The Federal Circuit held that patents covering network-controlled electric vehicle charging stations are directed to the abstract idea of network communication for device interaction, invalidating all four asserted patents under § 101.
The Federal Circuit upheld SRI’s network intrusion detection patents against a § 101 challenge, holding that claims requiring computers to perform surveillance and analysis that the human mind is incapable of doing are not directed to abstract ideas.
The Federal Circuit reversed a district court’s ruling that patents on using beta-alanine as a dietary supplement were invalid under § 101, holding that method of treatment claims covering use of a natural compound in non-naturally-occurring quantities to alter physiology are patent eligible.
The Supreme Court held that the Copyright Act’s authorization of “full costs” under § 505 covers only the six categories of costs specified in the general federal costs statute — not additional litigation expenses like expert witnesses, e-discovery, and jury consultants.
The Supreme Court unanimously held that copyright registration “occurs” when the Copyright Office registers a claim — not when the applicant files — meaning copyright holders must wait for the Office to act before they can sue for infringement.
The Federal Circuit invalidated a diagnostic patent for detecting autoantibodies linked to myasthenia gravis, then denied en banc rehearing in a rare decision accompanied by eight separate opinions, exposing the court’s deep division over § 101 and diagnostic patents.
The Federal Circuit held that the USPTO cannot reduce patent term adjustment by a period during which the applicant could not have taken any action to advance prosecution, limiting PTA deductions to periods of actual applicant delay.
The Supreme Court held that the AIA preserved pre-AIA law on the ‘on sale’ bar: a confidential commercial sale of an invention more than one year before the patent application triggers the bar, even if the invention’s details remain secret.
The Federal Circuit held that Trading Technologies’ patents on a graphical user interface for electronic futures trading were patent-ineligible abstract ideas under Alice — finding that displaying market data and allowing traders to place orders by clicking on a price ladder represented an abs
The Federal Circuit held that the judicially created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting cannot be used to cut short a patent term extension lawfully granted by statute, affirming Novartis’s extended patent protection for its multiple sclerosis drug Gilenya.