Ron Burgundy Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 By Andrew Chung NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge in California on Tuesday invalidated four Hewlett-Packard Co patents for being too abstract, marking a setback in the company's patent infringement lawsuit against competitor ServiceNow Inc. Hewlett-Packard last year accused its competitor, a Santa Clara, California-based software company, of infringing eight patents on software for managing computer networks. The ruling involves one of the biggest companies to have its patents struck down in the wake of a highly influential 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Alice v. CLS Bank, which experts say has placed thousands of software-related patents in peril. Since that high court decision last June, more than 20 lower-court rulings have used the ruling to invalidate software patents, according to a Reuters tally. In her ruling on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Beth Freeman said she was invalidating the patents because even if Hewlett-Packard may have been first with an innovative idea, "this does not entitle HP to a patent." Hewlett-Packard said the company will press forward with its lawsuit on the four patents Freeman's ruling left intact. View the full article Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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