The U.S. Supreme Court has once again been urged to revisit 35 U.S.C. § 101, the statute governing patent eligibility. Audio Evolution Diagnostics, Inc. (AED) filed a petition for writ of certiorari, challenging the Federal...more
As 2024 draws to a close, several crucial developments — some aimed at modernizing long-standing legal practices, others addressing emerging challenges — have reached patent law. Originally published in Law360 - December...more
At the end of October, the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) issued a final written decision in PGR2023-00023, finding all claims of a patent owned by Halliburton Energy Services unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 101....more
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is fueling a surge in global patent filings for AI-related innovations, but differences in national patent laws and examination standards for such inventions...more
The recent surge of accessible generative AI (“GenAI”) tools has kept attorneys, particularly those in the intellectual property, technology, data privacy, and cybersecurity spaces, on their toes. Within the intellectual...more
In 2023, global investments in energy transition projects surged to approximately $1.7 trillion. This unprecedented investment level underscores the transformative shift toward cleaner energy sources and technologies....more
The Mayo/Alice framework for determining subject matter eligibility of patents under 35 U.S.C. §101 has long since antagonized both patent prosecutors and litigators alike, causing significant uncertainty in the realm of...more
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued its 2024 Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility and July 2024 Subject Matter Eligibility Examples. This latest update builds on the 2019 Guidance by providing...more
Over the last two years, we have studied the examiner affirmance rates of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) for § 101 rejections. The PTAB is the administrative court of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)...more
On July 17th, the USPTO issued a guidance update to help USPTO personnel and those who interact with the agency evaluate the subject matter eligibility of claims in patent applications involving artificial intelligence (AI)....more
The murky world of artificial intelligence-enabled inventions requires illumination. Did the USPTO’s recent guidance provide this much-needed illumination, or merely leave a trail of breadcrumbs? Some say the guidance is...more
On July 16, 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) announced new guidance for examination of patent applications directed to critical and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI)....more
Precedential and Key Federal Circuit Opinions - 1. BACKERTOP LICENSING LLC [OPINION] (23-2367, 23-2368, 24-1016, 24-1017 Prost, Hughes, and Stoll) - Hughes, J. The Court affirmed the District Court’s orders (1)...more
The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) issued a 2024 Guidance Update on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility, Including on Artificial Intelligence, which focuses on subject matter eligibility for artificial intelligence...more
On July 17, 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published guidance regarding the patent subject matter eligibility of claims concerning technology applicable to artificial intelligence (AI)....more
In a July 16 press release, The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that it issued a guidance update on “patent subject matter eligibility to address innovation in critical emerging technologies including...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently published new guidance on subject-matter eligibility as related to Artificial Intelligence (AI), opening a written comment window to respond with a deadline of...more
Recognizing a need for clarity in evaluating patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for critical and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) innovations, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)...more
From the U.S. Supreme Court’s perspective, its Mayo and Alice decisions from 2012 and 2014, respectively, are still sufficient to govern patent law’s § 101 analysis. This inference stems in-part of the Supreme Court’s cert...more
The 2024 Guidance Update on patent subject matter eligibility applicable to AI inventions, which will be incorporated into the MPEP “in due course,” is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on July 17, 2024. ...more
A district court recently granted a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of patent claims directed to intermittent fault detection (IFD) technology for electrical systems in aircrafts, deciding that the asserted claims are patent...more
A consequence (predominantly negative) of the Supreme Court's recent foray into defining (however inadequately) the contours of patent-eligible subject matter is to give the district courts (and to a somewhat lesser extent,...more
The evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has triggered a surge in the filings of patent applications, from machine learning models to applications of those models. See USPTO, Artificial Intelligence (AI)...more
When we first wrote about the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA), I had no idea I would have the honor of being invited to testify before the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but...more
In those (in retrospect) halcyon days more than a decade ago (before Mayo, Myriad, Alice, and the subject matter eligibility quagmire arose), perhaps the most significant Supreme Court decision was KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex...more