Rapid Litigation Management v. CellzDirect (Fed. Cir. 2016)
In an interesting decision, the Federal Circuit has rejecting a district court Section 101 invalidity finding. On appeal, the Federal Circuit held that the claimed hepatocyte prep-method was “not directed to a patent-ineligible concept.”
The claim of the ‘929 patent is directed to a method of preparing frozen hepatocytes that can be thawed and re-frozen (at least twice) while remaining viable. The claimed method is basically an artificial-selection approach of freezing-and-thawing a group of hepatocytes and then selecting the ones still viable. The claims include a few additional details such as using density gradient fractionation (centrifuge) to separate the viable from nonviable; not plating the cells between the first and second freeze; and using a pooled preparation of hepatocytes from multiple sources. U.S. Patent No. 7,604,929.
After reading the claims, the district court found that the patent effectively claimed the ‘natural law’ that some hepatocytes can survive multiple freeze-thaw cycles. On appeal the Federal Circuit disagreed with this characterization and instead found that the claims “directed to a new and useful laboratory technique for preserving hepatocytes.”
The inventors certainly discovered the cells’ ability to survive multiple freeze-thaw cycles, but that is not where they stopped, nor is it what they patented. Rather, “as the first party with knowledge of” the cells’ ability, they were “in an excellent position to claim applications of that knowledge.” Myriad, 133 S. Ct. at 2120 (quoting Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, 689 F.3d 1303, 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (Bryson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part)). That is precisely what they did. They employed their natural discovery to create a new and improved way of preserving hepatocyte cells for later use.
Here, the court distinguished this invention from others – noting that the claimed application was not an “abstract mental process” but instead directed to a production method. In trying to draw a line to protect important advances in science and technology, the court added to the oft-stated argument that a true application of Mayo/Alice would decimate the patent system:
Through the recited steps, the patented invention achieves a better way of preserving hepatocytes. The ’929 patent claims are like thousands of others that recite processes to achieve a desired outcome, e.g., methods of producing things, or methods of treating disease. That one way of describing the process is to describe the natural ability of the subject matter to undergo the process does not make the claim “directed to” that natural ability. If that were so, we would find patent-ineligible methods of, say, producing a new compound (as directed to the individual components’ ability to combine to form the new compound), treating cancer with chemotherapy (as directed to cancer cells’ inability to survive chemotherapy), or treating headaches with aspirin (as directed to the human body’s natural response to aspirin).
Method Claim: The court here distinguished this case from Funk Brothers primarily by indicating that the present case is about a method-of-producing while the Funk Brother’s invalid claim was directed to a product – namely a mixture of already existing bacteria. In that case, the Supreme Court expressly stated that it was not addressing the question of whether a method of creating the mixture might be patent eligible.
Not to take you on, Anon, but to throw in a charged term as “function,” indicates that you are part of the obfuscation. Should 101 be locked into the state of the art when it was enacted? Should it be locked into the concept of invention when our Constitution was enacted?
101 is the wide door of admission, but must be evaluated by the signs of the times. We must consider, for example, whether an AI computer program can “invent.” I see no problem with 101, but inventorship issues may complicate matters.
Richard,
Your attempt at “signs of the times” runs smack into deliberate obfuscations of what the different sections of law are geared to.
Do you understand the timeless nature of 101?
The statutory categories do not change with time.
The right type (and degree) of utility does not change with time.
That is ALL that there is with 101.
There is NO room for what you seem to want to insert. State of the art is distinct from 101.
It is NOT me that you are “taking on” – it is the law itself.
.
As to this “new wrinkle” of inventorship, we can talk about that separately from the roles of 101 versus the rest of the statute.
When did logic become eligible for patent protection?
It’s not listed among the statutory categories.
Tell everyone the answer, “anon”. You’re a super serious person!
Surely it makes no difference that the ineligible logic is being performed by a prior art computer that was designed to carry out logical processing because — as you just told everyone — the statute is “timeless.” Right?
So when did logic become eligible for patent protection?
Oh, and before you try to get clever, remember that ball point pens and calculators are machines, too.
I’ll cooked up a super huge bowl of popcorn in anticipation of your awesome answer. I’m sure it’ll be awesome because for the past ten years all of your answers to this question (and questions like it) have been totally awesome and super compelling.
Logic? An information processing machine is logic? What? So, you told me before that logic is a writing on a piece of paper.
You have no ethics or morals or intellectually honesty. You intentionally fabricate nonsense and misrepresent science for your goals.
