Here is an update on recent en banc activity at the Federal Circuit in patent cases. Since our last update, the court denied a petition raising issues related to patent eligibility. Here are the details.
Denial
The Federal Circuit recently denied a petition for en banc rehearing in Audio Evolution Diagnostics, Inc. v. United States. The petition raised the following questions:
- Whether “this Court’s Section 101 precedent since the Supreme Court’s Alice/Mayo decisions requires clarification due to the economic damage and unpredictability that it has caused to the point that claimed processes, machines, manufactures, compositions of matter, and new and useful improvements thereof are now abstract ideas under this Court’s overbroad and non-uniform application of the Alice/Mayo steps that Alice/Mayo do not require.”
- Whether “this Court’s application of the Alice/Mayo steps has created a precedent of conflicting positions between the Department of Justice (‘DOJ’) and the SG’s Office whom this Court and the Supreme Court rely on for legal guidance regarding the patent laws.”