January 2014

Looking Ahead

On December 6, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, No. 13-298, in order to consider whether claims to computer-implemented inventions—including claims to systems and machines, processes, and items of manufacture—are directed to patent-eligible subject matter within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 101.  The petition by Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. states that “[t]he Federal Circuit has left no doubt that it is irreconcilably fractured,” and that “[t]he uncertainty that now plagues—and will, absent [the Supreme Court’s] intervention, continue to plague—the patent system will cause severe harm and waste for innovators and litigants, as well as lower courts and the Patent and Trademark Office.”  Pet. for Writ of Cert. at 3 (filed Sept. 4, 2013).  Stay tuned to future editions of Last Month at the Federal Circuit to see how the pending decision in Alice Corp. affects future Federal Circuit decisions.

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