In Square Inc v. Protegrity Corp., CBM2014-00182 (March 2, 2016), the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) offered some insight as to when patent claims will be subject to covered business method (CBM) review. The patent at issue is US 8,402,281, titled “Data Security System for a Database.” Claim 33 was one of the illustrative […]
Author Archive | Steve Kontos
Federal Circuit Vacates PTAB Written Decision in IPR For Inadequate Explanation of Invalidity Holding
In a non-precedential opinion, Cutsforth, Inc. v. MotivePower, Inc., No. 15-1316 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 22, 2015), the Federal Circuit criticized the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) for failing to explain its obviousness rejection of U.S. Patent No. 7,990,018, which is directed to a removable brush holder. The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the decision back […]
Some Guidance on Means-Plus-Function Language
Two recent district court opinions provide some guidance for predicting whether claim language will invoke a means-plus-function construction. Invoking means-plus-function isn’t as straight forward as it used to be. It’s well known that claiming “means for” is all but certain to invoke a means-plus-function construction. Things get trickier when that phrase is omitted, however. And […]
Functionally-Described Structural Recitations in Method Patent Claims Can Be Indefinite
A patent claim’s recitation of a structural feature was held indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112 because the court found that that the claim term in question – “processing system” – was indefinite functional language. Thus, the court in Cox Communications v. Sprint Communications, No. 12-487-SLR (D. Del. May 15, 2015) granted partial summary judgment […]
Claims Directed to Encoding Digital Data Held to Be Patent-Eligible
A summary judgment motion alleging that claims of U.S. Patent No. 5,446,747 do not recite patent-eligible subject matter has been denied in France Telecom S.A. v. Marvell Semiconductor, Inc., No. 12-cv-04967-WHO (ND Cal. April 14, 2014). The claims at issue were directed to coding and decoding digital data. In resolving § 101 issues following the […]