Defendants Raising Alice Challenges Succeed in Overcoming Berkheimer/Aatrix More Often at Rule 12
May 13, 2020
The Federal Circuit’s decisions in Berkheimer and Aatrix have significantly narrowed the application of Alice by precluding some early rulings on Section 101 in light of factual disputes. However, RPX data show that defendants who file Alice motions are more successful in overcoming Berkheimer/Aatrix at the Rule 12 stage than they are at summary judgment.
For Rule 12 Alice decisions that issued through Q1 2020, courts found sufficient facts for early resolution 46% of the time (81 of 150 patents challenged) where orders turned on factual disputes under Berkheimer/Aatrix. Of those decisions, the ensuing decision on the merits resulted in the invalidation of claims for all but two challenged patents.
In contrast, for summary judgment decisions turning on Berkheimer/Aatrix, courts found that they had sufficient facts to rule just 30% of the time (or just eight patents out of 27). However, all eight of those patents saw claims invalidated.
See RPX’s recent first-quarter review for more information on this and other trends from Q1 2020.
