Thursday, March 23, 2017

Voting System Patent Invalid Under 35 U.S.C. § 101​

The court granted defendant's motion to dismiss because the asserted claims of plaintiff’s voting system patent lacked an inventive concept. "According to the complaint, the auto-verification voting system is made of generic computer components performing generic computer functions, including: inputting voting information, printing out a paper ballot, having the voter personally verify the vote, and inputting the verified vote into a 'tabulating' computer. There is nothing inventive or transformative about the functions claimed in the patent, as they encompass computer functions which are 'well-understood, routine, conventional activit[ies] previously known to the industry,' and thus, there is no transformative feature between the abstract ideas of voting and verification and the input of the given steps into a computer system."

Voter Verified, Inc. v. Election Systems & Software, LLC f/k/a Election Systems & Software, Inc., 1-16-cv-00267 (FLND March 21, 2017, Order) (Walker, USDJ)

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