Now, MM, tell us what logic is and how a machine can be logic? Please also tell us whether or not other physical things could be thought of as logic in your twisted brain. For example, your twisted brain or a chair.
tell us what logic is
That’s in the dictionary. It’s reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles.
how a machine can be logic
A “machine” isn’t “logic”. But a machine can carry out logical operations.
You could have also asked me “How can a pen and paper be logic”? Or “how can a calculator be logic”? Those would be equally silly questions.
Let me know when you’re grown up and ready to talk seriously. I won’t hold my breath. In the meantime, enjoy watching more and more of your beloved junky logic patents getting tanked in spite of your (LOL) super serious “questions”.
A machine that does anything remains a machine.
Anon, A machine that does anything remains a machine
So?
Tell me, anon, how many patents on the same machine can be allowed constitutionally within the meaning of the constitutional grant to Congress of the power to secure to inventors the exclusive rights in their discoveries?
Same machine…?
Seems like (but you never actually get around to it) that you want to make an inherency argument.
Is that what you want to do?
(You are forgetting again about that crucial first step in your “just use” canard.)
But anon, a player piano does not become a different machine if one changes the song.
You attempt a canard with an example from outside of the Useful Arts (music). “Not even wrong” – Wolfgang Pauli is the simple, direct and on-point response.
Sorry Ned – that just won’t fly (remember: Person Having Ordinary Skill In The Art)
Try a different example. Maybe like “Nazomi v. Nokia” or “In re Alappat”
(Not like we haven’t been on this Merry GO Round with you before….)
But, Ned, a player piano DOES become a different machine when you adapt it to run the traffic signals at the local intersection.
Fine, instead of a player piano, it’s a machine tool that does not become a different machine each time a new CNC pattern is coded into it. Useful Arts and all that.
The notion that a computer is a new machine with a new program is legally dead at both the CAFC and the USSC, although it will never die in these pages…
Sorry Mr. Snyder, but you remain wrong. In re Alappat remains good law.
Your (machine tool example has already been commented upon – clearly, you have never actually worked in a machine shop and know nothing about tool wear and optimization of manufacturing elsewise you would not be so glib). But besides that, you are NOT addressing the new capability and you are only exchanging a “different pattern” within the SAME capability – your example just does NOT make the legal point that you think that it does.
To laugh: yes I worked in a machine shop, among my many youthful labors. I understand what a CNC tool does and how it does it. The same tool does different jobs when loaded with different programming. Nice straw job to suggest that I think the whole field of machining is immune to patenting; of course there are many inventions to be had around a shop.
Let’s stick to the example- a machine tool and its programming do not make a new machine each time the machine is reconfigured. You may have a perfectly new, useful and fully described way to machine a part- and you may just get a deserved patent on the technique- but you wont be patenting a new machine.
What you purport to remain “good law” is utterly removed from actual words coming out of judge’s mouths in the cases reported here.
“Let’s stick to the example- a machine tool and its programming do not make a new machine each time the machine is reconfigured. You may have a perfectly new, useful and fully described way to machine a part- and you may just get a deserved patent on the technique- but you wont be patenting a new machine. ”
That is only a point of view.
The fact that a new machine has components in common with an old machine, does not mean that the new machine is not new.
Mr. Snyder, you completely missed the second part of my statement.
Try again.
And then after that, try to open your eyes to the terrain of law (as in In re Alappat)
anon, let me just say this to all who care to listen. For the last ten years I have been trying to get anon to state on the record just what the holding of Alappat was. He will not do that.
Instead he declares everyone else wrong about this or that, and relies on Alappat. But it is abundantly clear that anon does not care to know what the holding of Alappat actually was.
Judge Rich, however, knew exactly what the holding was and discussed it in State Street Bank. It is not what anon thinks it is. Alappat did not hold that a programmed general-purpose digital computer is per se eligible as a new machine. The reason for that is because it was dicta, and a commentary on the patent offices reasoning. The holding in the case was that the means-plus-function claims covered specific disclosed circuits, and that even if the means-plus-function claim elements could read on programmed general-purpose digital computer performing the recited calculation in each means element, that the claimed apparatus remained a rasterizer of a graphics unit for a display. It was not simply a programmed general-purpose digital computer performing a calculation.
