The Guidance has the purpose of assisting USPTO staff in examination and post-grant proceedings to determine whether claimed subject matter is eligible under 35 U.S.C. 101. The Guidance has a broad remit, being relevant to computer-implemented inventions (including software and algorithms), business methods and inventions relating to natural laws and products, i.e. chemical, medical, diagnostic and biotech inventions. The Guidance is based on the three Supreme Court decisions Alice, Myriad and Mayo.
35 U.S.C. 101 simply states:
‘Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title’.
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| Leonardo told himself that the new eligibility Guidance would not stop him inventing |
It is difficult to know which factors led to the Supreme Court to develop the eligibility test in the way that they did. However, the Alicedecision may have been influenced by the perception that too many low quality patents were being granted in the software field, for example for simply performing a known business method on a computer. Such patents were being used as the basis for monetisation by patent trolls. The Myriadand Mayo decisions might have been influenced by the perception that biotech and diagnostic patents were being granted with claims that were too broad.
To recap the events that led to the new Guidance, I believe it’s worth starting at the US Supreme Court decision Bilskiof June 2010. Katposts about Bilskican be found hereand here. The patent in Bilski related to hedging risk in commodity trading, i.e. it was a business method. The Federal Circuit had decided in the same case that the ‘machine or transformation’ test was the only test to determine eligibility of process claims, i.e. that the process had to be tied to a particular machine or that some article had to be physically transformed in the process. That judgment had far-reaching implications for process claims in all fields, and in particular there was concern for diagnostic inventions which would usually not pass such a test. In fact the Supreme Court disagreed with the Federal Circuit, finding that the machine or transformation test was not the sole test for eligibility. However the patent was still found to relate to ineligible matter because the invention was an ‘abstract idea’. In its judgment the Supreme Court discussed the potential detrimental effects of business method patents, such as stifling innovation and competition, and these factors were seen by the Court as relevant to eligibility.
Mayowas decided in March 2012. The invention in this case was essentially a diagnostic one where measurement of the level of a metabolite in a person would determine the subsequent administration of a related drug (see Katpost here). The Supreme Court held in the first step of their analysis that the ‘correlation’ that was the basis of the invention was not eligible matter because it was a law of nature. In the second step of analysis they held that features in the claims which related to ‘determining’ the metabolite were not sufficient to transform the claim into eligible matter because they were well known. This two-part analysis became the ‘Mayo Framework’ and influenced later decisions. The Supreme Court pointed out in its decision that 35 U.S.C.101 contained the important implicit exception that ‘Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas were not patentable’. It also expressed its concern that the claims covered ‘all processes that make use of the correlations after measuring metabolites, including later discovered processes that measure metabolite levels in new way’. The decision clearly had very major implications for diagnostic and personalised medicine inventions, but few recognised how important the ‘Mayoframework’ would be to assessing eligibility in other fields (see Katpost herefor problems with patenting personalised medicine inventions in Europe).
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| Newton could not believe correlations were no longer patentable |
However in March 2014 the USPTO issued a further Guidancebased on the Mayo and Myriad decisions which truly changed the fundamentals of what was patentable in chemistry and biotech. It provided a ‘Procedure for Subject Matter Eligibility Analysis of Claims Reciting or Involving Laws of Nature, Natural Phenomena, and/or Natural Products’. The Guidance applied an eligibility test equally to product and process claims, claims relating to any naturally occurring substance, combinations of such substances (such as gunpowder), methods of treatment and methods of diagnosing. There was a strict test for any claim that ‘involved’ a ‘judicial exception’ (i.e. that related to a natural law or product). Something ‘significantly different’ had to be provided in the claim for eligibility to be attained. Twelve factors were provided which could help to determine eligibility, but from the specific examples that were given it seemed that ‘significantly different’ was a high hurdle. It required meaningful limitations to claim scope, not at a high level of generality and not by features which well known. Merely isolating a natural substance was not enough. For method of treatment claims specific dosages might need to be recited. For diagnostic inventions the claims may have to be limited to specific ways of measurement. The Guidance caused a tremendous level of uncertainty as overnight the patentability criteria changed substantially for many types of invention.
Alicewas decided in June 2014 and fundamentally changed what was patentable in the field of computer-implemented inventions (see first USPTO Guidance based on the decision hereand see Katpost here). This was the Supreme Court’s opportunity to finally tell us whether software and business methods were patentable in the US. It seemed they were, but many of them were ‘abstract ideas’ which the claims failed to transform into eligible inventions. The Mayo Framework became the test that Alice used. It was clear that the way the claim was drafted would not be enough to save it, and so referring to hardware was not sufficient to become eligible. The Supreme Court explained it wanted to prevent the monopolising of abstract ideas, but did not provide guidance on how these could be defined. Whilst ‘fundamental truths’ could be abstract ideas, it seemed that so could many commercial activities.
At the time not everyone was certain that Alicewould have a huge impact. However some did feel that many patents to computer-implemented inventions had now been rendered invalid. We now know that Alice has had a huge impact in litigation and in proceedings at the USPTO. It has been central to finding invalidity in over 30 District Court cases and 4 Federal Circuit decisions. At the moment it is still unclear how a computer-implemented invention would pass the Alice eligibility test. However the recent decision ib DDR Holdings v Hotels.com, in which the patent was found to relate an eligible invention may provide clues (see PatLit post here).
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| Plato and his friends were very pleased with the Supreme Court's stance against monopolising abstract ideas |
Returning to the new Guidance, it differs from the previous Guidance in providing a more lenient eligibility test. In the previous test any claim ‘involving’ a law of nature, natural product or abstract idea (i.e. a judicial exception) would be required to meet the ‘significantly different’ criterion. However in the new Guidance one must first look at whether the claim as whole is ‘directed’ to a judicial exception which means assessing whether it will ‘tie up’ the judicial exception. If it does not it relates to eligible matter, and there is no need to test for it being ‘significantly more’ (the new Guidance refers to ‘significantly more’ rather than ‘significantly different’ which seems of little consequence). In addition the new Guidance gives an expanded list of criteria for how a substance can be ‘markedly different’ from a natural product. This can be based on function, chemical, physical and biological properties. An isolated natural product could be eligible matter if it possessed such a difference. From the specific examples given it is clear that ‘significantly more’ will be assessed more leniently. In the example related to a method of treatment ‘applying’ a natural product to treating a disease is sufficient for it to now relate eligible matter without the need to recite specific dosages. Curiously the Guidance does not give a specific example related to diagnosis and so that remains an area in which there will continue to be much uncertainty.
For computer-implemented inventions it is unclear to this Kat whether there is much in the new Guidance that gives hope over the previous Guidancebased on the Alice decision. The new Guidance has a list of economic practices and methods of organising human activities which have been deemed ‘abstract ideas’ by the Courts, and that should be helpful. However the strict interpretation the Courts have given to the Alice eligibility test probably means the USPTO has little room for being more lenient towards computer-implemented inventions.
The USPTO will accept commentson the Guidance up to 16 March 2015, and it is expected that the Guidance will change in response to the feedback which is received.