IP Newsflash

On December 29, 2016, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a decision rejecting most claims of an application for an MRI machine patent, finding the claims directed toward an abstract idea and therefore patent-ineligible under § 101.

On August 25, 2016, the District Court for the District of Massachusetts denied a motion to dismiss for lack of patent eligible subject matter filed by defendants Mayo Collaborative Services, LLC and Mayo Clinic. Applying the two-step framework established by the Supreme Court in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014), the district court held that the diagnostic method claims of the asserted patent were directed to a patent ineligible law of nature (step one), but the District Court was unable to determine at the 12(b)(6) stage whether the claims contained an inventive concept that transformed them into a patent eligible invention (step two).