No. 19-1435

C. Douglass Thomas v. Andrei Iancu, Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office

Lower Court: Federal Circuit
Docketed: 2020-06-29
Status: Denied
Type: Paid
Response Waived
Tags: alice-mayo-framework alice-v-cls-bank claim-limitations computer-technology diehr-v-diamond inventive-concept mayo-v-prometheus nonobviousness patent-eligibility software-innovation software-patents
Latest Conference: 2020-09-29
Question Presented (from Petition)

1. Whether software innovations, simply because they are implemented on a general purpose computer, are ineligible for patenting unless they claim some hardware limitations beyond a general purpose computer that provide an improvement to computer technology.

2. Whether, contrary to Diehr, claim limitations can be ignored, under the guise of the Mayo/Alice framework, when a claim is evaluated for presence of an inventive concept, even when the ignored claim limitations were found to be nonobviousess.

Question Presented (AI Summary)

Whether software innovations implemented on a general purpose computer are patent-eligible

Docket Entries

2020-10-05
Petition DENIED.
2020-07-22
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 9/29/2020.
2020-07-20
Waiver of right of respondent Andrei Iancu, Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office to respond filed.
2020-06-24
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due July 29, 2020)

Attorneys

Andrei Iancu, Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office
Jeffrey B. WallActing Solicitor General, Respondent
C. Douglass Thomas
Charles Douglass ThomasTI Law Group, Petitioner