As I've noted many times over the last year, there has been a severe lack of uniformity coming from the Board of Patent Appeals & Interferences with respect to the application of the machine-or-transformation test. Sometimes, there were sua sponte rejections. Sometimes not. Sometimes a minimal addition of computer sufficed. Sometimes an apparatus claim directed to the machine itself was rejected. You get the idea.
Thus, it is noteworthy that the Board recently designated August's Ex Parte Gutta case--where the BPAI panel issued new 101 rejections on system and Beauregard claims, in addition to method claims--as precedential.
This is the first post-Bilski precedential decision squarely addressing 101 (and I believe the first one since Lundgren on patentable subject matter).
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