A Busy Friday

Last Friday, April 17, 2009, Dale M. Shaw Chief Appeals Administrator, remanded six cases that had received Docketing Notices back to their respective Examiner.

Each of the decisions includes language similar to the following:

Claims X, Y, and Z of the instant application are set forth as method claims that may not fall with one of the four statutory categories of invention recited in 35 U.S.C. § 101. On May 15, 2008, the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examining Policy, John J. Love, issued a memorandum entitled “Clarification of “Processes” under 35 U.S.C. § 101.” This memorandum is further used in conjunction with the Interim Guidelines and the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure § 2106.IV.B, when determining whether a claimed invention falls within a statutory category of invention. See In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943 (Fed. Cir. 2008)(en banc). Thus, there is a question as to whether claims X, Y, and Z meet the requirements of being a patent eligible process under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

It is interesting to note that the decision do not make reference to the post-Bilski memo of January 7, 2009. The watchdog posted a link to this January memo here: Bilski Guidelines Post

Could this signal a new trend from the BPAI?

If you would like .pdfs of the decisions, feel free to email me and I will send them along.