Opinion ID: 867144
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Scope of the Exception

Text: As the Supreme Court has explained, the relevant inquiry under the exceptions is whether the claim covers merely an abstract idea, law of nature, or natural phenomenon; or whether the claim covers a particular application of an abstract idea, law of nature, or natural phenomenon. See Prometheus, 132 S. Ct. at 1294 (“[T]o transform an unpatentable law of nature into a patenteligible application of such a law, one must do more than simply state the law of nature while adding the words ‘apply it.’” (emphasis in original)); Bilski, 130 S. Ct. at 3230 (“[W]hile an abstract idea, law of nature, or mathematical formula could not be patented, an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection.” (emphasis in original) (internal quotation marks omitted)); Diehr, 450 U.S. at 187 (“It is now commonplace that an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection.” (emphasis in original)); Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972) (“He who discovers a hitherto unknown phenomenon of nature has no claim to a monopoly of it which the law recognizes. If there is to be invention from such a discovery, it must come from the application of the law of nature to a new and useful end.” (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted)). CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION 13 The claims are key to this patent eligibility inquiry. A court must consider the asserted claim as a whole when assessing eligibility: In determining the eligibility of respondents’ claimed process for patent protection under § 101, their claims must be considered as a whole. It is inappropriate to dissect the claims into old and new elements and then to ignore the presence of the old elements in the analysis. This is particu- larly true in a process claim because a new combi- nation of steps in a process may be patentable even though all the constituents of the combina- tion were well known and in common use before the combination was made. Diehr, 450 U.S. at 188 (emphasis added). And, a court must consider the actual language of each claim. The majority in Diehr rejected the minority’s approach ignoring portions of the claims: “[i]n order for the dissent to reach its conclusion it is necessary for it to read out of respondents’ patent application all the steps in the claimed process which it determined were not novel or ‘inventive.’ That is not the purpose of the § 101 inquiry . . . .” Id. at 193 n.15 (citations omitted). Any claim can be stripped down, simplified, generalized, or paraphrased to remove all of its concrete limitations, until at its core, something that could be characterized as an abstract idea is revealed. Such an approach would “if carried to its extreme, make all inventions unpatentable because all inventions can be reduced to underlying principles of nature which, once known, make their implementation obvious.” Id. at 189 n.12; see also Prometheus, 132 S. Ct. at 1293. A court cannot go hunting for abstractions by ignoring the concrete, palpable, tangible limitations of the invention the patentee actually claims. 14 CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION Different claims will have different limitations; each must be considered as actually written. The inquiry is a practical one to determine whether the claim, as a whole with all of its limitations, in effect covers a patent ineligible abstract idea or a patent eligible application of that idea. Thus, while the analysis will be different for each claim based on its particular limitations, the form of the analysis remains the same. The claims in O’Reilly v. Morse, 56 U.S. (15 How.) 62 (1854), and a case described therein, illustrate the distinction between a patent ineligible abstract idea and a practical application of an idea. The “difficulty” in Morse arose with the claim in which Morse d[id] not propose to limit [him]self to the specific machinery or parts of machinery described in the . . . specification and claims; the essence of [his] invention being the use of the motive power of the electric or galvanic current . . . however developed for marking or printing intelligible characters, signs, or letters, at any distances . . . . Id. at 112 (internal quotation marks omitted). In considering Morse’s claim, the Supreme Court referred to an earlier English case that distinguished ineligible claims to a “principle” from claims “applying” that principle: [I]t seems that the court at first doubted, whether it was a patent for any thing more than the dis- covery that hot air would promote the ignition of fuel better than cold. And if this had been the construction, the court, it appears, would have held his patent to be void; because the discovery of a principle in natural philosophy or physical science, is not patentable. CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION 15 But after much consideration, it was finally decided that this principle must be regarded as well known, and that the plaintiff had invented a mechanical mode of applying it to furnaces; and that his invention consisted in interposing a heated receptacle, between the blower and the fur- nace, and by this means heating the air after it left the blower, and before it was thrown into the fire. Whoever, therefore, used this method of throwing hot air into the furnace, used the process he had invented, and thereby infringed his patent, although the form of the receptacle or the me- chanical arrangements for heating it, might be different from those described by the patentee. Id. at 116. The claim in Morse itself was impermissible because it covered “‘an effect produced by the use of electro-magnetism, distinct from the process or machinery necessary to produce it.’” The Telephone Cases, 126 U.S. 1, 534 (1888) (quoting Morse, 56 U.S. (15 How.) at 120). This was in contrast to a sustained claim that was limited to: making use of the motive power of magnetism, when developed by the action of such current or currents, substantially as set forth in the . . . description, . . . as means of operating or giving mo- tion to machinery, which may be used to imprint signals upon paper or other suitable material, or to produce sounds in any desired manner, for the purpose of telegraphic communication at any dis- tances. Id. (first ellipsis added, second ellipsis in original) (quoting Morse, 56 U.S. (15 How.) at 85). “‘The effect of [Morse] was, therefore, that the use of magnetism as a motive power, without regard to the particular process with which it was connected in the patent, could not be 16 CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION claimed, but that its use in that connection could.’” Benson, 409 U.S. at 68 (quoting The Telephone Cases, 126 U.S. at 534). These examples illustrate that the inquiry under the abstract ideas exception deals not merely with breadth, because the “hot air” claims were broad and covered many “mechanical arrangements” but yet found patent eligible. The concern, which has become clearer through the Supreme Court’s more recent precedents, is whether the claim seeks to patent an idea itself, rather than an application of that idea.
