On May 10, 2013, the Federal Circuit (in a 135 page opinion, available here) issued its decision en banc in CLS Bank v. Alice Corp. The opinion (as well as Chief Judge Rader’s “Additional Reflections” and Judge Moore’s dissent-in-part) is well worth a read, as it deals with the patentability of software. At issue was whether the asserted claims of Alice’s patent were directed at patentable subject matter. The asserted claims included method claim 33:
33. A method of exchanging obligations as between parties, each party holding a credit record and a debit record with an exchange institution, the credit records and debit records for exchange of predetermined obligations, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) creating a shadow credit record and a shadow debit record for each stakeholder party to be held independently by a supervisory institution from the exchange institutions;
(b) obtaining from each exchange institution a start-of-day balance for each shadow credit record and shadow debit record;
(c) for every transaction resulting in an exchange obligation, the supervisory institution adjusting each respective party’s shadow credit record or shadow debit record, allowing only these transactions that do not result in the value of the shadow debit record being less than the value of the shadow credit record at any time, each said adjustment taking place in chronological order; and
(d) at the end-of-day, the supervisory institution instructing ones of the exchange institutions to exchange credits or debits to the credit record and debit record of the respective parties in accordance with the adjustments of the said permitted transactions, the credits and debits being irrevocable, time invariant obligations placed on the exchange institutions.
And claim 39:
39. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied in the medium for use by a party to exchange an obligation between a first party and a second party, the computer program product comprising:
program code for causing a computer to send a transaction from said first party relating to an exchange obligation arising from a currency exchange transaction between said first party and said second party; and program code for causing a computer to allow viewing of information relating to processing, by a supervisory institution, of said exchange obligation, wherein said processing includes
(1) maintaining information about a first account for the first party, independent from a second account maintained by a first exchange institution, and information about a third account for the second party, independent from a fourth account maintained by a second exchange institution;
(2) electronically adjusting said first account and said third account, in order to effect an exchange obligation arising from said transaction between said first party and said second party, after ensuring that said first party and/or said second party have adequate value in said first account and/or said third account, respectively; and
(3) generating an instruction to said first exchange institution and/or said second exchange institution to adjust said second account and/or said fourth account in accordance with the adjustment of said first account and/or said third account, wherein said instruction being an irrevocable, time invariant obligation placed on said first exchange institution and/or said second exchange institution.
The Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s holding that the asserted method and computer-readable media claims are not directed to eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101, and affirmed the district court’s holding that the asserted system claims are not directed to eligible subject matter under that statute.
As described by the Federal Circuit,
The patents, which the same specification, concern “the management of risk relating to specified, yet unknown, future events.” ’479 patent col. 1, ll. 8–10. In particular, the patents relate to a computerized trading platform used for conducting financial transactions in which a third party settles obligations between a first and a second party so as to eliminate “counterparty” or “settlement” risk. CLS Bank, 768 F. Supp. 2d at 224. Settlement risk refers to the risk to each party in an exchange that only one of the two parties will actually pay its obligation, leaving the paying party without its principal or the benefit of the counterparty’s performance. Alice’s patents address that risk by relying on a trusted third party to ensure the exchange of either both parties’ obligations or neither obligation. Id.
The framework for determining patentability under § 101 is as follow:
[T]he basic steps in a patent-eligibility analysis can be summarized as follows. We must first ask whether the claimed invention is a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. If not, the claim is ineligible under § 101. If the invention falls within one of the statutory categories, we must then determine bars such a claim—is the claim drawn to a patent ineligible law of nature, natural phenomenon, or abstract idea? If so, the claim is not patent eligible. Only claims that pass both inquiries satisfy § 101.
The Federal Circuit further indicated:
[T]he following analysis should apply in determining whether a computer-implemented claim recites patent-eligible subject matter under § 101 or falls into the common law exception for abstract ideas. The first question is whether the claimed invention fits within one of the four statutory classes set out in § 101. Assuming that condition is met, the analysis turns to the judicial exceptions to subject-matter eligibility. A preliminary question in applying the exceptions to such claims is whether the claim raises § 101 abstractness concerns at all. Does the claim pose any risk of preempting an abstract idea? In most cases, the answer plainly will be no. Where bona fide § 101 concerns arise, however, it is important at the outset to identify and define whatever fundamental concept appears wrapped up in the claim so that the subsequent analytical steps can proceed on a consistent footing. Section 101 is concerned as much with preserving narrow “basic tools” as it is with abstract concepts that have far-reaching implications—for example, risk hedging or transmitting information at a distance using electricity—and the breadth of acceptable exclusion may vary accordingly. In short, one cannot meaningfully evaluate whether a claim preempts an abstract idea until the idea supposedly at risk of preemption has been unambiguously identified. Although not required, conducting a claim construction analysis before addressing § 101 may be especially helpful in this regard by facilitating a full understanding of what each claim entails. The § 101 inquiry next proceeds to the requisite preemption analysis. With the pertinent abstract idea identified, the balance of the claim can be evaluated to determine whether it contains additional substantive limitations that narrow, confine, or otherwise tie down the claim so that, in practical terms, it does not cover the full abstract idea itself.
An “inventive concept” in the § 101 context refers to a genuine human contribution to the claimed subject matter. In addition, that human contribution must represent more than a trivial appendix to the underlying abstract idea. The § 101 preemption analysis centers on the practical, real-world effects of the claim. Limitations that represent a human contribution but are merely tangential, routine, well-understood, or conventional, or in practice fail to narrow the claim relative to the fundamental principle therein, cannot confer patent eligibility.
Other key portions of the opinion include:
“[S]imply appending generic computer functionality to lend speed or efficiency to the performance of an otherwise abstract concept does not meaningfully limit claim scope for purposes of patent eligibility.”
“Unless the claims require a computer to perform operations that are not merely accelerated calculations, a computer does not itself confer patent eligibility. In short, the requirement for computer participation in these claims fails to supply an ‘inventive concept’ that represents a nontrivial, nonconventional human contribution or materially narrows the claims relative to the abstract idea they embrace.”
“[T]here is nothing in the asserted method claims that represents “significantly more” than the underlying abstract idea for purposes of § 101. But for the implied requirement for computer implementation, the broad, non-technical method claims presented here closely resemble those in Bilski, which also explained a ‘basic concept of . . . protecting against risk.’ 130 S. Ct. at 3231. And, as described, adding generic computer functions to facilitate performance provides no substantial limitation and therefore is not ‘enough’ to satisfy § 101. As in Bilski, upholding Alice’s claims to methods of financial intermediation ‘would pre-empt use of this approach in all fields, and would effectively grant a monopoly over an abstract idea.’ Id. Consequently, the method claims are drawn to patent-ineligible subject matter and invalid under § 101.
“Abstract methods do not become patent-eligible machines by being clothed in computer language.”