ChromaDex, Inc., et al. v. Elysium Health, Inc.

In Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012), and Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), this Court established a two-step “framework for distinguishing patents that claim laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those that claim patent-eligible applications of those concepts.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 217 (emphasis added). Consistent with that authority, the Federal Circuit had until recently applied the Alice/Mayo framework to evaluate the eligibility of patents allegedly directed to any of the three patent-ineligible concepts, including natural phenomena. See Natural Alternatives Int’l, Inc. v. Creative Compounds, LLC, 918 F.3d 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2019). But the panel below broke with that precedent and created a split within the Federal Circuit. It saw no need to apply Alice/Mayo in the natural phenomena context, and instead applied a different standard derived from Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S. 576 (2013), which omits consideration of whether a patent involves an “inventive concept.” The question presented is: Whether the two-step Alice/Mayo framework governs the eligibility of patents allegedly directed to natural phenomena.