Opinion ID: 867144
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Meaningful limitations

Text: 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