Patent Law Weblog
recent posts
- Why the Alice Test is Stupid, Part IV: The Usefulness Paradox
- Teva Capitulates to Federal Trade Commission Coercion
- USPTO Issues Memoranda on Subject Matter Eligibility
- USPTO Revokes Guidance on AI-Assisted Inventorship, But Rules Remain Basically the Same
- Why the Alice Test is Stupid, Part III: Eligible Independent Claims Can Have Ineligible Dependent Claims
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Category: Patentable Subject Matter
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By Michael Borella — Bad law often gives rise to creative legal arguments. But the application of such creative lawyering is necessarily bounded by ethical rules and notions of fair dealing. Patent eligibility, in its current incarnation, has been argued to be bad law by many. The current judicial interpretation of 35 U.S.C. § 101 is…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (at right) released a blog post on the USPTO's Director's Blog on Monday addressing the fraught subject of subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as interpreted over the past decade…
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Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose By Kevin E. Noonan — Judge Moore, in Athena Diagnostics, Inc. v. Mayo Collaborative Services, LLC stated the obvious when she said in her dissent: My colleagues' refusal deflates the Amici's hopeful suggestion that our precedent leaves the eligibility of a diagnostic claim in front of the Federal Circuit…
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By Michael Borella — In an order that is clearly less impactful and damaging than a number of opinions that the Supreme Court has disgorged in the last two weeks, the justices have denied certiorari in American Axle & Mfg. Inc. v. Neapco Holdings LLC. To many, American Axle represented the Gordian Knot in patent-eligibility that…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — In a month where the Supreme Court's conservative majority has exercised its judicial muscle by striking down several well-established precedents, one portion of their jurisprudence is as fixed a constant as the North Star: the Court will not address the morass in patent subject matter eligibility created by the decisions…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — On May 23rd, U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna of the Central District of California granted summary judgement to Defendant Sweegen, Inc. on its motion that Plaintiff Pure Circle USA Inc.'s claims in suit were invalid for reciting patent ineligible subject matter and for failing to satisfy the written…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — The faintest glimmer of hope crept over the clouded patent law horizon today, when the Solicitor General provided the government's views to the Supreme Court in an amicus brief in American Axle & Manufacturing, Inc., Petitioner v. Neapco Holdings LLC. A simple synopsis is provided in the first sentences of…
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By Michael Borella — There is a theme running through many patent-eligibility disputes that is analogous to baiting-and-switching. One party has claims that recite an invention. The other party characterizes those claims at a high level or generalizes them to the point that much of the actual claim language is largely ignored. Then, the other…
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By Michael Borella — Mentone sued Digi for alleged infringement of Mentone's U.S. Patent No. 6,952,413. The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware found the claims of the patent to be ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Mentone appealed. The invention of the '413 patent is directed to improvements in the allocation of…
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By Donald Zuhn –- After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its 15th annual list of top patent stories. For 2021, we identified nine stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year that we believe had (or are likely to have) a significant impact on patent practitioners and…
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