Friday, May 10, 2013

Federal Circuit Splits 5-5 in en banc rehearing in CLS Bank

Not directly relevant to patent remedies, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit just came out with its en banc "decision" in CLS Bank Int'l v. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd.  The case was supposed to provide some clarity on the patentability of software-related inventions, but it looks like it won't.  Here's the per curiam opinion:   "Upon consideration en banc, a majority of the court affirms the district court’s holding that the asserted method and computer-readable media claims are not directed to eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.  An equally divided court affirms the district court’s holding that the asserted system claims are not directed to eligible subject matter under that statute.  AFFIRMED".  What follows is over 100 pages of concurring and dissenting opinions.

I guess I will have to spend some time plowing through this, though part of me wonders what the point is . . . 

Separately, a three-judge panel of the court in Sanofi Aventis Deutschland GmbH v.  Genentech, Inc., affirms the district court's denial of an injunction "preventing the patent owner from proceeding in a previously-filed foreign arbitration" relating to a license of a patent that had been the subject of a final U.S. judgment of noninfringement.

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