Recent En Banc Activity

Here is an update on recent en banc activity at the Federal Circuit in patent cases, including a new petition related to patent eligibility and four denials of recent petitions.

New Petitions

A new en banc petition was filed in Solutran, Inc. v. Elavon, Inc. In its petition, Solutran asked the en banc court to review the following questions:

1. “Must section 101 analysis start with identifying the inventors’ claimed advance over the prior art?”;
2. “Are patent claims that improve physical processes by definition non-abstract?”; and
3. “Are non-technical business-method inventions that improve a physical process patentable?”

New Responses

There were no new responses filed last week.

Grants

The Federal Circuit did not grant any en banc petitions last week. 

Denials

The Federal Circuit recently denied en banc petitions in the following cases:

• Power Integrations, Inc. v. Semiconductor Components (18-1602);
• Power Integrations, Inc. v. Semiconductor Components (18-1607);
• Power Integrations, Inc. v. Semiconductor Components (18-1705);
• Parallel Networks Licensing v. Microsoft Corporation.