SCOTUS June Patent Decision Already Impacting Appeals Court Rulings

An appeals court recently threw out rulings that would have awarded Patent licensing firm VirnetX Holding Corp. millions in damages from both Apple and Google, an example of a recent spate of decisions going against patent licensing firms. Since the U.S. Supreme Court limited software patents in June, in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, firms that own patents and rely on royalty payments and litigation for revenue have seen several cases thrown out by trial judges, indicating a legal sea change that “will do more to strip patent owners from power than anything in the past 30 years,” Brad Wright, a patent attorney with Banner and Witcoff, told Bloomberg News.