6/25/2013 - Software Patents May Contain Ineligible Subject Matter Under 35 U.S.C. §101 -- A recent Federal Circuit ruling suggests differing opinions among the judges about whether certain software patents include patentable subject matter under §101. The court issued six different opinions in CLS Bank International v. Alice Corporation, each including varying tests to determine patent-eligible subject matter under §101. The patents at issue related to financial services sof

6/25/2013 - Obama Attempts to Reduce Patent Trolling -- "[T]he White House is asking Congress to force the USPTO to narrow the scope of patents within the next six months so that whole fields of endeavour cannot be trolled. Obama also wants to prevent patents being asserted against the users of technologies, like coffee shops, rather than manufacturers." This action is aimed at reducing patent trolling (i.e. asserting patents that are either invalid or of questionable validit

6/25/2013 - Claim Vitiation Limitation to the Doctrine of Equivalents May Be Diminishing -- The Fed. Circuit recently interpreted claim vitiation to be “an acknowledgement that each element in the claim must be present in the accused device either literally or equivalently.” It is unclear whether claim vitiation is still a separate standard that can be applied as a defense to the doctrine of equivalents. Claim vitiation remains a question of law for a court to decide (i.e., t