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Recent Pto Guidance Charts A New Course Through The Patent Eligibility Quagmire, Christopher M. Holman

Faculty Works

In a span of four years, 2010-2014, the U.S. Supreme Court issued four decisions that have dramatically altered patent eligibility jurisprudence: Bilski, Mayo, Myriad, and Alice. Ever since Bilski was decided, the PTO has struggled to apply the new patent eligibility jurisprudence in a consistent and predictable manner. The two part framework for assessing patent eligibility, as set for in Alice and Mayo, is stated at a high level of abstraction, and the Supreme Court has given little concrete guidance as to how it is to be applied beyond the specific claims at issue in its precedent. At times, the …