Federal Circuit Provides Opening for Patent Eligibility of Software and Computer-Based Inventions The United State Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has provided clarity this week regarding the patent eligibility of computerized processes. On Tuesday, the appellate court issued its ruling in McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games America Inc. et. al., wherein it reversed the lower court’s ruling that patents on lip-sync technology were invalid […] Continue Reading →
Federal Circuit Revives Life-Sciences Patent Directed to Law of Nature On Tuesday, the Federal Circuit revived a life-sciences patent that was invalidated as being directed to a law of nature. The patent involved a method for multiple freeze-thaw cycles in liver cells. In Vitro Technologies designed the method by using previously frozen cells and then pooling the cells that remained viable for re-freezing and thawing […] Continue Reading →
Federal Circuit Finds Patent Eligibility for Application of Natural Law The Federal Circuit has handed down its decision in Rapid Litigation Management v. CellzDirect. The technology at issue in the case is a method of freezing-and-thawing a group of hepatocytes and then selecting those that are still viable. The patent-owner sued the defendant for infringement of the patent, and the defendant in turn filed a […] Continue Reading →
USPTO Releases New Guidance on Life Sciences Patent-Eligible Subject Matter The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued new guidance for Subject Matter Eligibility of Life Sciences patents. A memorandum with the subject “Formulating a Subject Matter Eligibility Rejection and Evaluating the Applicant’s Response to a Subject Matter Eligibility Rejection” was released May 4, 2016. The Memorandum was accompanied by a new set of […] Continue Reading →
Tracking the Mayo Effect: Study Examines Personalized Medicine Patent Applications after SCOTUS Decision The US Supreme Court decided Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs. in 2012, effectively redefining the scope of patent eligible subject matter, particularly with respect to biotechnology and personalized medicine. Subsequent decisions by the Court in Myriad and Alice have confirmed what many prognosticators had predicted: a wide-spread broadening of the judicially-created exceptions to patent […] Continue Reading →
Intellectual Property Protection Options for Software In my last blog post, I discussed some of the recent updates issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office regarding patent eligible subject matter and software patents. As anyone who deals with software patents is aware, there is a lot of uncertainty as to whether software is patent eligible subject matter. While the […] Continue Reading →
Applying the USPTO Guidance on Patent Eligibility of Software The Supreme Court’s June 25, 2014 decision in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al., was anticipated as being the case to decide once and for all whether software is patentable. Many were worried the decision would cause the demise of software patents while others hoped it would secure the future […] Continue Reading →
Australian High Court Rules Isolated Genes Unpatentable Whether or not genes are patent-eligible subject matter has been a much-discussed issue over the last several years. The 2013 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. established that that isolated DNA is a product of nature and therefore not patent eligible under Section 101 of Title […] Continue Reading →
USPTO Issues Updated Guidance on Patent Eligibility Patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 has been an area of significant change in recent years. Several Supreme Court decisions have changed our understanding of what does and does not qualify for patent protection. These decisions, in turn, have required a change in the procedures implemented by the USPTO during the examination of patents. […] Continue Reading →
“Intangible” Software Unpatentable? – AllVoice Developments v. Microsoft In this non-precedential opinion (Fed. Cir. 2015) the Court held claims 60-68 of U.S. Patent No. 5,799,273 (the “‘273 Patent‚¬) invalid under 35. U.S.C. § 101 as not being directed to one of the four statutory categories of inventions identified in 35 U.S.C. 101. Claim 60 is set forth below: 60. A universal speech-recognition […] Continue Reading →