However, in his mind, if not in his hopes, anon unbelievably, but predictably, believes that Alappat held that any programmed digital computer without more was a new machine within the meaning of 101 and patentable as such. Clearly, whether or not the patent office understood Alappat or not, this view is consistent with the practice of the patent office after Alappat, which simply asked that applicants recite in their claimed methods, whatever subject matter they were directed to, that they be conducted on a programmed digital computer for the purposes of passing 101. Thus the patent office felt controlled by the Federal Circuit dicta even if it was not a holding. Thus for two dozen years, until Alice, the PTO issued patents for anything and everything so long as one, in the claim, recited a processor.
Ned you are so wrong in so many ways.
It is you that refuses to recognize the holding in Alappat, or that a case may have more than one holding.
Remember – ANY of the government’s arguments that would have “won the day” but we’re refuted by the court yields a holding.
Further, I have not been here for ten years, so you could not possibly have been arguing with me for ten years.
The time that I have been here, I have been clear and direct and held your hand through Alappat many many many times – and each time it is you that runs away at the critical point of understanding what that case means.
One simply does NOT need to go to State Street to obtain the meaning of Alappat, and once again you attempts to put words in my mouth that I simply do not need.
anon, since you reference MM’s behavior here approximately 10 years ago, I think that you were posting here at that time.
Regarding your hand holding, that is the point I am making here, anon. Despite my requesting you to describe the holding(s) in Alappat, you refuse to do so.
As to you point about “dicta,” I am not sure, no I am pretty sure, you do not know what you are talking about, especially with respect to Alappat. As I said, Rich knew what the holding was and paraphrased it in State Street Bank. It was not the dicta that you rely upon.
You assumed wrong, Ned.
The ten year mark comes from Malcolm and the last time that Prof. Crouch posted a “gee, let’s make this a better ecosystem” thread (while ignoring the explicit advice I personally gave to him).
It was looking back at the full archives that revealed that the blight that is Malcolm has been consistent for over ten years now (ten years this past February).
As to hand-holding and you being adamant about my not teaching you the holding, you are also completely wrong. I have stepped through this many times with you and each time I point out that a holding in a case is anything that is necessary. When the government in Alappat took a multi-prong attack, EACH prong generated a holding.
What you constantly call “dicta” is not dicta, as it was necessary to defeat one of the government’s arguments.
What you :”know” is so absolutely wrong based on your unremitting bias.
Anon, since you clearly do not understand Alappat nor the concept of dicta, let me just explain that the holding that even if a programmed computer were to be substituted for the claimed circuits as means-plus-function equivalents, the claimed subject matter was nevertheless eligible because the claim still was directed to a rasterizer. This is the holding of the court – and it was its self sufficient to address the patent office’s alternative theory regarding a programmed computer being means plus function equipment.
When you say the dicta was necessary, it clearly was not.
You have never actually addressed the Alappat case in any realistic fashion. You simply refused to address the holding of the case or to even discuss it. This has been going on for generations now. It gets old my friend.
Exactly the opposite Ned – that’s why mentioned that you were employing the AccuseOthersOfThatWhichMalcolmDoes line of CRP. It is you that evidences a lack of understanding of what dicta is and what the government’s argument was that creates the holding in Alappat that you find inconvenient and wish to downgrade into mere dicta.
This is nothing more than your “6-is-a-genius-because-he-agrees-with-me” and “enjoy-Malcolm’s-swagger” twist that you do when something aligns with your Windmill chase.
Let me note that Ned still did not answer my question about same machine and his lack of using the proper legal doctrine of inherency.
Clearly, the fact of the matter that a machine does NOT inherently have new capabilities created by the addition of the manufacture known as software indicates a fundamental flaw in his legal position.
He may not like my asking this question time and again, but he does have a level of control over the repeated questioning: all he has to do is engage the conversation in an inte11ectually honest manner, address the legal doctrine of inherency, and recognize that the ware that is software is patentably equivalent (and yes, let’s nip in the bud the detractors by noting that equivalence does NOT mean “the same as”) patentably equivalent to the other wares such as hardware and firmware.
So Ned, instead of kicking up dust, perhaps you would like to engage the conversation and (finally) answer points long presented to you.
(Full realizing that this is rather inconvenient for your Windmill chase, I will not be holding my breath for you to answer in an inte11ectually honest manner)
Anon, the computer machine has no new capabilities simply by running new software. If, however, the machine is connected to external devices and controls them, this is not simply a computer doing calculations, but a computer controlling a larger system or process. There, when one changes the program one changes the system or the process, and makes something either new or improved.
All your examples of an improved computer actually are examples of a computer used in a larger system or process where the change in the software does affect the larger system.
