LQ PatentCast: SAP America V. Investpic

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Craige Thompson

Craige is an experienced engineer, accomplished patent attorney, and bestselling author.

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Summary: The Federal Circuit burns off some of the fog surrounding software claims at Step 2 of the Alice inquiry.

In this installment of the Post-Alice Software Series, the Federal Circuit burns off some of the fog surrounding software claims at Step 2 of the Alice inquiry.

The case of SAP vs. Investpic appears to directly answer, for the first time, whether a claim can lack the “inventive concept” needed to survive Alice, even though the claims are “groundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant” as well as non-obvious.

Now we know that an “inventive concept” cannot be found in the non-abstract realm, e.g., the claimed improvement can’t be an improvement to merely abstract “math.”

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