This morning the Federal Circuit issued two nonprecedential opinions in patent cases affirming decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Here are the introductions to the opinions.
In re Rajagopalan (Nonprecedential)
Raghavan Rajagopalan is the named inventor on U.S. Patent Application No. 14/499,191, entitled “Prevention of Illicit Methamphetamine Manufacture from Pseudoephedrine Using Food Flavor Excipients.” The Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejected claims 1–3 and 10 for obviousness based on two prior-art references and rejected claims 12 and 13 for obviousness based on those references together with a third. We affirm the Board.
In re Gale (Nonprecedential)
Brian Gale appeals a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejecting all noncancelled claims from his patent application as ineligible under 35 U.S.C. §101. Because we agree with the Board that the claims are directed to an abstract idea and lack an inventive concept, we affirm.