Financial Services and Business Systems is part of our work in Communications, Consumer Goods and Services, and Electronics and Information Technology.
Protecting innovations related to financial services, software, and life sciences has for decades presented unique challenges, including post-grant review provisions enacted in the America Invents Act and evolving case law after U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Bilski v. Kappos, Mayo v. Prometheus, and Alice v. CSL Bank. Finnegan has stayed at the forefront of important developments in these areas. At the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), Finnegan filed the first successful petition for post-grant review of a covered business method patent. And at the Supreme Court, Finnegan briefed and argued the Bilski case, prevailing on both questions presented before the Court, including obtaining a ruling that so called “business methods” cannot per se be excluded from patenting.
Post Bilski, innovations in e-commerce, financial services, and medical methods continue to develop and thrive. Finnegan advises companies on strategies consistent with the Supreme Court’s directives in Bilski, Mayo, and Alice. As the lower courts apply the Court’s rulings, Finnegan is there, representing patent owners in cases before the Federal Circuit involving the patent eligibility of innovations in financial services and software. For example, we successfully represented Research Corporation Technologies before the Federal Circuit, where the court reversed summary judgment of invalidity of claims directed to methods for half-toning digital images, explaining that only “manifestly abstract” inventions are patent-ineligible.
Finnegan has played a role in some of the seminal court cases involving the scope of patent protection. In 1980, we wrote an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in Diamond v. Chakrabarty on the patentability of a living organism. We also drafted the application in In re Lowry and prosecuted the case through the USPTO. That case established the patentability of claims to a machine-readable data structure in a computer. In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, we represented one of the parties in AT&T Corp. v. Excel Communications, Inc., which addressed the patentability of a method of determining telephone charges. We also filed an amicus brief in the Federal Circuit in In re Beauregard, which concerned claims to a computer program embodied in a tangible media, such as a floppy disk. On the issue of patent-eligible subject matter, we filed amicus briefs in the Supreme Court in Mayo v. Prometheus and in the Federal Circuit in ACLU v. Myriad. With our historical insight and sharp focus on the everchanging patent eligibility landscape, we work with clients across a broad range of technologies, including those related to:
We help with:
2:22-cv-00291, E.D. Tex., Judge Gilstrap
IPR2022-01593, IPR2023-00143, -00144, -00183, -00184, -00829, PTAB, Judges Dirba, Droesch, McMillin, White, Zecher
3-22-cv-00268, M.D. Fla., Judges Howard, Richardson
3:19-cv-00012, W.D. Va., Judge Moon
Represented defendant United Bank in a patent infringement action.
1:18-cv-00966, E.D. Va., Judges O'Grady, Buchanan
6:19-cv-00202, W.D. Tex., Judge Albright
Represented petitioner Fidelity Information Services in four covered business method reviews, successfully cancelling all claims of patent owner Mirror Imaging’s patents related to electronic financial document storage.
CBM2017-00064, -00065, -00066, -00067, PTAB, Judges Arbes, Easthom, Elluru
Press Release
Finnegan Adds Jenevieve Maerker to Its Trademark, Copyright, and Advertising Practice
April 19, 2023
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