USPTO Report On Patent Eligible Subject Matter

On July 25, the USPTO published a report titled "Patent Eligible Subject Matter: Report on Views and Recommendations From the Public." The report attempts to synthesize public comments on the appropriate boundaries of patent eligible subject matter.

The report includes a section reviewing the historical development of patent subject matter eligibility in the U.S. This section includes a discussion of the Supreme Court's Bilski, Mayo, Myriad and Alice decisions, as well as the Federal Circuit's application of the Supreme Court's framework.

Next, the report reviews international approaches to defining patent eligible subject matter. This section includes a review of the patent eligibility laws in Europe, Japan, Korea and China. Also included here is a discussion of how the laws affect specific technologies, with a focus on life sciences and computer-related technologies. In this respect, the report notes that there was a general consensus that two industries have