Since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International decision in June, the popular legal press has been wringing its hands over this supposed “death knell” for software patents. Worried inventors, companies and investors have been reconsidering business and intellectual property strategies for fear that computer-implemented inventions are no longer eligible for patents. But such concerns are largely misplaced, as the court solidly upheld the patent eligibility of computer-implemented inventions and continued to refuse to recognize a separate exception for business methods.
What some consider good news is that the Alice decision gives lower courts and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office more discretion to invalidate overly broad patents that have been the bread-and-butter of patent “trolls” for years. However, this added discretion may lead to uncertainty and self-censorship that might leave valuable intellectual property unprotected.
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