“the computer machine has no new capabilities simply by running new software.”
Bzzzzt – wrong.
Thanks for playing.
(You appear to be trying to do that “just run” without first changing the machine with loading software thing again – try to “just run” the machine without that first step and let me know how it goes for you. Maybe you can wave your magic wand, or call upon some witch spells to add the new capability to the old machine without first changing that old machine)
That is correct anon, though a LEGAL CLAIM to a machine doesn’t always remain a LEGAL CLAIM to solely “a” machine. Sometimes a LEGAL CLAIM of this type is rather an attempt to patent the logic itself. As in, the claim itself is an attempt to patent upon the logic itself.
Ala preemption.
Ala broken scoreboards and mashing of wax noses.
(Preemption…? ALL claims preempt – that is what claims DO)
That’s correct, but not all claims preempt logic or other judicially excepted subject matter.
No machine and machine component claims preempt logic either 6.
Broken scoreboards remain broken.
“No machine and machine component claims preempt logic either 6.”
True anon, but LEGAL CLAIMS to machines and machine components attempt to do so all the time, routinely. Indeed, machines and machine components that exist irl or are imaginary don’t preempt anything at all.
You are capitalizing “legal” as if your “claims” are somehow different than the claims I am talking about.
They are not.
Your point is simply off.
Further, your last comment is also off. ALL claims preempt. That is what they do.
What part of “all” are you not grasping?
“ALL claims preempt.”
Claims preempt but components do not. Which is what I said if you read carefully.
“You are capitalizing “legal” as if your “claims” are somehow different than the claims I am talking about.”
I missed that you said claims in your response. Shoulda capitalized it.
What I should have said was:
“No machine and machine component claims preempt logic either 6”
Sure they do, such claims preempt logic all the time. Especially when made in the legal field of patent lawl. It is a routine occurrence and claims are routinely invalidated for this exact practice day in and day out right as we speak.
If you are indeed moving the goal posts to discuss something that I am not discussing, then you need to be more clear.
As it is, claims can be classified as to being to any one of the statutory categories. In other words, your actual and direct words – in the context of our actual conversation – simply are not correct.
“ndeed, machines and machine components that exist irl or are imaginary don’t preempt anything at all.”
In the context of our conversation, machines DO preempt.
In the context of our conversation, machine components (manufactures) DO preempt.
Your attempt at playing too coy does not work. You only after the fact want to change the meaning of the conversation to somehow be talking about claim elements and not claims.
“I missed that you said claims in your response. Shoulda capitalized it.”
LOL – a better idea: you should read what I write instead of being too eager to play your coy games.
And you are still wrong about preempting logic.
Good thing then Malcolm that Software is not logic.
Your “view” necessarily outlaws all engineering.
(Or to put it more correctly, all products of engineering)
“Your “view” necessarily outlaws all engineering”.
1. quotes around view. what does that mean? its not a view? its some kind of special view?
2. so you can patent thinking engineering thoughts and doing engineering drawings?
3. you can’t, so you realized your comment was junk, and followed it up 19 minutes later with “products of engineering”.
What happened in those 19 minutes? Visited another fav website maybe?
If MM thinks all products of engineering should be non-patentable, maybe he is just anti-patent? But of course he isn’t, that’s just your favorite brush when you have painted yourself into a corner, as usual.
No corner – no painting into a corner.
I was being colloquial when I realized that some would simply take it the wrong way.
Case in point…
Good thing then Malcolm that Software is not logic.
Explain it to your c0h0rts who have filed patent claims describing the claimed software as logic.
After all, those people are super important. They make the world go round! Surely they know what they’re talking about.
LOL
See the comment about being colloquial – and as I have often reminded you: context and the Person Having Ordinary Skill In The Art.
(You know, actual legal principles, and not your cheap short script twistings)
So now your rebuttal is that your super genius c0h0rts are just using the term “logic” in a “colloquial” sense. In their patent claims.
Sure, that makes a lot of sense.
LOL
Like I’ve said before: you guys will say literally anything when you’re backed into a corner. But you’re super serious people! We all have to pay attention to you.
Not at all – try reading this conversation.
And I note your poker tell…
“Timeless nature of 101?” What?, Whoever invents or discovers a new and useful process, machine or compound of matter…?
“Process?” That hasn’t changed in concept? A computer program is typically a process that is executed by a computer processor. This is a state of the art change in the understanding of the word, “process.”
So, I discovered my AI computer program at night devised a new and useful program process in the morning, it would seem to me to be patentable under the wide gate of 101, despite SCOTUS divining detail devils. But really, 101 is not a stone tablet.
