Judge Gilstrap in the Eastern District of Texas has granted a defendant’s motion for a stay based on institution of an Inter Partes Review (IPR) proceeding. MemSmart Semiconductor Corp. v. AAC Technologies Pte. Ltd., No. 2:14-CV-1107-JRG (E.D. Texas July 10, 2015). The defendant was able to present strong facts in support of a stay. Notably, […]
Archive | July, 2015
Patent-Eligibility at the PTAB in Ex Parte Appeals
Far from finding relief from an examiner’s patent-ineligibility rejection at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), patent applicants may find that ex parte appeals are their undoing. A recent decision in an appeal filed in 2012, reversing an examiner’s prior art rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), but setting forth a new ground of […]
Two More District Courts Follow Alice
Having just posted on a slew of U.S. District Court cases holding patent claims patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and the Alice case, here are two more: Smart Systems v. Chicago Transit Authority, No. 14 C 08053 (N.D. Ill. July 10, 2015). Patent claims directed to using credit cards to pay for public transit […]
35 U.S.C. § 101 Alice Train Rolls on in the District Courts
Here are brief summaries of nine recent cases in which district courts have considered validity of patent claims under 35 U.S.C. 101. The trend is not good for patent owners. Two Patents Survive a Rule 12 Alice Challenge . . . Mirror Worlds Technologies LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 6:13-CV-419 (E.D. Texas July 7, 2015). […]
Claims to Online Purchasing Method Not Patent-Eligible
A court has granted summary judgment of invalidity for failure to claim patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for claims to “[a] method of purchasing goods or services over a data network.” Source Search Technologies, LLC v. Kayak Software Corp., No. 11-3388 (D. N.J. July 1, 2015). The patent owner conceded that the […]
Federal Circuit Holds Two Intellectual Ventures Patents Invalid for Claiming Unpatentable Subject Matter
The Federal Circuit has held two patents, owned by the well-known non-practicing entity Intellectual Ventures, invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Intellectual Ventures I LLC et al. v. Capital One NA, No.2014-1506 (July 6, 2015). One of these patents was directed to a budgeting application, and the other was directed to tailoring web pages to […]
Website Navigation Claims Patent-Ineligible, Says Federal Circuit
The Federal Circuit has agreed with a district court that claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,707,505 were directed to “retaining information lost in the navigation of online forms,” and that this subject matter constitutes an unpatentable abstract idea. Internet Patents Corp. v. Active Network, Inc., Nos. 2014-1048, 2014-1061, 2014-1062, 2014-1063 (Fed. Cir. June 23, 2015). […]
Federal Circuit Affirms Patent-ineligibility of Online Retailing Pricing Claims
In OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, No. 12-CV-1233 (Fed. Cir. June 11, 2015), the Federal Circuit agreed with a lower court that U.S. Patent No. 7,970,713 failed to claim patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101, but rather “merely [used] a general-purpose computer to implement the abstract idea of ‘price optimization’.” The ‘713 patent […]
Ultramercial Cert. Petition Denied
The Supreme Court has denied the latest petition for certorari in Ultramercial, LLC, et al. v. WildTangent, Inc., thus ending a case that had already taken two trips to the SCOTUS. Last December, the Federal Circuit finally took a hint and held that the claims of Ultramercial’s patent, directed to a method for monetizing Internet […]
Williamson v. Citrix Online, LLC, and Lessons for Patent Drafting
Williamson v. Citrix Online, LLC, No. 11-CV-2409 (Fed. Cir. June 16, 2015), raises the specter that software patent claims, already oft-challenged in the wake of Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, could face the additional challenge of being unexpectedly construed as “means-plus-function” claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f). (Or, prior to the America Invents Act, “Section 112, […]