Alice is Alive and Well!

Not all the things is patentable. 1st, only innovations are patentable. Second, only certain inventions are patentable. 4 styles of innovations are patentable: content articles of manufacture, devices, processes, and compositions of issue. 35 U.S.C. §101. These 4 forms of inventions are referred to as patent-suitable subject make any difference. Some factors, referred to as patent-ineligible subject issue, are not patentable: rules of mother nature, natural phenomena, and summary ideas.

In 2014, the Supreme Court docket recognized a two-aspect exam to decide regardless of whether an invention is patent-eligible. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Intercontinental, 573 U.S. 208, 216, 219 (2014).  The first move is a resolve of irrespective of whether the claimed creation falls within one particular of the classes of patent-ineligible subject matter make a difference. If it does, then the 2nd phase is a resolve of whether or not the claimed creation has an creative idea that transforms the patent-ineligible topic matter into one thing patentable.

Because Alice was made a decision in 2014, the federal courts have utilized the Alice examination to invalidate hundreds of patents on the grounds that they are directed to patent-ineligible issue make any difference. As a result of 2000, about 60% of the claims that have been challenged below §101 have been invalidated.

The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals not long ago invalidated two patents in circumstances below Alice. In Repifi Seller Logistics v. Intellicentrics, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 6558 (Fed. Cir., March 15, 2022), the Federal Circuit affirmed a Texas district court’s dismissal of a patent infringement case. The patent protected a technique of handling visitor obtain to obtain-managed areas, this sort of as hospitals. The strategy essentially automatic the common course of action in which a receptionist checks a visitor’s identification and presents them with access credentials. The claimed technique included the methods of furnishing a credentialing process to visitors by way of a smartphone with GPS ability, enrolling the visitor in the credentialing procedure, and getting the customer look at-in on the credentialing program. Repifi sued Intellicentrics for infringement in 2020. Intellicentrics moved to dismiss the circumstance on the grounds that the patent was invalid less than 35 U.S.C. §101.  The district court granted the motion.

On enchantment, the Federal Circuit affirmed. The court agreed with the district courtroom that the claimed creation, a process of credentialing visitors and examining them in, was patent-ineligible subject matter matter. In accordance to the court docket, “credentialing processes are a properly-recognized company apply, a method for arranging human activity, and an abstract plan.” Thus, the initial stage of the Alice was achieved. The patent proprietor argued that move two of the Alice exam was contented since the digital badge procedure that the claimed system demanded to monitor website visitors in authentic time was an creative idea that remodeled the patent-ineligible topic issue into patent-qualified topic matter. The court docket rejected this argument, obtaining that the use of electronic badges is conventional and not inventive. The court held that the claimed creation “stem[med] from the automation of a historically human process” and, therefore, unsuccessful to satisfy Alice’s next action.

In Worlds Inc. v. Activision Blizzard (Fed. Cir., March 10, 2022), the Federal Circuit summarily affirmed a Massachusetts district court’s grant of summary judgement of patent invalidity. Worlds owned patents covering methods of taking care of interactions of distant users in a virtual globe. Worlds sued Activision in 2012, alleging that Activision’s “Call of Duty” match infringed Worlds’ patents. The district court docket utilized the first action of the Alice check and held that the claimed system was directed to patent-ineligible matter make a difference, the abstract notion of crowd regulate by way of filtering. The courtroom then held that the claimed method unsuccessful step two of the Alice exam since there was no creative strategy that transformed the patent-ineligible subject matter issue into patent-suitable topic make any difference.