Mr. Peterson,
I do not know where you studied patent law, but your views are simply not in accord with the law or the history of the law.
Further, as I have often corrected others, software is NOT the execution of software. The execution of software may be a “method,” but such is fully covered by the statutory law. See the Act of 1952, 35 USC 100(b).
There is NO change per state of the art for 101.
As I have already mentioned, we can discuss inventorship separate from this legal point if you desire, but you really should calibrate your understanding of the law properly first.
“The statutory categories do not change with time.”
Much like the judicial exceptions eh anon?
Depends on whether you are talking about patent law pre-1952 when Congress had allocated authority to the judiciary to set the meaning of “invention” by common law or after 1952 when that ability was stripped in response to a Supreme Court that was too anti-patent.
The difference between common law and statutory law is critical to understand for this conversation, as is the history leading up to and including the Act of 1952.
Richard, your comment about an AI making inventions reminds me of a post I made a couple weeks ago that got swallowed by the filter in which we were discussing inventions made by animals.
Imagine the explorer who discovers in the Amazon a type of spider making an intricate web of superior properties. Not only is material improved, but the design is radically different.
Is this web a product of nature, a phenomena of nature, the invention of the spider, or the discovery of the explorer? All interesting questions.
@MM
“Anybody have any thoughts on method claims that purport to cover the use of certain data sources “directly” or “indirectly” for performing a calculation, where the claim fails to recite a specific calculation?”
Given that I started work when dinosaurs were still to be found in the London area, I am old enough to remember electro-mechanical desk calculators. Very large machines they were, and heavy to carry from room to room. One of the advanced features on some calculators was a square root key, but the ability to calculate square roots was relatively new at that time.
So would a claim have been acceptable reading: “An electromechanical desk calculator including keys for entering a numerical value, a key for commanding a square root calculation and a display for showing the results of the calculation”?
Any patent examiner would have required the claim to be amplified with specific detail of the mechanism involved sufficient that the step forward created by the inventor could be understood. And if the inventor had the idea of calculating cube roots as well, it would not suffice just to say that the calculator incorporates a cube root key because that would be a mere idea. It would have been the mechanical detail that converts the idea into a technical reality which could have provided the basis for a (possibly quite broad and generic) patent.
It is not clear that any different principles should apply now that we have microprocessors and software instead of the mechanical devices still in use in the early 1960’s. The question: “If I were doing this with cogs, wheels and electric motors instead of electronically, would my device have been adequately described and specified?” is one that we and our clients should ask ourselves more often. And if we respond to the answers that we find, it is possible that the scope for Section 101 objections would be reduced because the defined processes or apparatuses would be clearly useful, transformative and patent eligible.
“Any patent examiner would have required the claim to be amplified with specific detail of the mechanism involved sufficient that the step forward created by the inventor could be understood”
Would such need be in the claims, or in the specification?
Our US sovereign simply does not require that CLAIMS be in such “objective physical terms.”
Our US sovereign simply does not require that CLAIMS be in such “objective physical terms.”
Unless you speak of 112(f), yes they do.
As to 112(f), even though they are limited to the corresponding structure, the claim itself is truly uninformative of the inventive advance and therefor fails the intended notice function of claims. It is almost like prior practice of yesteryear of simply referring to the invention as described in the specification. The point of the claims is to put the novelty in the claim itself.
You know full well Ned (at least you should), that my comment on this topic is NOT limited to 35 USC 112(f).
Don’t be a st00ge.
(Your Windmill Crusade against 112(f) goes without any specific comment, as your lament needs to go to Congress, not me)
Reply caught in filter: Ned CLEARLY I speak of this point of law beyond 112(f).
Your Windmill Chase against that section of law needs to be taken up with Congress as they (also) clearly do not agree with you (I see that you STILL have not learned your lesson from losing that case).
And ask yourself if this type of rejection is truly a 101 section – or a 112 section.
Conflation here is quite the issue Mr. Cole. How one arrives at a given ends (the means) is critically important.
The question: “If I were doing this with cogs, wheels and electric motors instead of electronically, would my device have been adequately described and specified?” is one that we and our clients should ask ourselves more often.
No doubt about that.
Ask your clients if they know the answer to the question: “Can I claim a new motor merely in terms of its new functionality?”
Be sure that you know the correct answer first.
“Be sure that you know the correct answer first.”
