Writings by John C. Laurence

In Clarilogic v. FormFree Holdings, the Court Of Appeals upheld the District Court for the Southern District of California holding that the claims of U.S. Patent Application No. 8,762,243 (‘243 Patent) are ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because they are directed to an abstract idea and contain no additional elements that transform the nature of the […]

On November 2nd, the USPTO issued new guidance to Patent Examiners regarding § 101 subject matter eligibility. The memorandum (USPTO-McRO-Bascom-Memo-1.pdf) provides guidance based on Federal Circuit decisions issued since the office’s most recent, May 2016, update. The memo includes guidance based on the Federal Circuit’s recent decisions in McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games and BASCOM Global Internet […]

In talking to clients whose patent applications involve software, it simply is not good enough to ask for as much specificity as possible to help remove the invention from the realm of an abstract idea and avoid an unpatentable subject matter rejection. Rather, it now seems that the required specificity must also be grounded in […]