Whether Facts Matter in the Patent Eligibility Analysis: HP Files Petition for En Banc Rehearing

By Michael Borella — In Franz Kafka's novel The Trial, a man is accused of a non-specified crime by a shadowy governmental agency. The man repeatedly attempts to understand the nature of his alleged wrongdoing and his accusers. Ultimately, he is executed without these questions being answered. Under current Supreme Court and Federal Circuit rulings (Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l and its progeny), a patent can be invalidated or an application can be rejected simply by (i) making a high-level analogy between the claimed invention and one that has been previously found to be directed to a patent-ineligible law…Original Article