Last week, the Federal Circuit handed down a decision in Visual Memory v. NVIDIA, deciding that the Visual Memory1 cache patents are patent-eligible under § 101. Unfortunately, in doing so the Federal Circuit makes the same mistake they’ve made a few times now—they’ve looked at the specification, not the claims, in order to justify finding…
Tag Archive for patentable subject matter
CustomPlay, Annotated
by Josh Landau • • 2 Comments
Near the end of July, CustomPlay sued Apple and Amazon. CustomPlay is owned by Max Abecassis, who also owns Nissim Corp. (Nissim has a long history of involvement with the DVD standard and nearly as long of a history of forcing companies to license its DVD patents; this is hardly Abecassis’ first go at patent…
The PTO’s § 101 Summary Report
by Josh Landau • • 2 Comments
One of the most important developments over the past few years is the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank – a decision that articulated a distinction between patent-eligible inventions, and patent-ineligible abstract ideas. The Alice decision has enabled many companies, including small businesses, to defend themselves from baseless patent infringement lawsuits based on…
Should Abstract Ideas Be Unpatentable? The Answer Is A Snap
by Josh Landau • • 3 Comments
Tuesday, Kaldren LLC sued Snap. (According to RPX, Kaldren is affiliated with IP Edge, a notorious patent troll.) Kaldren sued over a set of expired patents on such wonderful ideas as: Printing out a machine readable symbol; Reading a machine readable symbol; Using an address in a machine readable symbol to retrieve information from that…
ContentGuard: Validity and Privilege
by Josh Landau • • 0 Comments
Monday I summarized the history of the ContentGuard cases, and yesterday I described the process of claim interpretation. Today, we’ll turn to an issue that we’ve focused on recently, patent validity. ContentGuard convinced the jury that the ContentGuard patents were valid—can they convince the Federal Circuit? Abstract Ideas We’ve written a lot about patents on…
Previewing ContentGuard v. Apple and Google at the Federal Circuit
by Josh Landau • • 2 Comments
This Thursday, June 8, the Federal Circuit will hold oral argument in ContentGuard Holdings, Inc. v. Apple, Inc. and in ContentGuard Holdings, Inc. v Google, Inc. (The Google case also includes a number of major Android phone manufacturers, such as Samsung, HTC, and Motorola.) Both cases have roughly similar histories, and both appeals deal with…
Guest Post: Are Copyright and Patent Overlapping or Mutually Exclusive in Protecting Software Innovations?
by Pamela Samuelson • • 0 Comments
Prof. Pamela Samuelson is the Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law and Information at the University of California, Berkeley. She is recognized as a pioneer in digital copyright law, intellectual property, cyberlaw and information policy. We’re pleased to be able to republish this post, which first appeared on Patently-O. “Neither the Copyright Statute nor…
AIPLA Signs on to IPO’s Misguided Proposal on § 101
by Josh Landau • • 0 Comments
AIPLA, the bar association for intellectual property lawyers, just released their recommendation and report on reforming § 101. § 101 is the portion of the Patent Act that sets out what’s eligible to be patented, and what isn’t. AIPLA’s basic complaint is that the Supreme Court has created uncertainty about what is eligible for patenting…
Why IPO Is Wrong About Section 101
by Matt Levy • • 4 Comments
It certainly seems that the technology industry is producing better and more exciting products than ever. Virtual reality is becoming, well, a reality; we have drones, self-driving cars, better artificial intelligence, amazing new games, and smarter smartphones. These innovations are all driven by software, even though the landscape for software patents has changed over the…
CLS Bank v. Alice: Don’t Lose Your Head
by Matt Levy • • 1 Comment
The patent world was waiting with bated breath for the Federal Circuit’s decision in CLS Bank International v. Alice Corp. At last, we thought, we would have a ruling on when software is patentable and when it isn’t. As you may have heard, we had no such luck when the decision was issued last Friday.…