Last Friday, May 10, 2013, in CLS Bank v. Alice Corp., No. 2011-1301, the Federal Circuit (en banc) issued a very divided decision in which a majority of the court affirmed that method, computer-readable medium and system patent claims on a computer-implemented invention were not patent eligible under § 101, but there was no majority consensus on the rationale as to why those claims were not patentable subject matter. As a result, this en banc decision has no precedential value beyond the specific determination of patent eligibility for the particular claims at issue. The fractured nature of the decision—and even intimations by judges on the court—indicate that this case may be primed for Supreme Court review.
This 135-page decision has seven separate opinions, summarized below. A few top-level points may be gleaned from them:
This Friday, February 8, an en banc United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will hear oral arguments in CLS Bank Int’l v. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. (No. 2011-1301), the latest Federal Circuit case to deal with the patentability of software-related patents and so-called business methods. Given that the technologies claimed in many standard-essential patents are often implemented in standards-compliant products via software, the Federal Circuit’s holding in this case may have resounding consequences for the world of SEPs and SEP-related litigation.
UPDATE: The Federal Circuit issued an en banc decision holding the claims invalid. Please see our May 13, 2013 post for more details.