Patent Law Weblog
Category: Patentable Subject Matter
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By Michael Borella — Last month the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published an update ("October Update") to its subject matter eligibility guidance. As we noted at that time, the October Update is more evolutionary than revolutionary, and primarily serves to provide clarifications to the more substantive January Guidance. Nonetheless, the USPTO did provide four…
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By Michael Anderson and Michael Borella — August 27, 1890 WASHINGTON D.C. The ups and downs of Mr. Thomas A. Edison's inventions related to electrical lighting continue. After his U.S. Patent No. 223,898 for an "Electric Lamp" was found to be valid in the Circuit Court of the Western District of Pennsylvania, the case was…
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By Michael Borella — Early today, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office released an update to its January 2019 Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance. Unlike the January Guidance, which represented a significant change in how the USPTO applies § 101 in examination and PTAB proceedings, this October Update is primarily an effort to clarify issues brought…
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Land Rover's Patented "Terrain Response Technology" Found Patent Eligible By Joseph Herndon — In 2016, Bentley Motors Ltd. and Bentley Motors, Inc. launched their first SUV, the Bentayga, which is a direct competitor to Jaguar Land Rover Ltd.'s (JLR) Range Rover model. JLR's patented Terrain Response technology is included on certain vehicles, and the Bentayga…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Albert Einstein once famously (albeit perhaps apocryphally) said that "[c]ompound interest is the most powerful force in the universe." Not to contradict the creator of 20th Century physics, but it is just as likely that the most powerful force in the universe is the power of unintended consequences. The Federal…
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By Michael Borella — June 23, 1880 WASHINGTON D.C. In a unanimous panel ruling, the Federal Circuit invalidated a patent owned by Salem, Massachusetts inventor A. G. Bell. On February 14, 1876, Mr. Bell was granted Letters Patent No. 174,465 to an "Improvement in Telegraphy." This patent was challenged in various proceedings by Mr. Elisha…
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By Donald Zuhn — Earlier this month, in Genetic Veterinary Sciences, Inc. v. LABOKLIN GmbH, the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granting a motion for judgment as a matter of law filed by Appellee Genetic Veterinary Sciences, Inc., d/b/a Paw Prints Genetics ("PPG"), and…
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By James Korenchan — In August 2018, Plaintiffs Ubisoft Entertainment, S.A. and Ubisoft, Inc. (collectively, "Ubisoft") sued Defendant Yousician Oy ("Yousician"), alleging that Yousician's software products infringed Ubisoft's U.S. Patent No. 9,839,852 (the '852 patent). In November 2018, Yousician moved to dismiss on grounds that the claims of the patent are directed to patent-ineligible subject…
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By Michael Borella — On July 23, 2019, the Federal Circuit denied ChargePoint's request for panel rehearing and en banc review of its March 28, 2019 decision rendering four ChargePoint patents invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Since we did not review this case when the panel decision came down, and because the case subsequently…
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By Michael Borella — On July 1, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) designated four of its recent 35 U.S.C. § 101 decisions as informative. Each of these decisions came down after and applied the USPTO's 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance. Two resulted in…
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