Tag Archive: Thea Reilkoff

Thanks to the America Invents Act (AIA), the USPTO may serve as the receiving office for PCT applications by foreign inventors if the “applicant,” including a commercial assignee of the invention, is a U.S. resident. The PCT allows “applicants,” defined as “any natural person or legal entity,” to file PCT applications in the country of which they are a resident or national. Prior to the AIA, the USPTO recognized only inventors as applicants and, therefore, PCT applications with U.S. assignees but without U.S. inventors had to be filed with the country of nationality or residency of the inventor or with...

■ Thea E. Reilkoff On June 19, 2014, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International, No. 13-2988 (U.S., June 19, 2014), holding all claims in patents for a computer-implemented scheme for mitigating settlement risk invalid as drawn to an abstract idea, ineligible for patent protection under 35 U.S.C. §101. The Court revisited prior case law to reaffirm that a generic computer and generic instructions are insufficient to transform an abstract idea into a patent eligible invention, but declined to further define the contours of what constitutes an abstract idea. Notably, the Court solidified...