Our weekly SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, December 1, 2014 will be a discussion of one District Court case and one Federal Circuit case regarding patentable subject matter. Brief synopses appear below.

Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, et. al., Case No. 2010-1544 (Fed. Cir. November 14, 2014) (available here).  Ultramercial owns a patent directed to a method for distributing copyrighted media products over the Internet. Defendant WildTangent filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. After two writ of certioraris to the Supreme Court, the case returned to the Federal Circuit following the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp v. CLS Bank International. The Federal Circuit granted WildTangent’s motion to dismiss finding that the Ultramercial’s patent was not directed to patent eligible subject matter. 

California Institute of Technology v. Hughes Communications Inc., et al., Case No. 2:13-cv-07245 (C.D. Cal. November 3, 2014) (available here).  Plaintiff CalTech asserted four patents against multiple defendants, including Hughes Communications, and Dish Network. Hughes moved for summary judgment that the claims were not patentable under 35 U.S.C. 101. The claims of the patents are directed to error correction for electronic systems. Following a lengthy discussion of Alice, and decisions after Alice, Judge Pfaelzer denies Hughes’ summary judgment motion holding that the claims of CalTech’s patents are directed to patentable subject matter.

 All are invited to join us in our discussion during the SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, December 1, 2014 at Noon in our Westlake Village office. This activity is approved for 1 hour of MCLE credit. If you will be joining us, please RSVP to Noelle Smith by 9 am Monday morning.