IP Newsflash

In JP Morgan Chase Bank v. DataTreasury Corporation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit considered a district court’s interpretation of a most favored licensee clause in a license agreement, which allowed JP Morgan to use DataTreasury Corporation’s patented check processing technology.

On April 7, 2016, Judge Barbara M. G. Lynn of the Northern District of Texas denied defendant Maxmind, Inc.’s Motion for Exceptional Case Determination and Attorneys’ Fees and Costs. In doing so, the court found that “Plaintiff’s litigation position was not frivolous or objectively unreasonable” because the “substantive law of Section 101 patent-eligibility has evolved since Plaintiff initiated this lawsuit.”

In a January 22, 2016 decision, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) denied institution of covered business method (CBM) review of an ATM patent under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Petitioner NRT Technology sought review of U.S. Patent No. 6,081,792, which relates to a modified ATM terminal that allows a user to obtain cash from a bank account through one of multiple alternative networks. According to the patent, when a cardholder attempts to withdraw money via an ATM network and fails because she has exceeded her daily limit, the request is routed through a different type of transaction, such as a point-of-sale (POS) network. When the POS transaction is approved, the ATM terminal informs a nearby money location—for example, a hotel concierge or a cash window at a casino—of the approved transaction, and the cardholder obtains the money from that location instead of the ATM terminal itself.