AI, Algorithms And Abstract Ideas: Federal Circuit Reinforces Limits In Recentive v. Fox

In April, the Federal Circuit issued a significant patent law ruling involving artificial intelligence. In Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp, the Court addressed a core question facing many AI-driven businesses: When are solutions applying machine learning to real-world problems inventive and patentable? The Federal Circuit affirmed the trial court's dismissal of the underlying case at the pleading stage under § 101 and held that applying generic machine learning models to scheduling and programming tasks—without disclosing any technological advances to the underlying machine learning techniques—failed to meet the eligibility standards under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

This past Wednesday, Recentive filed a combined petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc arguing that the April decision erased the line between § 101 and §§ 102/103 and erroneously imported § 112's enablement requirement. Recentive's petition also notes that several judges in the Federal Circuit