The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday unanimously slapped down the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, rejecting two of its patent rulings just over a month after hearing oral arguments in both cases.
Monday’s decisions in Limelight Networks Inc. v. Akamai Technologies Inc. and Nautilus Inc. v. Biosig Instruments were the fourth and fifth patent cases in which the Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit during the current term. One patent case, possibly the most important, is yet undecided: Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, testing the patentability of “computer-implemented” inventions. The six patent cases on the docket this term are a record number for the high court since the Federal Circuit opened in 1982.
