Late last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit delivered ShoppersChoice.com the affirmation it ordered in Electronic Communication Technologies, LLC (ECT) v. ShoppersChoice.com, LLC. In doing so, the court supplied accused infringers with a helpful example of what may be appropriate for early dismissal under 35 U.S.C. § 101. In addition,
Done at Step 1: When a Claim Is Tied to an Improvement, No Need to Proceed to Alice Step 2
By reversing the lower court’s ruling that the asserted claims were not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in Uniloc v. LG Electronics, the Federal Circuit resurrected Uniloc’s infringement suit against LG Electronics. It also demonstrated what we already know — courts have been inconsistent in their application of the Alice/Mayo test. Nevertheless, this
Fishing for Eligibility in Murky Waters
Last week, the Federal Circuit decided that claims related to a method of fishing that involved evaluating the water to be fished were not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. It is a bit of a head scratcher as to why this opinion is deemed precedential — the eligibility analysis employed here under the Alice/Mayo