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

Heading: Nature of Our Inquiry

Text: Because we are assessing judicially created exceptions to a broad statutory grant, one of the principles that must guide our inquiry is that judge-made exceptions to proper- ly enacted statutes are to be narrowly construed. Indeed, the Supreme Court has cautioned that, to avoid improper narrowing by courts of congressional enactments, resort to judge-made exceptions to statutory grants must be rare. See, e.g., W. Union Tel. Co. v. Lenroot, 323 U.S. 490, 514 (1945) (“[T]he judicial function does not allow us to disregard that which Congress has plainly and constitutionally decreed and to formulate exceptions which we think, for practical reasons, Congress might have made had it thought more about the problem.”); United States v. Rutherford, 442 U.S. 544, 559 (1979) (“Whether, as a policy matter, an exemption should be created is a question for legislative judgment, not judicial inference.”). 5 Judge Lourie’s opinion takes the reference to an “inventive concept” in Prometheus and imbues it with a life that is neither consistent with the Patent Act’s description of Section 101 nor with the totality of Supreme Court precedent regarding the narrow exceptions thereto. He concludes that “inventive concept” must refer to a “genuine human contribution to the claimed subject matter.” Lourie Op. at 20. He, thus, injects an “ingenuity” requirement into the abstract exception inquiry. It is inconceivable to us that the Supreme Court would choose to undo so much of what Congress tried to accomplish in the 1952 Patent Act, and to do so by the use of one phrase in one opinion. CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION 25 Congress drafted Section 101 broadly and clearly, and anything beyond a narrow exception would be impermissibly in tension with the statute’s plain language and design. See Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. at 308 (“In choosing such expansive terms as ‘manufacture’ and ‘composition of matter,’ modified by the comprehensive ‘any,’ Congress plainly contemplated that the patent laws would be given wide scope.”); id. at 315 (“Broad general language is not necessarily ambiguous when congressional objectives require broad terms.”); cf. Bilski, 130 S. Ct. at 3226 (“This Court has not indicated that the existence of these wellestablished exceptions gives the Judiciary carte blanche to impose other limitations that are inconsistent with the text and the statute’s purpose and design.”). As the Supreme Court has made clear, too broad an interpretation of these exclusions from the statutory grant of Section 101 “could eviscerate patent law.” Prometheus, 132 S. Ct. at 1293. It is particularly important that Section 101 not be read restrictively to exclude “unanticipated inventions” because the most beneficial inventions are “often unforeseeable.” See Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. at 316; see also J.E.M. Ag Supply, 534 U.S. at 135 (describing Section 101 as “a dynamic provision designed to encompass new and unforeseen inventions.”). Broad inclusivity is the Congressional goal of Section 101, not a flaw. Judicially created exceptions must not be permitted to thwart that goal. Mindful of these admonitions, we turn to CLS Bank’s contention that the presumption of validity should not apply to patent eligibility challenges. CLS Bank contends that the presumption of validity only applies to statutory bases for invalidating a patent—35 U.S.C. Sections 102, 103, 112, and 251. Thus, although the Supreme Court invalidated the patent before it in Prometheus because it fell within one of the exceptions to patent eligibility—the law of nature exception—CLS Bank contends that the Section 101 inquiry does not involve the presumption of 26 CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION validity in the same way the statutory bases for invalidity do. We disagree. 6 Before issuing a patent, the Patent Office rejects claims if they are drawn to ineligible subject matter, just as it rejects claims if not compliant with Sections 102, 103, or 112. Thus, when a patent issues, it does so after the Patent Office assesses and endorses its eligibility under Section 101, just as it assesses and endorses its patentability under the other provisions of Title 35. See Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Ltd. P’ship, 131 S. Ct. 2238, 2242, (2011) (“Congress has set forth the prerequisites for issuance of a patent, which the PTO must evaluate in the examination process. To receive patent protection a claimed invention must, among other things, fall within one of the express categories of patentable subject matter, § 101, and be novel, § 102, and nonobvious, § 103.”). We see no reason not to apply the same presumption of validity to that determination as we do to the Patent Office’s other patentability determinations. Because we believe the presumption of validity applies to all challenges to patentability, including those under Section 101 and the exceptions thereto, we find that any attack on an issued patent based on a challenge to the eligibility of the subject matter must be proven by clear and convincing evidence. Cf. Microsoft, 31 S. Ct. at 2242 (“We consider whether § 282 requires an invalidity defense to be proved by clear and convincing evidence. We hold that it does.”). We believe, moreover, that appli- 6 In its reply brief, CLS Bank intimates that the presumption of validity does not apply because a challenge to patent eligibility is not a listed defense to infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 282(b). This issue, however, was not fully briefed by the parties and, accordingly, we do not address it. CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL v. ALICE CORPORATION 27 cation of this presumption and its attendant evidentiary burden is consistent with the Supreme Court’s admonition to cabin the judicially created exceptions to Section 101 discussed above.