Epicor Software Corp. v. Protegrity Corp.; Google Inc. v.
Unwired Planet, LLC
Addressing the issue of unpatentable subject matter in a
post-Alice world, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial
and Appeal Board (PTAB) recently invalidated two patents under
§ 101 in separate covered business method (CBM) proceedings.
Epicor Software Corp. v. Protegrity Corp., Case
CBM2015-00006 (PTAB, Apr. 21, 2015) (Petravic, APJ); Google
Inc. v. Unwired Planet, LLC, Case CBM2014-00004 (PTAB, Apr. 6,
2015) (Bisk, APJ).
In Epicor, petitioner filed a petition to institute a
CBM review of a patent directed to protecting data against
unauthorized access, asserting the subject matter was not patent
eligible under § 101. Prior to analyzing the merits of the
§ 101 contentions, the PTAB addressed whether the patent was
eligible for CBM review. A CBM patent claims "a financial
product or service," and "does not include patents for
technological inventions." The patent owner argued
