In what can be described only as an utterly ridiculous, intellectually insulting, and idiotic decision, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has done the truly absurd. In Ex parte Hiroyuki Itagaki the PTAB has ruled a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine to be patent ineligible because it is an abstract idea, citing the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank for support.
The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences did something fascinating in Ex Parte Yudoovsky. The Board sua sponte declined to consider an unauthorized new ground of rejection—even though the appellant never filed a petition. In other words, the Board refused to consider a new ground of rejection, because the Examiner failed to designate the ground as “new.”