On April 30, the Federal Circuit issued a precedential opinion in Uniloc v. LG Electronics, concerning claims to a software invention for a local communication system that reduced latency for parked secondary systems, e.g., when connecting a local wireless peripheral device to a computer. Although the court’s reasoning itself is not of particular note, in concluding that the claims were in fact patent-eligible, the court stated that “[t]o the extent [defendant] LG argues that the…

On Thursday, April 23, the USPTO released a new study entitled “Adjusting to Alice: USPTO patent examination outcomes after Alice Corp v. CLS Bank International.” The report illustrates the dramatic impact of two developments in the application of § 101 law: first, the Supreme Court’s Alice decision in June 2014, and—second and more recently—promulgation to patent examiners of the USPTO’s internal documents providing more specific guidance for how to apply the doctrine of Alice. Although…

Under the America Invents Act, the USPTO is to stop accepting petitions for review of covered business method patents after September 16, 2020. Given the various other priorities Congress will be dealing with between now and then, it appears virtually certain that Congress will not do anything to prevent the scheduled sunset of this transitional proceeding. Two years ago, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet held hearings on…

Recent comments from Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia offer a counterpoint to my last post on the state of patent eligibility reform, in which I noted that Senator Tillis had recently expressed that modifications to the existing legal framework were unlikely to take place in the near future. Speaking to Law360, Rep. Johnson, who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, stated that although reform is “very complicated,”…

Since I last wrote on the Coons-Tillis patent eligibility reform in Congress, the Federal Circuit declined to take up an en banc rehearing of Athena v. Mayo. The court was deeply divided in the 7-5 decision, with all 12 judges believing that the diagnostic claims at issue should be patentable despite their holding, and with 7 judges writing separately to express their concerns, many of them expressly entreating the Supreme Court and/or Congress to…