Supreme Court Extends Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. to Computer Patents

In Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its two part test for patent eligible subject matter as set forth in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., and applied that test to hold that abstract ideas implemented by generic computers are not patent eligible. The Court did not formulate a test for determining when a claim covers an “abstract idea.” The Court instead analyzed the “abstract idea” issue by discussing the facts and holdings of its prior decisions, implying that, barring a more broadly framed test from the Federal Circuit, the scope of the “abstract idea” concept will evolve on a case by case basis.