Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights two articles summarizing Oracle’s appeal of the government’s denial of its bid on the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, a plea for “clarity and a new approach” on patent eligibility in 2020, and two blog posts covering a recent defamation lawsuit related to a trademark case on appeal at the Federal Circuit.
Frank Konkel authored an article on Nextgov about “Oracle’s battle for the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract,” noting the case “isn’t over, despite the contract’s award to Microsoft in October,” and summarizing recent court filings. Billy Mitchell likewise filed a report on the case for fedscoop, indicating that “[a]ttorneys representing the Department of Defense are hoping to put Oracle’s protest of the $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud acquisition to bed.”
Emil Malak, the Director and Chief Executive Officer of Voip-Pal.com, Inc., posted “A Plea for Clarity and a New Approach on Section 101 in 2020” on IPWatchDog.com. He contends that there was a “[t]he lack of clarity by the U.S. Supreme Court in its landmark patent case of Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International” and a “subsequent failure of the Federal Circuit to achieve consistency and predictability in Section 101 jurisprudence,” which “has resulted in the destruction of thousands of patents, especially in the fields of information technology, software and life sciences.”
Dennis Crouch urged commenters on PatentlyO to “take care,” noting that “[t]hree commenters to John Welch’s TTABlog were recently sued for defamation” after criticizing an attorney “who lost a case before the TTAB.” Eugene Volokh also covers the case on The Volokh Conspiracy, highlighting that “[t]he TTAB’s decision is now on appeal to the Federal Circuit.”