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Inventing is hard enough without having to get lawyers involved. Unfortunately, much of today’s eureka-ing involves having a firm on speed dial. As it stands, the manifest legal ambiguities that plague IP are so prevalent that attorneys want the Supreme Court to establish some clarity. From Law360:
Two Irell & Manella LLP attorneys have filed a brief on their own behalf as patent litigators urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal by Realtime of a decision invalidating its data compression patents under Alice in a dispute with Fortinet.
Realtime has said that since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International , “the Federal Circuit has issued many divided and frequently inconsistent rulings attempting to apply the abstract idea exception.”…The present case is emblematic of how existing jurisprudence has led to confusion and improper conflation of the patent-eligible subject matter and enablement requirements in lower courts,” the attorneys said.
If only someone had the wherewithal to make jumping the legal hurdles clipping at innovation. Maybe a judge who is very familiar with both the legal and scientific sides of patents.
Irell attorneys Alan Heinrich and Christopher Abernethy said they agree with Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman’s August dissent in the case that the suit should have hinged on whether the patents enabled a skilled person to make and use the invention, rather than on whether it is an abstract idea.
Isn’t funny that whenever Newman’s name comes up, it seems like she knows what she’s talking about? Given that the legal outcomes look less based on the law and who is doing the evaluating, now would be a great time for the Supreme Court to give some answers on what Section 101 of the Patent Act means. Given what usually happens when the Supreme Court takes up cases that Newman has dissented on, I look forward to her well deserved, “I told you so.”
Irell Attys Want Justices’ Guidance On Patent Standards [Law360]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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