Search Results for: Alice v. CLS Bank

Preemption Lost: The Federal Circuit’s Abandonment of Supreme Court Patent Eligibility Doctrine

Patent

by Dennis Crouch

One of the most perplexing aspects of patent eligibility doctrine involves the role of preemption - the concern that patents might lock up basic tools of scientific and technological work in ways that limit individual liberty and or that may unduly block fundamental progress.  The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that these  preemption concerns "undergird" and "drive" the judicially created exceptions to patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Yet in practice, the Federal Circuit has consistently regarded evidence of preemption (or the lack thereof) as basically irrelevant when determining whether or not a particular claimed invention is patent-eligible.  Even the complete absence of preemption "does not demonstrate patent eligibility." Roche Molecular Systems, Inc. v. Cepheid, 905 F.3d 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2018).  There is a clear disconnect here between the doctrine's theoretical framework as designed by the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit's practical application.

This disconnect between theory and practice creates two significant concerns. Most directly, the Federal Circuit's dismissal of preemption appears to be a failure to faithfully apply the Supreme Court's precedent. At the same time though, the disconnect also raises a more fundamental question: if preemption analysis can be so readily discarded in practice, perhaps the Court's theoretical focus on preemption fails to capture the true policy concerns driving patent eligibility doctrine.

The recently filed petition in Impact Engine, Inc. v. Google LLC asks the Supreme Court to resolve this tension -- particularly suggesting that the court restore preemption analysis to its central role in patent eligibility determinations. The case also raises what I see as a particularly compelling argument involving means-plus-function claims, where Congress has already struck a balance between functional claiming and specific structural limitations through 35 U.S.C. § 112(f).  ImpactEnginePetitionforCertiorari.

Means-Plus-Function Claims in Patent Eligibility and Infringement Analyses

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Supreme Court Patent Cases – November 2024

Patent

by Dennis Crouch

Patent law cases continue to be brought to the Supreme Court's attention, even though the court has not granted certiorari in any patent case for some time.  Twelve potential cases have documents on file with the court. Currently, eight certiorari petitions are briefed and pending before the Court, while four additional petitions are anticipated in the coming months based on recently-filed extension requests.

As has been true in recent years, patent eligibility petitions occupy a substantial portion of the docket, mostly focusing on software patents. Two Hatch-Waxman cases are pending as is a case focusing on the on sale bar post-AIA and post-Helsinn.  In addition, two cases focus on the Federal Circuit's ongoing and unjustified use of summary affirmances for a large portion of its docket.

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Recent Patent Law Scholarship

Patent

by Dennis Crouch

This post offers some insight into four patent-focused academic articles that I've been reading lately.

1. A textualist approach to patent eligibility under § 101;
2. Reflections on the Myriad, ten years later
3. Message to Competition Regulators: Patents are not simply a necessary evil
4. Philosophical critique of AI inventorship

These pieces offer insights into ongoing debates within patent law and policy. Although I don't necessarily agree with the conclusions made by the various authors, each article provides fodder for continued discussion on these important topics.

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USPTO Issues 2024 Guidance on Patent Eligibility for AI Inventions

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by Dennis Crouch

Earlier this week I was reviewing some of the USPTO's eligibility examples, noting that they were all quite old.  As if on cue, the Office has released a new set of updated guidelines - focusing on Artificial Intelligence related inventions and including three new examples.  In Bilski, the Supreme Court explained that the best way to understand whether a particular claimed invention is directed to an "abstract idea" is to look back on old examples for guidance.  The USPTO has found that a good way to administer this approach is to provide examples of situations that pass or fail the test.  Here, they introduce three new examples 47, 48, and 49.  And, while the Alice/Mayo test for analyzing subject matter eligibility has not changed, the new guidance is helpful as AI technology rapidly develops.   The USPTO continues to be open to issuing patents on AI inventions, including the use of AI. However, there must be a technical solution to a technical problem.

Although the guidance is effective July 17, 2024, the USPTO is open to comments via the regulations.gov portal.  The agency has provided two updated flow charts for its analysis that are included below. Although the USPTO guidance is not binding law,  it is the guidebook that examiners will be trained upon and required to use.  As such, any patent attorney operating practicing in the AI area should dig through these examples and the particular cases chosen by the Office as representative.

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Design Patent Examination Updates

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Ten years ago - 2014 - the Supreme Court decided Alice Corp v. CLS Bank, holding that - yes indeed - the expansive language of Mayo v. Prometheus (2012) applies equally to software and technology patents.   A few weeks later, the USPTO began a dramatic transformation - pulling back notices of allowance and issuing thousands of supplemental office actions. The Federal Circuit's May 2024 en banc decision in LKQ v. GM is perhaps as dramatic a change for the design patent arena as Alice was for utility patents.  The old Rosen-Durling test made it almost impossible to reject a design patent as obvious except for extreme cases involving either direct copying or extremely broad claims.  The key difficulty was that precedent required the obviousness inquiry to begin with a single prior art reference that is "basically the same" as the claimed design - a roughly 1-to-1 relationship.  Further, any secondary references had to be ‘so related’ to the primary reference that features in one would suggest application of those features to the other." In LKQ, the court found those requirements "improperly rigid” under principles of KSR which require a flexible obviousness inquiry.  The overall effect is to make it easier to find a design patent obvious.

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