Current patent eligibility law
Patent eligibility is governed by the Patent Act, which has four relevant sections:
§ 101 – this is the most important, it governs “subject matter eligibility”. It states:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful (1) process, (2) machine, (3) manufacture, or (4) composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
This means anything that is a new process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter is patentable (although it has to be new and useful as well).
**§101 is a threshold test. In other words, it’s only the first of several hoops a patent application must go through. Eligibility does not mean patentability. Eligibility means that the application can proceed to the other sections of the Patent Act. It is very important to remember this because it’s a vital component of 2ac answers to some disadvantages and case turns.
§ 102 – novelty requirement. The invention has to be new; it can’t be claimed on a previous patent.
§ 103 – Nonobvious requirement. If the differences between the claimed patent and prior art is obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art, it is not patentable.
§ 112 – Disclosure requirement. The patent application must describe the invention well enough that a person of ordinary skill in the art can create the invention.