Alice Corporation Pty., Ltd., v. CLS Bank Int’l (U.S. Supreme Court)

The Supreme Court has long held that Section 101 contains implicit exceptions to the scope of subject matter that is patentable. After a panel of the Federal Circuit held that a business method involving foreign currency exchange implemented via a computer program was patent-eligible, the whole court took the matter en banc. The Supreme Court subsequently granted certiorari in the matter. We represented BSA The Software Alliance as an amicus curiae in both the en banc proceedings and the Supreme Court, arguing that, while Section 101 does not foreclose all computer-based innovations, it does foreclose efforts to claim a business method simply through computer implementation. The Supreme Court ultimately concluded that the patent claims in question were not patent eligible under Section 101, though it made clear it was not foreclosing all software innovations.