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Generative AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) raises many intellectual property (IP) issues.
Publication | September 2015
USPTO guidance provides clarity into Post-Alice practice
Over the last few months, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a set of guidance documents that help clarify the state of patent office practice as it relates to patent subject matter eligibility following the Alice decision by the United States Supreme Court (Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. __, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014)). These guidance documents provide useful hypothetical and real examples derived from recent judicial decisions before the Federal Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.
The most recent guidance document is a table of Subject Matter Eligibility Court Decisions, which provides patent applicants with a quick reference chart that concisely lists cases in chronological order, indicating the patents / applications in issue as well as the judicial conclusion as it related to the particular claims in question of each case.
For prospective patent applicants, a quick review of these decisions and the guidance may be instrumental in helping draft patent applications and/or claims that have a stronger chance of patentability. Specific examples are provided in relation to digital image processing, games, financial technology, life sciences, manufacturing, sensors in the context of optimizing device performance, among others. Further, the USPTO has given helpful reasoning alongside the claim examples, indicating why the claims were found patent-eligible or patent-ineligible (e.g., when looking at the limitations as an ordered combination, the invention as a whole amounts to significantly more than simply organizing and comparing data).
The guidance can be found online: http://www.uspto.gov/patent/laws-and-regulations/examination-policy/2014-interim-guidance-subject-matter-eligibility-0. A copy of the Supreme Court's decision in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. __, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014) is also provided: http://www.uspto.gov/patents/announce/alice_v_cls_sct.pdf
Publication
Artificial intelligence (AI) raises many intellectual property (IP) issues.
Publication
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) recently ruled in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz & Ors v. Switzerland (Application No. 53600/20) that Switzerland had breached the European Convention of Human Rights (the Convention) by not taking sufficient action against climate change. In particular, it found a breach of the right to respect for private and family life contained in Article 8 of the Convention, based on Switzerland’s failure to mitigate the impact of climate change on the lives, health, well-being and quality of life of its citizens. It also ruled that Switzerland had breached the right to a fair trial in terms of Article 6, in that the domestic courts failed to examine the merits of the applicants’ complaints, including the scientific evidence. In this article we consider the key features of this landmark judgment, which has wide ramifications for Member States of the Convention.
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We are delighted to announce that Al Hounsell, Director of Strategic Innovation & Legal Design based in our Toronto office, has been named 'Innovative Leader of the Year' at the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) Awards.
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