IP litigation counsel Matthew Rizzolo (Washington, D.C.) was quoted in an April 10 article published in Bloomberg Law’s World IP Report and the Bloomberg Law Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal on patent eligibility issues.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has recently reversed several district court rulings for dismissing patent cases without properly analyzing relevant factual disputes in the context of the patent eligibility analysis under 35 U.S.C. Section 101 – an area of the law that has seen great uncertainty since the Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank.
Mr. Rizzolo expects that if these rulings are not overturned in an en banc or Supreme Court proceeding, they could have a significant effect on district court procedures. For example, he said that some judges may address Section 101 patent eligibility challenges in a similar manner to claim construction, by conducting separate early proceedings – much like Markman hearings used in interpreting claim terms in patent infringement cases. He noted that the U.S. International Trade Commission, which also decides patent cases, has occasionally used expedited proceedings to address Section 101 disputes in prior cases.
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