IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2016 - 14

Patent Reviews

by Art MacCord

An Unsuccessful Software Patent

computer and network technology.
n the last issue of IEEE Power
In other words, the court found that
Electonics Magazine, we talked
the claims merely define a desirable
about the trouble that patentees
information-based result and are not
are encountering with software patlimited to an inventive means of
ents being held invalid because the
achieving the result; therefore, they
patent is directed to ineligible subare only directed to an abstract idea.
ject matter. This time we have an
As we noted last time, the U.S.
example of one that has failed
Supreme Court has told us that these
because it was only directed to an
types of claims are to undergo a twoabstract idea. This case was recently
step analysis. The first step is to look
decided by the Court of Appeals for
at the focus of the claim and its charthe Federal Circuit and involved a
acter as a whole. If the claim does
patent owned by Electric Power
not deal with ineligible subject matGroup, LLC, that was asserted against
ter, that ends the analysis. The secAlstom et al. The patent described and
ond-stage inquiry, if
claimed systems and
nece s s a r y, lo ok s
methods for permore precisely at
forming real-time
There is a critical
what the claim eleperformance monidifference between
ments add, specifitoring of an electric
patenting a particular,
cally whether the
power grid by colconcrete solution to a
claim identifies an
lecting data from
inventive concept
multiple data sourcproblem and attemptin which the applies, analyzing the
ing to patent the
cation of the ineligidata, and displaying
abstract idea of
ble subject matter
the results. The patany solution to
is directed. In the
ent claims were
the problem.
Alstom case, the court
found to be limited
found fairly readily
to only that broad
that the claims were
idea. The court said
directed to an abstract idea and then
that the claims do not go beyond
found nothing further to take them out
requiring the collection, analysis, and
of that realm.
display of information in a particular
The court made the point that
field (power production and distribuinformation is an intangible, so
tion), and they did not include any
merely collecting information is
technical advance over conventional
within the realm of abstract ideas.
Similarly, analyzing information by
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPEL.2016.2614907
steps people could go through in
Date of publication: 20 December 2016

IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE

z December 2016

their minds or by mathematical algorithms, without more, is essentially
a mental process within the abstract
idea category. Finally, presenting the
results of the abstract processes of
collecting and analyzing information, without more, is abstract as an
ancillary part of such collection and
analysis. That well describes the
claims under consideration in the
Alstom case. The claims recited no
technological attributes for the
invention, other than the abstract
notions just mentioned. The court
emphasized that performing these
abstract ideas on a computer does
not make them patent eligible.
T he pat ent wa s d i rected to
enumerating various types of information and information sources
available within the power grid environment, but mentions them only at a
fairly high level, using abstract terminology. The claim did not contain
any limitations to inventive components or methods, such as measurement devices or techniques, that
would generate new data. The claim
invoked no inventive programming
techniques. Moreover, the implementation was on a conventional computer network.
Finally, in distinguishing its holding
from another case, the court pointed
out that the claims did not require an
inventive distribution of functionality
within a network (such as limiting certain tasks to being done by certain
parts of the overall network), and so

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2016