On July 14, 2016, the PTO sent a memorandum to the examining corps regarding the recent rulings in Rapid Litigation Management Ltd. v. Cellzdirect, Inc., Appeal No. 2015-1570 (Fed. Cir. July 5, 2016), and Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2015), cert. denied, No. 15-1102, 2016 WL 1117246 (June 27, 2016). After briefly describing the cases, the memorandum concludes that they “do not change the subject matter eligibility framework [of Mayo/Alice], and the USPTO’s current subject matter eligibility guidance and training examples are consistent with these cases.” The memorandum does acknowledge, however, that Rapid Litigation Management “provide[s] additional information and clarification on the inquiry for determining whether claims are directed to a judicial exception” to 35 U.S.C. § 101.
In fact, Rapid Litigation Management provides considerably more guidance than the memorandum acknowledges, including an explanation of why the district court erred regarding step 2 as well as step 1 of the Supreme Court’s framework for determining patent eligibility. See the more complete description in our previous article on Rapid Litigation Management, which includes seven key takeaways.