Other sections don’t block eligibility
David Jones, 2024 – executive director of the High Tech Inventors Alliance. Statement Before the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Hearing on “The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act – Restoring Clarity, Certainty, and Predictability to the U.S. Patent System” 1/24, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2024-01-23_-_testimony_-_jones.pdf //DH
Some argue that concerns about extending patent eligibility to non-technological subject matter should be dismissed because problematic patents would be screened out by sections 102, 103, and 112. This argument is refuted by historical experience. The truth is that, prior to Alice, patents on equally “silly” (and seemingly obvious) inventions—such as swinging sideways on a swing21 or exercising a cat using a laser pointer22—were not screened out by other statutory requirements but rather were issued. More importantly, this argument misses the point that allowing the patenting of nontechnological processes undermines the core purpose of the patent system irrespective of whether the activity at issue is novel, non-obvious, and adequately enabled and described. For example, there is evidence that the availability of patent protection for business methods directly harmed investment in technological R&D.23 Disincentivizing investment in technological innovation is the opposite of the purpose of patent protection—and the opposite of what would promote U.S. competitiveness and economic growth.