Alice-Mayo is far better for big tech companies, plan flips them.
Block, Chadwick ‘20 (1/16/20, Erin Block is an associate in DeWitt’s Intellectual Property Practice Group. She assists clients with all facets of intellectual property law, particularly patent prosecution, litigation, opinion letters, trademarks and copyrights, Eric Chadwick's practice includes representing clients in various technology and commercial disputes throughout the U.S. He focuses primarily on intellectual property litigation, “Subject Matter Eligibility post Alice: A Boon Or A Bane For Tech Companies?” Hennepin Lawyer, https://www.mnbar.org/hennepin-county-bar-association/resources/hennepin-lawyer/articles/2020/02/04/subject-matter-eligibility-post-alice-a-boon-or-a-bane-for-tech-companies)
On one side of the coin, the 101 Decisions have been positive in providing an avenue for tech companies to invalidate patents asserted against them by nonpracticing entities (NPEs). This positive effect was discussed in the Hennepin Lawyer early last year.[5] Briefly, NPEs, or “trolls” as they are often called, are entities that typically do not market their own products, but rather obtain ownership in patented technologies and then license those technologies to others.[6] While being an NPE is not inherently “bad” and the licensing of patented technologies falls squarely within the rights of patent holders, many NPEs have made a practice of accumulating sizable patent portfolios that are often heavily concentrated in computer technology. These NPEs then demand tech companies pay licensing fees for these technologies to avoid the risk of patent infringement litigation.[7] Many of the patent assets of these NPEs for computer technology were issued in the 1990s and were granted with extremely broad claims for processes that are essentially the recitation of an abstract idea, mathematical formula, or law of nature with the addition of requiring a computer to execute the process.[8] Due to these overly broad patents and the low threshold requirements for subject matter eligibility, for many years NPEs have successfully obtained large settlements from tech companies who sought to avoid costly and uncertain litigation. Even if a tech company decided to defend the lawsuit and won, the tech company was out significant funds for defending the costly litigation, as there was no mechanism available to the defending tech company for swiftly and cost-effectively invalidating a granted patent.[9] One thing that is certain, however, is that many of the computer software technology patents considered by the Federal Circuit have been invalidated as a result of the 101 Decisions.[20] Therefore, while the high rate of invalidity findings of NPE’s patents has been a welcome boon for tech companies, the uncertainty regarding the validity of their own patents has been an unwelcome consequence.