The relevant inquiry must be whether a claim in- cludes meaningful limitations restricting it to an application, rather than merely an abstract idea. See Prometheus, 132 S. Ct. at 1297 (“[D]o the patent claims add enough to their statements of the correlations to allow the processes they describe to qualify as patent-eligible processes that apply natural laws?” (emphasis in original)); see also Fort Props., Inc. v. Am. Master Lease LLC, 671 F.3d 1317, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (“[T]o impart patenteligibility to an otherwise unpatentable process under the theory that the process is linked to a machine, the use of the machine must impose meaningful limits on the claim’s scope.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). An abstract idea is one that has no reference to material objects or specific examples—i.e., it is not concrete. See Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 5 (11th ed. 2003) (defining abstract as “disassociated from any specific instance . . . expressing a quality apart from an object ”). A claim may be premised on an abstract idea—the question for patent eligibility is whether the claim contains limitations that meaningfully tie that idea to a concrete reality or actual application of that idea. CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION 17 Indeed, the Supreme Court repeatedly has stated that a claim touching upon a natural phenomenon, abstract idea, or law of nature is not, for that reason alone, ineligible for patenting. The Supreme Court clarified the “commonplace” principle “that an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure . . . may well be deserving of patent protection.” Diehr, 450 U.S. at 187 (emphasis in original). For these reasons, a claim does not become ineligible simply because it applies a basic tool. Id.; see Prometheus, 132 S. Ct. at 1294 (explaining that the fact that a claim uses a basic tool does not mean it is not eligible for patenting). The struggle is in drawing the line between claims that are and are not meaningfully limited; fortunately, the Supreme Court’s own cases provide the guideposts for doing so. First, we know a claim is not meaningfully limited if it merely describes an abstract idea or simply adds “apply it.” See Prometheus, 132 S. Ct. at 1294, 1297. The broad claim in Morse provides a striking example of this. We also know that, if a claim covers all practical applications of an abstract idea, it is not meaningfully limited. See id. at 1301-02. For example, “[a]llowing petitioners to patent risk hedging would pre-empt use of this approach in all fields, and would effectively grant a monopoly over an abstract idea.” Bilski, 130 S. Ct. at 3231 (emphasis added). While this concept is frequently referred to as “pre-emption,” it is important to remember that all patents “pre-empt” some future innovation in the sense that they preclude others from commercializing the invention without the patentee’s permission. Pre-emption is only a subject matter eligibility problem when a claim preempts all practical uses of an abstract idea. For example, the claims in Benson “purported to cover any use of the claimed method in a general-purpose digital computer of any type.” 409 U.S. at 64 (emphasis added). The claims were not allowed precisely because they pre-empted essentially all uses of the idea: 18 CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION It is conceded that one may not patent an idea. But in practical effect that would be the re- sult if the formula for converting [binary-coded decimal] numerals to pure binary numerals were patented in this case. The mathematical formula involved here has no substantial practical application except in connection with a digital computer, which means that . . . the patent would wholly pre-empt the mathematical formula and in practi- cal effect would be a patent on the algorithm it- self. Id. at 71-72 (emphasis added). When the steps of the claim “must be taken in order to apply the [abstract idea] in question,” the claim is essentially no different from saying apply the abstract idea. Prometheus, 132 S. Ct. at 1299-1300. It is not the breadth or narrowness of the abstract idea that is relevant, but whether the claim covers every practical application of that abstract idea. 3 And, we know that, even if a claim does not wholly pre-empt an abstract idea, it still will not be limited meaningfully if it contains only insignificant or token preor post-solution activity—such as identifying a relevant audience, a category of use, field of use, or technological environment. See Prometheus, 132 S. Ct. at 1297-98, 1300-01; Bilski, 130 S. Ct. at 3230-31; Diehr, 450 U.S. at 3 The pre-emption analysis must also recognize that the Patent Act does not halt or impede academic research, without commercial ends, to test, confirm, or improve a patented invention. See Sawin v. Guild, 21 F. Cas. 554, 555 (C.C.D. Mass. 1813) (No. 12,391) (Story, J.) (infringement does not occur when the invention is used “for the mere purpose of philosophical experiment, or to ascertain the verity and exactness of the specification”). CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION 19 191-92 & n.14; Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 595 n.18 (1978). Finally, the Supreme Court has told us that a claim is not meaningfully limited if its purported limitations provide no real direction, cover all possible ways to achieve the provided result, or are overly-generalized. See Prometheus, 132 S. Ct. at 1300 (“[S]imply appending conventional steps, specified at a high level of generality, to laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas cannot make those laws, phenomena, and ideas patentable.”); Fort Props., 671 F.3d at 1323 (“Such a broad and general limitation does not impose meaningful limits on the claim’s scope.