Federal Circuit Affirms Data-Compression Patents Are Ineligible

The Federal Circuit said a Delaware federal judge was correct in his conclusion that a set of seven data-compression patents are ineligible for protection because they were directed at abstract ideas.

The patents have been asserted in a slew of lawsuits, with one brief filed in the appeal stating that 90 companies have been targets of Realtime suits since 2010.

The Wednesday opinion is a win for many of those companies—including Fortinet Inc., Reduxio Systems Inc., Panzura Inc., and Aryaka Networks Inc.—which successfully sought dismissal of suits against them on grounds that Realtime’s patents are directed to abstract ideas ...