California judge strikes down key BIOS security patent in Kinglite litigation…

California federal judge struck down Kinglite’s BIOS security patent that it has asserted against various technology manufacturers, saying it couldn’t stand in the face of scrutiny from the framework established in the U.S. Supreme Court‘s Alice ruling.

U.S. District Judge James V. Selna granted a bid by HKW clients American Megatrends, Giga-Byte Technologies, and MicroStar Computers for judgment on the pleadings that certain claims of Kinglite Holdings Inc.’s U.S. Patent Number 6,892,304 detail subject matter not eligible for a patent, according to an order issued Oct. 16. The judge concluded that the patent was directed merely to the abstract idea of authenticating a request using further abstractions, such as numerical keys and a signature produced by an algorithm, making it invalid under Section 101 of the Patent Act. “Similar to the claims at issue in Alice, … the ‘304 patent claims, viewed individually and as an ordered combination, simply instruct the practitioner to implement the abstract idea of authentication with routine, conventional activity on a generic computer,” the judge said. “Defendants have met their burden in showing by clear and convincing evidence that [the challenged claims] are patent-ineligible under section 101.” American Megatrends, Giga-Byte Technologies, and MicroStar Computers are represented by Steven Hill, Martha Decker, Vivek Ganti and Julie Burke of HKW.