Case Law Emerging From The Lower Courts Five Months After Alice

In the wake of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, a section of the patent statute once the focus of only occasional litigation is emerging as a "go to" weapon for invalidating patents directed to computer-implemented inventions. Of the 25 federal court decisions in which 35 U.S.C. § 101 (Section 101) has been invoked since Alice was handed down, 19 have resulted in declarations of invalidity. This article highlights some trends in the case law. It also examines more closely one recent Federal Circuit decision in which patent claims did not survive a preliminary challenge under Section 101, as well as the six decisions in which the claims did survive.