Generic Claim Terms And Broad Specification Led To No CBM Review

In Twilio, Inc. v. Telesign Corp., CBM2016-00099, Paper 13 (Feb. 27, 2017), the Board refused to institute a covered business method (CBM) review because the Petitioner failed to show that the patent at issue qualified to be a covered business method patent.

In this case, the patent at issue claimed a process for validating a registrant on a website, giving the registrant access to a "service," and then sending the registration a notification upon the occurrence of a predetermined "notification event." The specification disclosed both financial (e.g., a notification for a bank account withdrawal) and nonfinancial (e.g., news alerts sent to a phone) embodiments.

The Board first focused on the language of AIA § 18(d)(1) and recent Federal Circuit cases. According to § 18(d)(1), a covered business method patent is "a patent that claims a method or corresponding apparatus for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration,