Eppenauer Joins Law360s Voices of the Bar Panel

Shook, Hardy & Bacon Seattle Managing Partner Bart Eppenauer has been named to the new Law360’s Voices of the Bar panel. Eppenauer was chosen from 300 applicants to be one of 50 leaders that will tackle the newest and hottest trends in IP law, ranging from patents to soft IP.

In the panel’s first article, Eppenauer and his fellow Voice of the Bar panelists discuss the first anniversary of Alice Corp. v CLS Bank and where IP law stands today because of last year’s decision. Although media coverage reports that software patents were almost dead after Alice, Eppenauer describes a new trend, saying, “Software patents — those involving technological innovation utilizing computers and software — are faring relatively well overall and trouncing the outcomes on business method patents.”

Eppenauer also mentions that it might take a few years for all of the Alice implications to be known, saying, “Given the unpredictability of outcomes and the uncertainty surrounding this issue generally, courts will increasingly face strong pressure to draw a clearer line between what is patentable and what is not. If the current trend is any indication, that line will separate software technology from abstract business methods and clarify that software inventions are eligible for patenting.”