Letter Request Requirement in East Texas Takes An Absurdist Turn

We’ve written before about the unique requirement some judges in the Eastern District of Texas impose on accused infringers, requiring them to obtain leave of court before filing a motion testing the patent–eligibility of an asserted patent under Alice v. CLS Bank. This requirement makes it harder for accused infringers to get a dispositive issue...

Alice Needs A Judicial Visa To Enter East Texas

East Texas continues to stand out among federal judicial districts for its (contrarian) approach to patent cases. Where the judges in other judicial districts have found the Supreme Court opinion in Alice v. CLS Bank a useful tool to use early in cases to weed out patents that shouldn’t have been granted—you can see a...

No Welcome Mat for Alice in East Texas After All?

A month ago, we highlighted the case of Clear With Computers v. Volvo Construction Equipment, in which Judge Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas granted a defense motion to dismiss for lack of patentable subject matter. We saw the application of Alice v. CLS Bank in a ruling on an early dispositive motion in...

The Alice Penny Drops In East Texas

As we wrote last month, the early stats suggest that Alice v. CLS Bank has changed the landscape of patent litigation, with a 69% win rate for accused infringers on motions seeking a judgment that an asserted patent is not directed to patentable subject matter. One of the bigger open questions is what reception Alice...

Patent Reform Is Back…Alice Is Big…The PTO Is Unmasked

…and, we’re back, with a post–hibernation blitz of patent news… Patent reform, it’s back too. Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte has reintroduced the patent reform bill that died in the Senate last year. The bill’s provisions are designed to pare back patent troll litigation. It would (1) require the plaintiff to identify the patent–owner before filing...

Uneasy Times For Patent Trolls?

There is some evidence to suggest that we have reason to give thanks this season for the downward slide of the phenomenon of the non–practicing entity (NPE) a/k/a patent assertion entity (PAE) a/k/a patent troll. By any name, businesses that acquire patents for the purpose licensing and litigation are in the news, and not for...

Federal Circuit Acknowledges That, Yes, Alice Did Change The Game

The yo–yo of Ultramercial v. Hulu has come to rest at last, and should prove to any doubters that the Supreme Court’s Alice v. CLS Bank opinion has changed the patent litigation game. The Ultramercial case has been adrift in cross–currents between the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court for years now. In 2010, the...

Good Enough For Patent Law, Good Enough For Copyright Law…

Google copies Java’s method headers in its API for Android. Java’s creator, Sun Microsystems, is purchased by Oracle. Oracle sues Google for copyright infringement. (Admit it. That last bit didn’t surprise you). The district court finds that the API method headers aren’t protectable under copyright. The Federal Circuit reverses—Java API taxonomy is copyrightable as a...

Go Ask Alice, When She’s Ten Feet Tall

With apologies to Jefferson Airplane, the Supreme Court’s Alice v. CLS Bank opinion has grown dramatically in size and strength since it issued in June. In that time, the Federal Circuit and federal district courts from New York to California have decided twenty–two cases of which we are aware. Of those, eighteen have found the...

September Surprise? Patent Lawsuits Down 40%

According to data from Lex Machina, 548 new patent infringement lawsuits were filed in September 2013. This September? 329. That is a 40% decrease from last September to this. Moreover, as Timothy B. Lee of Vox highlights, there has been a steady decline in patent infringement filings over this summer from 416 in July to...