Those waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on Section
101 were, once again, disappointed this week. On Nov. 16, 2020, in
the case of WhitServe LLC v. Donuts Inc. et al.,
case no. 20-325 (U.S. Supreme Court), the Supreme Court declined to
review the Federal Circuit's ruling that two of
WhitServe LLC's patents were directed to ineligible subject
matter under Section 101. The Federal Circuit found that the
patents were directed to methods of automatically delivering
professional services by querying a database containing client
reminders and generating a client response form.
WhitServe argued to the Supreme Court that
early decisions on patent eligibility have been granted at
"unprecedented levels," often without the courts
appropriately weighing a patent owner's factual allegations.
WhitServe sought to "end the federal bench's practice of
unduly stripping inventors' property rights by ignoring"
the inventors' factual allegations.