That “correct answer” surely is not one optional claim format being treated as if that one optional claim format was the only “legal” claim format, is it Malcolm?
There are lots of “not correct” answers, “anon.”
Try harder next time.
Why should I “try harder” when you are the one with a (well-worn) incorrect answer?
The work here that needs to be done, is by you.
“Try harder”
Indeed – just not how you meant it.
We all know one cannot protect an “idea,” but the skilled patent practitioner attempts in claim drafting to protect foreseeable embodiments of an idea. Predicting the future, so to speak.
Perhaps, in judging patent eligibility, a baseline state-of-the art should be established. Akin to a 103 consideration, it could draw from up-to-date publications as well as formal references. Also, akin to a Markman hearing, it would go a long way down the road to an eventual 103 and infringement resolution.
In its current state, the patent system is a train wreck.
You missed a fundamental item concerning eligibility: it is not a function of state of the art.
(You must have gotten caught up in all of the purposeful obfuscation going on)
My reply got posted as 24, but meant as a comment to your post.
Understood – discussion continued above.
You missed a fundamental item concerning eligibility: it is not a function of state of the art.
LOL
And in other news from Anon’s Fantasy Planet, you can’t “dissect claims.”
LOLOLOLOLOL
It’s 2016, folks. And the bl0gtr0ll “anon” is still here, still pretending that he doesn’t get it. Or maybe he really is that d u m b. Who can figure out the answer? It’d be irresponsible to speculate.
LOL
…says the BIGGEST “blog tr011” of them all.
Maybe you missed my polite answer to your question on the number of your dissembling posts….
That AccuseOthersOfThatWhichMalcolmDoes is easily the number one blight on that short script of yours.
It.
F001s.
No.
One.
Except there isn’t a problem with patent law only the judges that are ignorant of the law and judicial activist trying to burn the system down.
Scope of enablement.
If you claim too broad and someone invents something nonobvious within the scope of your claims, then your claims can be invalidated.
That is the way patent law is supposed to work.
I’m not sure I buy that as a rule, but that’s the interplay of enablement and coverage of claims when it comes to infringement. The law has forgotten equity. As they say in relationships, “it’s complicated.”
Not sure what you mean by “the law has forgotten equity.”
Do you understand the difference between statutory law and common law?
Do you understand where equity comes into play?
With the merger of the courts of law and equity in the federal court system, equity is forced out of play in the patent system where form over substance rules.
The doctrine of equivalents, surely an equitable principle, has been shrunk to a literalism.
An IDS, once a voluntary form, now is an avenue of forfeiture of rights if not filed to claim priorities. The government for its convenience is setting up a punitive system for the inventor. It is a game not worth playing.
Your “merger” view is just not correct.
Here is an example of statutory law (through the Constitution SOLELY to Congress) being appropriately shared with the judicial branch in order to bring in equity:
35 U.S. Code § 283 – Injunction
The several courts having jurisdiction of cases under this title may grant injunctions in accordance with the principles of equity to prevent the violation of any right secured by patent, on such terms as the court deems reasonable.
Anybody have any thoughts on method claims that purport to cover the use of certain data sources “directly” or “indirectly” for performing a calculation, where the claim fails to recite a specific calculation?
e.g., “A method of determing a value related to exercise, comprising (a) collecting a first parameter directly from a piece of exercise equipment and (b) collecting a second parameter derived indirectly from a passanger in or on said piece of exercise equipment and (c) performing a calculation using said first and second parameter, wherein said calculation results in said value related to exercise.”
Seems like ineligible junk to me, and it doesn’t seem that it would matter what kind of old equipment is recited, or whether it’s “wireless” or “remote” or anything else. But there must be tons of junky claims like this out there already, and probably tons more still bobbing along in the mucky b0tt0m of the system.
MM, the claim seems to be stated at such a high level of abstraction that is little more than an idea. If the court is into “abstract” in its traditional sense from Morse, then I would say yes, the claim is ineligible.
But, trust me, the patent owner will try to read into the claim the details probably disclosed specification regarding the parameters and the calculation so as to make the claim more “definite.” While I understand that the Federal Circuit permits this, or lease has permitted this in the past, is quite apparent that the claims before they are construed are completely incomprehensible in terms of what the invention could possibly be. I do not know how these kinds of claims could possibly pass Nautilus.
Ned: I think it is stated at a high level. Me too lazy to go to prior art. Me thinks no good. Me judge.
What a bunch of scum.
What about trying to apply patent law. Scope of enablement. 103 arguments. You know. Law.