Supreme Court Hears Argument On Software Patents

On April 1, 2014, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd.v. CLS Bank Int'l, which concerns the patent eligibility of computer-implemented inventions. This is the fourth recent Supreme Court case addressing patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, following Bilski, Mayo and Myriad–however none of those cases explicitly addressed § 101 as applied to computer-implemented patents. At issue in Alice are claims of patents which are drawn to systems, methods, and computer readable media for eliminating settlement risk for electronically executed transactions. Seven of the nine Justices asked questions during the argument, with several focused on whether the Court should articulate a "bright line" test for patent eligibility, and if so, how such a rule should be articulated.