SUPREME COURT DENIES CERT ON SECTION 101, FRAUDULENT PROCUREMENT OF TRADEMARK PETITIONS.
“On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied petitions for writ of certiorari in several appeals involving intellectual property claims. These denials included yet another Section 101 case seeking clarity on the court’s two-step eligibility test and a suit seeking vacatur of a stipulated settlement for trademark infringement involving a fraudulently procured mark. The Supreme Court also granted a motion by patent owner Cellspin Soft allowing it to file its petition for writ with a supplemental appendix under seal.
Impact Engine v. Google: No Clarity on Lodestar of Section 101 Patentability Analysis
In early February, Internet ad platform developer Impact Engine filed its petition for writ to appeal the Federal Circuit’s ruling from last July affirming the invalidation of Impact Engine’s patent claims to web-based advertisement systems under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Reviewing de novo the Southern District of California’s Section 101 rulings at the motion to dismiss and summary judgment stages, the CAFC panel majority found that Impact Engine’s patent claims were directed to the abstract idea of processing user-provided information to create user-tailored outputs, including claims having a project viewer limitation that limited the alleged abstract idea to a specific, discrete implementation, according to Impact Engine.
Dissenting-in-part to the CAFC majority was Circuit Judge Jimmie Reyna. Although Judge Reyna concurred with most of the ruling, he disagreed with the majority’s treatment of the project viewer claims. Judge Reyna would have vacated the district court’s summary judgment ruling as to those claims, arguing that the district court did not sufficiently analyze the project viewer limitation under the two-step framework for means-plus-function claims.
Impact Engine’s now-denied petition for writ asked the Supreme Court to clarify if the lodestar of Section 101 patent eligibility is preventing preemption of basic technological or scientific building blocks, and whether courts, when analyzing inventions claimed in purely functional terms under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) for purposes of Section 101 patent eligibility, must consider the specific corresponding structure defining the patent claim’s scope.”
Information taken from ipwatchdog.
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