How Expansive Is the Definition of “Covered Business Method Patent?” (Part 2)

Last week I wrote about institution of a Covered Business Method (CBM) patent post-grant review that seemed to stretch the bounds of the definition of “covered business method.” Here is a case denying a petition to institute CBM proceedings, illustrating boundaries of eligibility for CBM review.  In Servicenow, Inc. v. BMC Software, Inc., Case CBM2015-00107 (Patent 7,062,683) (PTAB Sept. 11, 2015), the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) denied CBM review for a patent directed “to a method of using fault models to analyze error conditions in an enterprise computing system.” The Petitioner’s argument that the ’683 patent is a “covered business method” patent was that “the claimed invention is directed at a technique for managing a financial product or service—in particular, diagnosing and identifying error conditions associated with a bank’s automatic teller machines (ATMs).”  Focusing on…