its U.S. Patent No. 8,156,468. FlexSim moved for dismissal on...more
The evolution of graphical user interfaces parallels the evolution of computing technology itself. As computers grow more powerful and sophisticated, so does their ability to display cutting-edge representations of...more
Claims for an Interactive 3D Virtual Environment Found Patent Ineligible - In the field of computer gaming, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California recently granted Defendants' Rule 12 motion...more
Late last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit delivered ShoppersChoice.com the affirmation it ordered in Electronic Communication Technologies, LLC (ECT) v. ShoppersChoice.com, LLC. In doing so, the court...more
By reversing the lower court’s ruling that the asserted claims were not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in Uniloc v. LG Electronics, the Federal Circuit resurrected Uniloc’s infringement suit against LG Electronics. It...more
In deciding patent eligibility of computer-implemented claims, courts consider whether the claims merely implement a generic computer or whether they improve the functioning of the computer itself. The Federal Circuit...more
Earlier this week, the Federal Circuit reviewed a PTAB affirming the examiner’s rejection of claims directed to a computer-conducted method of "assigning and managing the rights to receive taxes when amounts are disbursed...more
In The Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Techtronic Industries Co., the Federal Circuit weighed in on the type of subject matter that can be characterized as an “abstract idea” and, thus, not eligible for patent protection....more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) rejected all pending claims of Mr. Greenstein’s patent application, which was directed to adjusting the amount a person saves and choosing investments with the goal of saving enough...more
Rocksmith sued Yousician Oy, alleging infringement of its patent entitled "interactive guitar game." The patent discloses software for learning to play the guitar and provides an "effective way to provide interactive method...more
Judge Maryellen Noreika (D. Delaware) has been very active since receiving her judicial commission less than a year ago, including already issuing a handful of Section 101 opinions. In Sandbox Software v. 18Birdies, she holds...more
Addressing the standard for qualifying as a covered business method (CBM) patent and the procedure for analyzing the claims of such patents under 35 USC § 101, the US Court of Appeals found that the challenged claims were...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently issued three interesting, related opinions interpreting and applying the “technological invention” exception to Covered Business Method Review (“CBM Review”). These...more
Federal Circuit Determines Time-Barred Petitioner Joined to an IPR Has Appellate Standing - In Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Research Corporation Tech., Appeal Nos. 2017-2088, -2089, -2091, the Federal Circuit held that a...more
SRI Int’l, Inc. v. Cisco Sys., Inc., Appeal No. 2017-2223 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 20, 2019) - In a decision following trial, the Federal Circuit addressed the issue of the eligibility of patent claims directed to technology meant...more
Federal Circuit Summary - Before Lourie, O’Malley, and Stoll. Appeal from District of Delaware. Summary: Under step one of Alice, a claim is not directed to an abstract idea when it recites a specific technique to...more