It’s Still Possible To Patent Software

A line of cases that began in 2012 and culminated in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International in 2014 has made it more and more difficult to patent software. Alice excludes from patent eligibility any invention that can be characterized as an “abstract idea.” It also lays out a two-part test that determines whether a claim is or is not something more, and that leaves a lot of room for patentable claims, according to Wolf Greenfield attorneys Ed Russavage and Matt Grady. In a Today’s General Counsel article, they explain how a number of cases post-Alice as well as guidance from the USPTO have made clear how it can be done. “The bottom line,” they write, “is that although software patents have been under fire for the past several years, there are valid approaches to successfully preparing and prosecuting software patents in the current environment.”