The Federal Circuit held that identifying the “smallest salable patent-practicing unit” is not sufficient when that unit still contains non-patented features, and further apportionment is required to isolate the value of the patented technology in complex software products.
The Federal Circuit, sitting en banc, overruled Achates and held that §315(b) time-bar determinations by the PTAB are subject to judicial review, rejecting the argument that all IPR institution decisions are unreviewable.
The Federal Circuit affirmed PTAB’s cancellation of Credit Acceptance’s patent on financing automobile purchases through a dealer-administered program, holding the claims directed to the abstract idea of processing financing transactions — a business practice not rendered patent-eligible
The Federal Circuit affirmed invalidity of Smart Systems’ open-loop transit payment patents under Section 101, holding that collecting financial data using generic components to facilitate transit access is an abstract idea — with a notable dissent arguing that the claims addressed a real, Int
An en banc Federal Circuit held that in inter partes review proceedings, the petitioner — not the patent owner — bears the burden of proving that proposed amended claims are unpatentable, overturning years of PTAB practice that had effectively blocked most patent owner amendment efforts.
The Federal Circuit reversed summary judgment of non-infringement in a divided infringement case, holding that the ‘direction and control’ standard from Akamai v. Limelight could be satisfied where one party conditions participation in an activity on performance of a method step by anoth
The Federal Circuit granted mandamus to Cray and set forth a three-part test for what constitutes a ‘regular and established place of business’ under the patent venue statute — rejecting the Eastern District of Texas’s expansive four-factor test and clarifying that employees’
The Federal Circuit held that the federal government qualifies as a ‘person’ under the America Invents Act and may petition for covered business method (CBM) review at the PTAB — a ruling the Supreme Court reversed in 2019, holding that the government is not a ‘person’ for AI
Reversing a district court’s Section 101 dismissal, the Federal Circuit held that Visual Memory’s patent on a programmable memory system with processor-specific operational characteristics was directed to an improved computer memory technology — not an abstract idea — because it describe
The Federal Circuit held that IPR estoppel under § 315(e)(2) does not extend to prior art grounds based on patents or printed publications that the petitioner could not have raised in IPR — specifically that prior art systems and physical products (which cannot be raised in IPR) are not subject to t
The Federal Circuit held that a secret commercial sale — where the existence of the sale agreement was publicly disclosed but the details of the invention were kept confidential — triggers the on-sale bar under the AIA, finding that the America Invents Act did not change the rule that confidential s
The Federal Circuit held that when a patentee satisfies all four Panduit factors for lost profits — including proving demand driven by the patented feature and no acceptable non-infringing substitutes — no further separate apportionment of those profits is required, because the Panduit analysis inhe
The Federal Circuit reversed the Court of Federal Claims’ § 101 dismissal of Thales Visionix’s inertial sensor patent, holding that claims directed to a specific arrangement of sensors and a mathematical algorithm to improve navigation accuracy are patent-eligible because the claims impr
The Federal Circuit affirmed invalidation of Intellectual Ventures’ XML-formatting and financial data-collection patents under Section 101, holding that organizing, collecting, recognizing, and storing data — even when dressed in domain-specific vocabulary — is a patent-ineligible abstract ide
On remand from the Supreme Court’s Samsung v. Apple decision, the Federal Circuit declined to define the legal test for identifying the ‘article of manufacture’ in design patent damages and instead sent the case back to the district court to resolve the issue in the first instance
The Federal Circuit held Mallinckrodt’s patents on methods of supplying inhaled nitric oxide therapy while monitoring patients for adverse effects were patent-ineligible under § 101 — finding the claims directed to the natural phenomenon that nitric oxide can worsen pulmonary edema in certain
The Federal Circuit reversed a $93 million foreign lost-profits award for ION’s domestic infringement under Section 271(f), holding that the presumption against extraterritoriality barred recovery for overseas contracts WesternGeco would have won absent the infringement — a ruling the Supreme
The Federal Circuit held that McRO’s patents on rule-based automated lip synchronization in 3D character animation were patent-eligible — the claims specified a particular improvement in computer animation technology using specific rules, not merely the abstract idea of using rules to automate
On remand from the Supreme Court’s Halo Electronics decision, the Federal Circuit affirmed the jury’s willfulness finding under the new subjective standard but vacated the enhanced damages award, instructing the district court to exercise its discretion anew — illustrating how post-Halo
The Federal Circuit held that patents on real-time monitoring and analysis of electric power grid data were patent-ineligible under Section 101, establishing that collecting, analyzing, and displaying information — even in a complex industrial context — is an abstract idea without an inventive conce
The Federal Circuit affirmed the invalidity of Mentor Graphics’ patents on hardware synthesis software under § 101 — holding that claims directed to the abstract idea of synthesizing a hardware circuit design from a functional description were not rendered patent-eligible by implementation on
An en banc Federal Circuit held that a pharmaceutical company’s contract with a manufacturer to produce drug batches — where title to the product remained with the inventor — did not constitute a ‘commercial sale’ triggering the on-sale bar under Section 102(b), clarifying the boun
The Federal Circuit affirmed § 101 invalidity of Intellectual Ventures’ patents on interactive customizable web pages and database record indexing — holding that creating customizable web interfaces for financial products and organizing financial data with hierarchical index structures are abs
The Federal Circuit vacated dismissal of BASCOM’s Internet content-filtering patent, holding that an inventive concept can arise from a non-conventional, non-generic arrangement of individually known elements — even if the abstract idea at the core of the claims is itself conventional.