PERA immediately restores predictability and certainty to patent law

Fortunately, a ready solution exists. The bipartisan Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would effectively overturn Mayo and Alice, restoring Congress’ patent statute. Under PERA, pure mathematical formulas, natural phenomena and basic mental processes would remain ineligible for patent protection because they fell outside the four categories Congress enacted.

But novel, useful inventions derived from these building blocks would become eligible again. For instance, metabolic processes would remain unpatentable — but a diagnostic testing company that found a novel way to detect a metabolic disorder could patent its test, assuming the invention met all other requirements of patentability.

This would give investors the certainty and objectivity needed to continue funding cutting-edge research with the potential to change, or even save, lives.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property recently held a hearing on PERA, where lawmakers were able to ask questions and hear from a number of leading patent law experts. The former directors of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office under both Presidents Trump and Obama testified in favor of the bill. And we hope the full committee will move swiftly to hold a markup of it.

Judges try their best to apply the Supreme Court’s precedents in good faith. But the inherent ambiguity of decisions like Alice and Mayo put lower courts into an impossible position — and the costs to innovation and the economy continue to mount. Congress can end the damage by passing PERA without delay.