The Software IP Report
Federal Circuit Easily Affirms Patent-Ineligibility of Claims Drawn to Managing Shipping Containers
By Charles Bieneman
Categories: Patent Eligibility, The Software IP Report
Like drilling a small hole in the hull of the Titanic (post-iceberg), the Federal Circuit has affirmed a district court’s judgment on the pleadings of patent-ineligibility of claims directed to a “container monitoring system for accumulating and storing information on shipping containers including container location and container load status.” Wireless Media Innovations LLC v. Maher Terminals LLC, Nos. 2015-1634, 2015-1635 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 8 2016) (per curiam; Judges Chen, Clevenger, and Bryson).
This blog post is already an order of magnitude longer than the Federal Circuit’s one-line order, and that fact might be all the commentary one needs on what this case says about current patent-eligibility jurisprudence and the scope, or lack thereof, that courts will give to 35 U.S.C. § 101. If you are interested in the substance of the patent claims at issue, here is a summary of the district court’s decision holding the claims patent-ineligible.