As of February 14, 2018, at last count, there have been six substantive opinions rendered by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit relating to 35 U.S.C. §101, creating an unusually large body of §101 jurisprudence within only six weeks of the calendar year. Two of these opinions, Move, Inc. v. RE/MAX Int’l, Inc., …
Category: patent eligible subject matter
Fed Circuit Watch: Finjan Survives Alice Test for Subject Matter Eligibility
On January 10, 2018, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed down Finjan, Inc. v. Blue Coat Systems, Inc.[1] Finjan sued Blue Coat, a subsidiary of rival Symantec Corp., for patent infringement of four of its patents dealing with cybersecurity methods and systems: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,154,844 (‘844), 7,418,731 (‘731), 6,965,968 (‘968), and …
USPTO Issues Public Comments for §101 Subject Matter Eligibility
By Brent T. Yonehara On July 30, 2017, the USPTO released its §101 report, Patent Eligible Subject Matter: Report on Views and Recommendations From the Public. The report is a rather dry recitation of the §101 legal framework better suited for a Patent Bar Exam prep course. However, there is an interesting comparative overlay of …
Alice in Wonderland: Software Patents in Light of Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l
By Brent T. Yonehara INTRODUCTION Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International was recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in the closing days of its 2013-2014 term.[1] In Alice, the Supreme Court found that patent claims that do not “transform” from patent-ineligible subject matter to a patent-eligible invention were abstract ideas outside the scope of …