InvestPic LLC’s patent related to financial data analysis is invalid, because abstract ideas, even innovative ones, aren’t eligible for patent protection, a federal appeals court said.
SAP America Inc. sued to invalidate U.S. Patent No. 6,349,291, which described using improved statistical methods for analyzing and calculating financial data. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 15 affirmed the invalidation of the patent.
The decision offers the latest guidance on how to determine whether an invention covers a patentable subject matter. Patent practitioners criticize the current approach, in which inventions relating to abstract ideas or laws ...