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). For example, in Prometheus, “the ‘determining’ step tells the doctor to determine the level of the relevant metabolites in the blood, through whatever process the doctor or the laboratory wishes to use.” 132 S. Ct. at 1297. Diehr explained that the application in Flook “did not purport to explain how these other variables were to be determined, nor did it purport to contain any disclosure relating to the chemical processes at work, the monitoring of process variables, or the means of setting off an alarm or adjusting an alarm system,” and that “[a]ll that it provides is a formula for computing an updated alarm limit.” Diehr, 450 U.S. at 186-87 (footnote omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). Just as the Supreme Court has told us when a claim likely should not be deemed meaningfully limited, it has also given us examples of meaningful limitations which likely remove claims from the scope of the Court’s judicially created exceptions to Section 101. Thus, a claim is meaningfully limited if it requires a particular machine implementing a process or a particular transformation of matter. See Bilski, 130 S. Ct. at 3227 (“This Court’s precedents establish that the machine-or-transformation test is a useful and important clue . . . for determining 20 CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION whether some claimed inventions are processes under § 101.”); see also Prometheus, 132 S. Ct. at 1302-03; Diehr, 450 U.S. at 184, 192. A claim also will be limited meaningfully when, in addition to the abstract idea, the claim recites added limitations which are essential to the invention. In those instances, the added limitations do more than recite pre- or post-solution activity, they are central to the solution itself. And, in such circumstances, the abstract idea is not wholly pre-empted; it is only preempted when practiced in conjunction with the other necessary elements of the claimed invention. See Diehr, 450 U.S. at 187 (“[T]he respondents here do not seek to patent a mathematical formula. Instead, they seek patent protection for a process of curing synthetic rubber. Their process admittedly employs a well-known mathematical equation, but they do not seek to pre-empt the use of that equation. Rather, they seek only to foreclose from others the use of that equation in conjunction with all of the other steps in their claimed process.”); see also Prometheus, 132 S. Ct. at 1298-99 (discussing Diehr, 450 U.S. 175). 4
When assessing computer implemented claims, while the mere reference to a general purpose computer will not 4 Judge Lourie’s opinion concludes that the system claims are not patent eligible in part because it is now routine for computers to perform the functions described—because the world has changed, as the opinion puts it. Lourie Op. at 37. Using what has become routine in 2013 to determine what was inherent in a concept in the early 1990s injects hindsight into the eligibility analysis and fails to recognize that patent eligibility, like all statutory patentability questions, is to be measured as of the filing date. See, e.g., 35 U.S.C. §§ 102, 103. CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION 21 save a method claim from being deemed too abstract to be patent eligible, the fact that a claim is limited by a tie to a computer is an important indication of patent eligibility. See Bilski, 130 S. Ct. at 3227. This is true both because its tie to a machine moves it farther away from a claim to no more than an idea and because that same tie makes it less likely that the claims will pre-empt all practical applications of the idea. The key to this inquiry is whether the claims tie the otherwise abstract idea to a specific way of doing something with a computer, or a specific computer for doing something; if so, they likely will be patent eligible, unlike claims directed to nothing more than the idea of doing that thing on a computer. While no particular type of limitation is necessary, meaningful limitations may include the computer being part of the solution, being integral to the performance of the method, or containing an improvement in computer technology. See SiRF Tech., Inc. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 601 F.3d 1319, 1332-33 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (noting that “a machine,” a GPS receiver, was “integral to each of the claims at issue” and “place[d] a meaningful limit on the scope of the claims”). A special purpose computer, i.e., a new machine, specially designed to implement a process may be sufficient. See Alappat, 33 F.3d at 1544 (“Although many, or arguably even all, of the means elements recited in claim 15 represent circuitry elements that perform mathematical calculations, which is essentially true of all digital electrical circuits, the claimed invention as a whole is directed to a combination of interrelated elements which combine to form a machine for converting discrete waveform data samples into antialiased pixel illumination intensity data to be displayed on a display means. This is not a disembodied mathematical concept which may be characterized as an ‘abstract idea,’ but rather a specific machine to produce a useful, concrete, and tangible result.” (footnotes omitted)); see also id. at 1545 (“We have held that such programming 22 CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION creates a new machine, because a general purpose computer in effect becomes a special purpose computer once it is programmed to perform particular functions pursuant to instructions from program software.”). At bottom, where the claim is tied to a computer in such a way that the computer plays a meaningful role in the performance of the claimed invention, and the claim does not pre-empt virtually all uses of an underlying abstract idea, the claim is patent eligible.