After months of indications from various levels of the USPTO that new examination guidelines were in the works, the USPTO has issued two new sets of guidance for examining applications. The first is related to subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The second is related to examining computer-implemented functional claims under 35 U.S.C. [...]
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a fast growing area of inventive effort in the U.S. and around the globe. As AI is making new opportunities for innovation and creativity available in both computer sciences and other technology areas, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and other patent offices have moved to start exploring the challenges [...]
On November 16, 2018, The Federal Circuit held that yet another set of claims is “not directed to an abstract idea,” reversing a lower court decision dismissing a suit by Ancora Technologies Inc. asserting that HTC Corp. had infringed its patent. Ancora’s patent covers technology that prevents a software program from running on a computer [...]
In the United States, one of the requirements to get a patent is that the claimed invention must not have been previously “described in a printed publication.” See 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1). While seeming a simple requirement, the question many inventors have is “what does “a printed publication” actual mean?” Intuitively, inventors understand that a [...]
Copyrights and trademarks are sometimes called “Soft IP,” but they have tremendous power to stop infringers and counterfeiters at the U.S. border. A registered and recorded U.S. copyright or trademark can subject infringing or counterfeit goods to seizure and destruction before those goods ever get into the U.S. The power to stop infringing or counterfeit [...]
In remarks delivered on September 24, 2018 at the Intellectual Property Owners Association 46th Annual Meeting, USPTO Director Andrei Iancu indicated that further clarification and Examiner training on subject matter eligibility is coming soon. The Director’s comments provide a ray of hope for patent applicants who have struggled with the widely disparate interpretations of the [...]
The proliferation of distributed computing devices, networked computing, and machine learning is rapidly changing the way we live, work, and play. Recently, the convergence of these trends is being called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0, or simply I4. These blanket terms encompass a wide range of developments, including the increasing refinement, deployment, and integration [...]
In a non-precedential opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has overturned a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal board that upheld the rejection of one of Facebook’s patent applications. The application (U.S. Pat. App. No. 13/715,636) claims a method for displaying a set of images after reshuffling or resizing the [...]
In the grouping of rights that make up intellectual property protections, copyrights are sometimes considered the easiest rights to obtain because a copyright is considered to be created when an original work of authorship is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. As opposed to patents or trademarks, there is no need to register or [...]
Apple and Samsung have been locked in a legal battle over various design patents related to the iPhone since 2011. After nearly six years and a trip all the way to the Supreme Court and back, Apple and Samsung came to a settlement agreement this week and the case was dismissed. Apple had previously been [...]
