A blog relating to Internet legal issues by Professor John Swinson, University of Queensland
Adsense HTML
Apple beats Samsung in Court - First Reactions
Computer Patent - Patentable Subject Matter
The asserted patents are directed to systems and methods for administering and tracking the value of life insurance policies in separate accounts. The Federal Circuit affirmed a district court summary judgment that the patents are ineligible for patent protection because the claimed computer components are no more than objects that facilitate the operation of claimed methods directed to an abstract idea. It held that a machine, system, medium, or the like may in some cases be equivalent to an abstract mental process for purposes of patent ineligibility.
To read the Court's opinion in this case, click here.
Google's Top Lawyer: Some Apple Inventions are Commercially Essential, Should Be Made Into Standards
Google General Counsel Kent Walker disagrees, and this month wrote a letter to the US Senate Judiciary Committee arguing that commercial inventions that impact "consumer welfare" should be just as important as technical patents.
See Here
Apple v. Samsung
U.S. Federal Circuit Responds to Supreme Court on Patent Eligibility
According to the Court, if, after taking all of the claim recitations into consideration, it is not “manifestly evident” that a claim is directed to a patent ineligible abstract idea, that claim must not be deemed for that reason to be inadequate under Section 101.
Judge Prost dissented, writing that the majority failed to follow the Supreme Court’s Prometheus ruling by not inquiring whether the claims include an “inventive concept” and by devising its own patentable subject matter test.
The “abstract ideas” test for patent eligibility has become a serious problem because of its “abstractness,” Judge Linn observed. He noted that several Supreme Court decisions have discussed the concept of “preemption” to elucidate the “abstract idea” exception to patent eligibility.
However, he added that Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 188 (1981), addressed claims containing a mathematical equation, and held that they only foreclosed the general use of the equation in conjunction with all of the other steps in the claimed process. Thus, the essential concern, according to the Court, is not preemption per se, but the extent to which preemption results in the foreclosure of innovation.
However, Judge Linn wrote that a machine limitation can render a method patent eligible where the machine imposes a meaningful limit on the scope of the claim and where it plays a significant part in permitting the claimed method to be performed, citing SiRF Tech., Inc. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 601 F.3d 1319 (Fed. Cir. 2010). A machine is insufficient, he added, if it functions solely as an obvious mechanism for permitting a solution to be achieved more quickly, i.e., through the utilization of a computer for performing calculations. A claim that is drawn to a specific way of doing something with a computer is likely to be patent eligible, Judge Linn explained, whereas a claim to nothing more than the idea of doing that thing on a computer may not. He added the following:
Business Method Patents
- Celgene Corporation [2012] APO 12
- Discovery Holdings Limited [2011] APO 56 (9th August 2011)
Class 8: Internet and eCommerce Patents
- Patent Wars
- What should be patented?
- Do Internet patents threaten ecommerce?
- History of software and Internet patents
- Mayo Medical Laboratories v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. (U.S. Supreme Court decision 20 March 2012)
- State Street Bank
- Welcome Real-Time
- Bilski
- CLS Bank v Alice
YAHOO Sues Facebook For Infringing 10 patents
Article at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/12/us-yahoo-facebook-lawsuit-idUSBRE82B18M20120312 A copy of the lawsuit, with a list of the ten patents, is available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/85094882/Yahoo-s-Patent-Lawsuit-Against-Facebook
Yahoo Facebook Patent War
Samsung Overturns Apple Injunction in Australia
The case concerned two Australian patents owned by Apple. Apple asserted that the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Tablet infringed claims of those two patents. An injunction was granted by the trial judge to prevent Samsung launching the Galaxy 10.1 in Australia until trial. Today, Samsung was successful in having that injunction removed.
As soon as the appeal court decision was announced today, Apple asked for the decision to be suspended so that it could appeal to the High Court of Australia. Apple asked this without even reading the Court's decision. The judge today suspended the decision until 4pm Friday, in effect keeping the injunction in place until Friday. Apple now has until 4pm Friday to convince the High Court of Australia to keep the injunction in place -- a hard task.
Last Class!
Google Buys Nortel's patent portfolio
Bankrupt Nortel Networks Corp. has accepted Google Inc.'s $900 million stalking horse bid to buy an intellectual property lode of some 6,000 patents and patent applications that include wireless, data networking and semiconductor technology, the Internet giant said Monday.
See BBC and Google Blog
U.S. Patent Case
The recent U.S. case of CLS Bank v. Alice addresses patent eligibility requirements for computer-implemented business and financial methods.
Alice is an Australian company that owns four United States patents; it asserts that CLS infringes these four patents. CLS is an “Edge Act Corporation,” organized under Section 25A of the Federal Reserve Act, as amended, 12 U.S.C. § 611, and authorized by statute to engage in international banking activities.
Summary provided by the U.S. law firm that represented the successful party: On March 9, 2011, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed all claims of patent infringement brought under four patents directed to computer-implemented methods, systems, and products for exchanging a financial obligation, because each of the patent claims was directed to an “abstract idea” and was invalid because it was directed to non-patentable subject matter. The decision is significant because, among other things, it addressed numerous questions left unanswered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in Bilski v. Kappos, 130 S. Ct. 3218 (2010). This Client Alert reviews the decision and the significance the decision may have on the scope of the abstract idea exception that had not been addressed either by the Federal Circuit or by the Supreme Court in their respective Bilski decisions.
Patenting Business Methods
Review of patentable subject matter in Australia
The Australian Advisory Council on Intellectual Property has released its review of patentable subject matter. The Advisory Council is an independent body appointed by the government, and advises the Federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research on intellectual property matters.
Click here to view the report
Click here to view the Advisory Council's Media Release
U.S. Patent Office Guidelines for patentable subject matter
Patents Class
Some reading for this class:
1. History
Apple Sues Maker of Google's Android Phone
Business Method Patents
"WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide what sorts of business methods might be patented, an issue with the potential to reshape significant parts of the economy. “This is the most important patent case in 50 years, in particular because there is so much damage and so much good the court could do,” said John F. Duffy, a law professor at George Washington University who submitted a brief in the appeals court in support of neither side."
How should damages be assessed for privacy and cybersecurity breaches
Listen to this podcast where I discuss how damages should be assessed in privacy and cybersecurity lawsuits. The Lawyers Weekly Show host J...
-
The United Nations intellectual property agency (WIPO) is the latest front in the US-China trade war. http://www.theage.com.au/world/sad-am...
-
The issue of content regulation in China was mentioned in this blog last year . In the last few weeks, this issue has once again pushed into...
-
Finally, what is called direct registration of domain names is coming to Australia. See https://www.auda.org.au/statement/australias-interne...