By: Robert R. Sachs
~ ‘The report of my death was an exaggeration’ –Mark Twain
Mark Twain, American humorist.
With apologies to the great humorist, the report of the death of software patents is an exaggeration. Some commentators quite quickly suggested that the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. ___, No. 13-298 (June 19, 2014), will “invalidate the majority of all software patents in force today” and is “bad news for software patents”. That interpretation may make good copy, but it is simplistic and overblown. While the Court invalidated Alice’s patents, the decision certainly does not invalidate the majority, or even a large percentage, of software patents, nor does it radically restrict the kinds of inventions that can be patented going forward. The decision is a modest and incremental clarification in the patent law, and a not wholesale revision.
The Court set forth a two-step test grounded in Bilski v. Kappos and Mayo v. Prometheus.While the Court may not have defined a clear boundary for so called “abstract ideas” specifically, it did squarely place this case within the “outer shell” of the law set forth in Bilskiand Mayo. In doing so it articulated an approach that focuses not on finding the boundary line, but rather on the core properties of an ineligible patent claim. In Part I of this two-part post, I will focus on just the first step of the test, whether a claim recites a patent-ineligible “abstract idea.” In Part II, I’ll address issues regarding preemption, mental steps, and the application of Alice to software patents.
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*The perspectives expressed in the Bilski Blog, as well as in various sources cited therein from time to time, are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Fenwick & West LLP or its clients.