Fish's Ryan McCarthy Quoted in Law360 Article "How Recent Case Law Can Be Used To Fight Alice Challenges"

Ryan McCarthy (Principal, Austin) was quoted in a Law360 article, "How Recent Case Law Can Be Used To Fight Alice Challenges."

The recent decisions “have gone a long way to giving applicants and examiners more ammunition to allow applications,” said Ryan McCarthy of Fish & Richardson PC.

Whenever a claimed invention improves the technology, the application should be drafted to highlight that fact, because “that’s a very concrete, easy route to patent-eligibility,” McCarthy said.

Focusing on technical improvements of the invention or its roots in computer technology can be winning arguments, but when inventions cannot be framed in those terms “you’re going to have a really tough time,” and seeking patent protection may just be a losing battle, McCarthy says.

The recent decisions show that “the pendulum is swinging back” and the law is undergoing a course correction from a time in which large numbers of patents were invalidated under Alice, McCarthy said. The focus on patent-eligibility is ultimately going to be mean that better patents come out of the patent office.

“There’s more predictability about what’s going to be held patent-eligible,” he said. “I’m optimistic.”

To read the entire article from Law360, click here.