PersonalWeb Technologies LLC v. Google LLC, et al.

In Alice Corp. Pty. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014)—a case about the patentability of computerimplemented business methods—this Court confirmed that inventions “improv[ing] the functioning of the computer itself” or “effect[ing] an improvement in any other technology or technical field” remain patent-eligible. Id. at 225-226. Lower courts have not followed that instruction. Petitioner’s patents claim a novel computer file system that significantly improved fundamental computer networking operations—an improvement in a “technical field.” Yet the Federal Circuit, in a precedential decision, canceled Petitioner’s patents as being directed to a pure “abstract idea.” Petitioner is not alone. Since Alice, the Federal Circuit has found, as a matter of law and without any guiding principles, the vast majority of issued patents in the computing arts patent-ineligible. The list of inventions that the Federal Circuit has deemed categorically “abstract” has grown so large as to place a cloud of invalidity over all computer-based patents. Certiorari is needed to provide guiding principles for patent-eligibility in the computing arts, and to restore the critical incentive to innovate in this essential technological field. The question presented is: 1. How should courts determine whether a patent for a computer-implemented invention is patent-eligible because it “improve[s] the functioning of the computer itself” or “effect[s] an improvement in any other technology or technical field” under Alice?