On October 16, 2017, WilmerHale secured a significant victory for Universal Wilde, Inc. when the Federal Circuit delivered a precedential opinion affirming the dismissal of a patent-infringement lawsuit brought by Secured Mail Solutions LLC, a patent-assertion entity, on the ground that all 234 claims of the seven asserted patents are invalid as directed to ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
The seven patents related to mail verification and authentication systems that the United States Postal Service requires bulk mailers (such as Universal Wilde) to utilize. The Federal Circuit held, as did the Central District of California, that the claims were directed to the abstract idea of “using a marking affixed to the outside of a mail object to communicate information about the mail object,” and added no inventive step beyond this abstract idea.
Partner Greg Lantier argued the case at the Federal Circuit while the full team in the appellate and district court cases included Monica Grewal, Greg Boden, Robbie Manhas, and former associates Richard Crudo, Aurelia Hepburn-Briscoe and Leslie Pearlson.