{"id":104627,"date":"2019-01-18T06:15:58","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T11:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/?p=104627"},"modified":"2019-01-15T16:36:54","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T21:36:54","slug":"conclusory-legal-opinions-patentees-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/2019\/01\/18\/conclusory-legal-opinions-patentees-expert\/id=104627\/","title":{"rendered":"Conclusory Legal Opinions of Patentee&#8217;s Expert Not Enough to Prevent 12(b)(6) Dismissal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.123rf.com\/photo_83774792_jackson-statue-lafayette-park-court-of-appeals-for-federal-circuit-washington-dc-statue-created-1850.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-92562 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/jackson-stat-cafc-federal-circuit.jpg\" alt=\"Conclusory Opinions of Expert Not Enough to Prevent Dismissal\" width=\"450\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/jackson-stat-cafc-federal-circuit.jpg 450w, https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/jackson-stat-cafc-federal-circuit-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a>Several weeks ago, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a nonprecedential decision in <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cafc.uscourts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/opinions-orders\/18-1407.Opinion.12-20-2018.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Glasswall Solutions Limited v. Clearswift Ltd.<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, affirming a district court\u2019s findings that claims from two patents that were asserted in an infringement case filed by Glasswall were directed to unpatentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. \u00a7 101. The Federal Circuit panel of Circuit Judges Alan Lourie, Richard Linn and Richard Taranto found that the Western District of Washington court did not err in determining the challenged claims were invalid under the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alice\/Mayo<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> framework, and that dismissal of the case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) was appropriate.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Facts Not Conclusions<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The two patents-at-issue in this case are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/patents.google.com\/patent\/US8869283\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">U.S. Patent No. 8869283<\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, titled <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Resisting the Spread of Unwanted Code and Data<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It claims a method for processing an electronic file containing only allowable content data by receiving an electronic file, determining the data format, parsing the content data to determine if it conforms to the data format and regenerating the parsed data if it does conform.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.freepatentsonline.com\/9516045.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">U.S. Patent No. 9516045<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, same title as the \u2018283 patent. It discloses a method of resisting spread of unwanted code and data without scanning incoming electronic files for unwanted code and data in a way that provides virus detection for computing devices without the large data files used by conventional antivirus programs while reducing the amount of time required to protect against unwanted code.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The district court had found that all asserted claims of the \u2018283 and \u2018045 patents were directed to the filtering of electronic data and files and the Federal Circuit agreed with the district court\u2019s conclusion that such filtering represented an abstract concept. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>Although the Federal Circuit has made it more difficult for defendants to achieve a dismissal based upon patent ineligibility after <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.leagle.com\/decision\/infco20180214139\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Aatrix Software v. Green Shades Software<\/a>, <\/em>882 F.3d 1121 (2018), a dismissal is still achievable. Here the Federal Circuit distinguished <em>Aatrix. <\/em>In <i>Aatrix<\/i>, the Federal Circuit gave the plaintiff leave to file a second amended complaint which, if its allegations were factually correct, would have established patentability of the invention. In <i>Glasswall<\/i>, the Federal Circuit found that testimony offered by an expert witness for Glasswall didn\u2019t preclude a dismissal on the pleadings as the alleged factual assertions in that testimony weren\u2019t actually factual in nature but, rather, were conclusory legal arguments the district court wasn\u2019t bound to accept as true.<\/p>\n<h2>Abstract Idea Without Significantly More<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe claims at issue in both patents do not purport to claim <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the invention receives an electronic file, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> it determines the file type, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> it determines allowable content,\u201d Judge Linn\u2019s opinion reads. \u201cInstead, the claims are framed in wholly functional terms, with no indication that any of these steps are implemented in anything but a conventional way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The panel found the claims in this case to be similar to those found invalid in the Federal Circuit\u2019s 2016 decision in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.leagle.com\/decision\/infco20160930148\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u00a0838 F.3d 1307 (Fed. Cir. 2016). In that case, the Federal Circuit held that the invalidated claims were directed to methods of screening emails and other data files for unwanted content. Thus, those claims were directed to an abstract idea as filtering mail and email according to known characteristics was a long-prevalent practice. \u201cThe claims in this case do no more,\u201d Judge Linn wrote, finding that the invalidated claims in the present case only required the conventional manipulation of information by a computer. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Federal Circuit further found that the invalidated <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Glasswall<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> claims were unlike the claims found patent-eligible in the Court\u2019s 2018 decision in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.leagle.com\/decision\/infco20180110131\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finjan, Inc. v. Blue Coat Systems, Inc.<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, 879 F.3d 1299 (2018), where the claimed invention used a new kind of file enabling new functionality in a computer security system. Unlike <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finjan<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, where there was a pioneering invention that filtered based on behavior, the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Glasswall<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> claims filtered based upon the information content of the file. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After first finding that the claims were directed to an abstract idea under <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alice\/Mayo<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> step one, the Federal Circuit found that \u201cthe claims fare no better under <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alice<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> step two\u201d as they didn\u2019t amount to anything more than the application of the abstract idea implemented through generic steps.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Image Source 123rf.com<br \/>\nImage ID: 83774792<br \/>\nCopyright: William Perry <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several weeks ago, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a nonprecedential decision in Glasswall Solutions Limited v. Clearswift Ltd., affirming a district court\u2019s findings that claims from two patents that were asserted in an infringement case filed by Glasswall were directed to unpatentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. \u00a7 101&#8230; The Federal Circuit found that testimony offered by an expert witness for Glasswall didn\u2019t preclude a dismissal on the pleadings as the alleged factual assertions in that testimony weren\u2019t actually factual in nature but, rather, were conclusory legal arguments the district court wasn\u2019t bound to accept as true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11764,"featured_media":92562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7202,82,228,3,37020],"tags":[12415,19622,13167,553,8730,13788,15685,11324,1098,1027,6219,1490,33,1599,1569,83,34,39447,14069,1198,11233],"yst_prominent_words":[38742,15342,16260,38737,38743,18397,38745,38744,24855,15421,15424,38739,15338,15330,15595,38741,38740,38736,38738,38735],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104627"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11764"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104627"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwatchdog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=104627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}