Tracking The Evolving Abstract Idea Doctrine: How Courts Have Applied The Two-Part Test For Computer-Implemented Inventions Post-Alice

The Supreme Court decision in Alice v. CLS Bank.¹ provides a framework for determining when a patent claim is directed to one of the long-standing exceptions to patent eligibility, namely, laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas. That is, even though a patent claim technically falls within one of the four statutory categories of invention—process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter—the claim may not be patent-eligible if it is directed to one of the exceptions to the extent that the claim preempts or monopolizes one of these fundamental building blocks. Alice particularly addresses whether computer-implemented inventions are patent-ineligible abstract ideas, but the framework set forth in Alice is broadly applicable to each of the long-standing exceptions. The Alice framework includes a two-part test: first, determining whether a claim is directed to an abstract idea, and if so, then determining whether the claim has additional elements that