CAFC Wins, Alice Loses

Since we've been ragging on the CAFC lately for its losses on appeal, it's worth noting that this was a unanimous decision upholding the Federal Circuit.

The case, conventionally known as Alice Corp v CLS Bank dealt with challenges to patents held by Alice Corporation. I've read through the decision once and I expect better analyses will enlighten things in days to come, but what I see is that the Supreme Court is still swimming about in murky §101 waters. In particular, SCOTUS agreed with the CAFC that Alice Corp's patents were invalid because "...they are directed to an abstract idea." As such, they're not proper subject matter for a patent.

This follow the line of reasoning that the two Courts have established in cases like Bilski and Myriad, but as we noted last time around, it's not clear to me that this line of reasoning is actually consonant with how sections 101 and 103 try to define things.

Thomas's opinion is pretty short and if you don't agree with the previous line of SCOTUS reasoning then you're not going to like this opinion either because it goes to great pains to trace how those past decisions require the present conclusion. Thomas reviews the reasoning in Mayo, and relies on that decision and Benson to argue that the patent claims construction "merely require generic computer implementation" and that this doesn't make the underlying ideas eligible for patent protection.