Job Applicant Software Patents Not Terminated For Invalidity

Although the subject matter eligibility of software patents has come under increased scrutiny since the Supreme Court issued its opinion last year in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, one Massachusetts court recently declined to invalidate a trio of patents directed to job applicant software. Plaintiff Kenexa had asserted infringement claims against three defendants, and two of the defendants—including HireAbility—subsequently moved for judgment on the pleadings that Kenexa's patents recite unpatentable subject matter under § 101.

The patents generally relate to processes for extracting data from non-uniformly formatted resumes and fitting the data to preset fields in an online form, and enabling job applicants to verify and modify the data before it is submitted to the employer. Using the two-step test from Alice, Judge Saylor first analyzed whether the patented claims are directed to an abstract idea. He acknowledged that "the claims here are not easily reduced to one