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Course Details

This CLE webinar will guide patent counsel on navigating Section 101 ten years after the Supreme Court's decision in Alice Corp v. CLS Bank. The panel will examine the key decisions that define the subtests that the Federal Circuit has defined that go beyond the two Alice Mayo safe harbors. The panel will offer best practices for demonstrating patent eligibility.

Faculty

Description

It has been ten years since the Supreme Court decided Alice Corp v. CLS Bank, which completely reshaped the patent-eligibility landscape for software and business method patents. Since Alice, the Federal Circuit has rendered numerous decisions affecting this subject matter, raising many challenges, including how to determine whether a claim recites an abstract idea at Alice’s step one and how to determine whether a claim recites an inventive concept at Alice’s step two.

The Supreme Court in April 2024 dismissed a petition asking the Court to revisit and clarify its seminal holding in Alice, thus signaling that the Supreme Court may not provide guidance anytime soon. This raises the importance of the many Federal Circuit decisions issued since Alice. For example, the Federal Circuit has clarified how both the patent specification and prior art are utilized in a 101 analysis. The Federal Circuit has also basically settled on a "technological improvement" test for determining patent-eligible subject matter, and the Federal Circuit has made it harder to patent AI inventions.

In response to Alice and the Federal Circuit’s many decisions, the USPTO promulgated guidelines to facilitate 101 analyses during examination. Patent counsel needs to pay attention to the patent-eligibility lessons and guidance from the Federal Circuit, the PTAB, and the USPTO.

Listen as our authoritative panel of patent attorneys discusses the key decisions since Alice and offers best practices.

Outline

  1. Brief review of Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank (U.S. 2014)
  2. Key Federal Circuit court decisions
  3. PTAB decisions
  4. USPTO guidelines
  5. Best practices

Benefits

The panel will review these and other key issues:

  • How is the Federal Circuit applying the framework for patent eligibility created in Alice?
  • What pitfalls should counsel keep in mind to minimize the risk of invalidity?
  • What are best practices for patent counsel to demonstrate patent eligibility in litigation as well as at the USPTO?
  • What are best practices for drafting patent applications and claims to satisfy Section 101?