Thompson Coburn intellectual property partner Ben Volk recently spoke with Law360 for an overview of top patent eligibility rulings in the decade since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Alice v. CLS Bank decision that led to scores of inventions being found ineligible for patenting.
As the publication reported, on June 19, 2014, the court held that abstract ideas implemented using a computer are not patent-eligible. In the years leading up to that, many patents had been issued for ways of performing tasks with computer assistance. Alice “was really the first clear stance from the courts that just because you’re doing it on a computer doesn’t mean that you get a patent,” Volk told Law360.
He added that “the signature effect of Alice has just been uncertainty and inconsistency. It’s very hard to predict how anything is going to turn out.”
The full article can be found here (registration required).
