Introducing the Section 101 Blog

In 2014, the Supreme Court took the Mayo test, a two-part framework for determining whether a patent claim is eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101, and applied it to the judicial exception of “abstract ideas.” That case, Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, has been so important that the test is now commonly referred to as the Alice inquiry regardless of whether the patent is related to a potential abstract idea or a law of nature, as was the case in Mayo v. Prometheus Labs.

Since Alice, courts, litigators, and prosecutors have all struggled to identify what is patent eligible under Section 101. For instance, what qualifies as an abstract idea? And if a patent claim is directed to an abstract idea, what can save it – i.e., when does it have the "something more" required by part two of the Alice inquiry?

This blog is devoted to these questions and more. We will discuss the major Section 101 opinions from both the Federal Circuit and district courts. But we’ll also consider comments from the USPTO, potential legislative changes to Section 101, and how Section 101 is affecting trending technologies.

We hope you’ll follow along.