Return Mail, Inc. v. United States

Return Mail has a patent for processing undeliverable mail. This Court is familiar with it, since that patent was at issue in Return Mail, Inc. v. United States Postal Service, 587 U.S. 618 (2019). After this Court’s remand, the lower courts held that Return Mail’s patent is invalid under the “abstract idea” exception to 35 U.S.C. §101. This Court tried to bring clarity to §101 a decade ago in Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International, stating a two-step test. 573 U.S. 208 (2014). But now all key decisionmakers—district courts, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the Federal Circuit— are deeply divided on how to apply that framework. This Court recently asked the Solicitor General if it should revisit §101, and the Solicitor General twice recommended certiorari. See U.S.-Br.1 in Interactive Wearables v. Polar Electro Oy, Nos. 21-1281, 22-22, 2023 WL 2817859 (Apr. 5); U.S.-Br.1 in No. 20-891, Am. Axle & Mfg. v. Neapco Holdings, 2022 WL 1670811 (May 24). The question presented, as framed by the Solicitor General in response to those CVSGs, is: Whether the claimed invention is ineligible for patent protection under the abstract-idea exception to 35 U.S.C. §101.