Alice is Alive and Well!

Not everything is patentable. First, only inventions are patentable. Second, only particular inventions are patentable. 4 styles of innovations are patentable: articles or blog posts of manufacture, machines, procedures, and compositions of subject. 35 U.S.C. §101. These four sorts of inventions are referred to as patent-eligible topic matter. Some things, referred to as patent-ineligible subject matter, are not patentable: rules of mother nature, pure phenomena, and summary ideas.

In 2014, the Supreme Court established a two-part exam to determine whether an invention is patent-eligible. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Lender Intercontinental, 573 U.S. 208, 216, 219 (2014).  The 1st stage is a dedication of whether the claimed invention falls inside one particular of the categories of patent-ineligible subject matter issue. If it does, then the 2nd stage is a determination of no matter whether the claimed invention has an inventive concept that transforms the patent-ineligible subject subject into some thing patentable.

Since Alice was determined in 2014, the federal courts have utilized the Alice test to invalidate hundreds of patents on the grounds that they are directed to patent-ineligible issue make any difference. Via 2000, about 60% of the statements that have been challenged beneath §101 have been invalidated.

The Federal Circuit Courtroom of Appeals just lately invalidated two patents in cases under 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 scenario. The patent included a system of handling customer accessibility to obtain-controlled destinations, this sort of as hospitals. The method effectively automatic the regular course of action in which a receptionist checks a visitor’s identification and offers them with obtain credentials. The claimed method included the measures of providing a credentialing technique to site visitors through a smartphone with GPS capability, enrolling the customer in the credentialing program, and having the customer verify-in on the credentialing procedure. Repifi sued Intellicentrics for infringement in 2020. Intellicentrics moved to dismiss the scenario on the grounds that the patent was invalid under 35 U.S.C. §101.  The district court docket granted the movement.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit affirmed. The court agreed with the district courtroom that the claimed creation, a technique of credentialing people and examining them in, was patent-ineligible topic make any difference. According to the court, “credentialing procedures are a well-set up business practice, a strategy for organizing human activity, and an summary concept.” Thus, the first phase of the Alice was achieved. The patent owner argued that phase two of the Alice check was satisfied since the electronic badge system that the claimed system essential to watch readers in real time was an ingenious principle that transformed the patent-ineligible subject matter subject into patent-suitable matter matter. The courtroom turned down this argument, discovering that the use of digital badges is typical and not ingenious. The court docket held that the claimed invention “stem[med] from the automation of a traditionally human process” and, therefore, unsuccessful to satisfy Alice’s second phase.

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 masking procedures of running interactions of remote end users in a digital planet. Worlds sued Activision in 2012, alleging that Activision’s “Call of Duty” game infringed Worlds’ patents. The district court applied the very first action of the Alice take a look at and held that the claimed method was directed to patent-ineligible matter matter, the summary notion of crowd regulate by filtering. The courtroom then held that the claimed approach unsuccessful move two of the Alice examination due to the fact there was no creative idea that remodeled the patent-ineligible topic make any difference into patent-qualified matter make a difference.