Alice harms software patenting
Joseph Saltiel 2019 (Joseph Saltiel, Marshall Gerstein & Borun LLP, Chicago, USA, "In the courts: five years after Alice - five lessons learned from the treatment of software patents in litigation'' Wipo Magazine Web. 4-2019. 7-3-24. <https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2019/04/article_0006.html#:~:text=After%20Alice%2C%20there%20were%20hundreds,and%20early%20in% 20the%20litigation.>. DeeLad.) [MSDI-JE-wk1]
It has been five years since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Alice Corp. v CLS Bank International. Alice established a two-part test to determine if a software patent was unpatentable under US Patent Law (35 USC Section 101) for claiming ineligible subject matter. Under this two-part test, a courtmust first consider whether the patent claims are directed to a patent ineligible concept such as an abstract idea, and if so, the court should consider whether the claim’s other elements transform the claim into a patent eligible concept. Applying this two-part test, the Alice decision held that known ideas are abstract, and reciting the use of a conventional computer in the claims to implement the known idea does not make the claim patentable subject matter. Alice has greatly impacted the litigation of software patents. Alice also gave defendants a new and highly successful defensethat could be asserted early in litigation. In turn, patentees have had to take this new defense into account in their litigation strategy, and companies have questioned the value of software patents. After five years and hundreds of court decisions applying Alice, litigation of software patents has changed dramatically. Below are five lessons learned from software patent litigation after Alice.