CLS Bank v. Alice ruling by US CAFC on 8 May 2013
- This summary never got completed. The Supreme Court has no decided to re-hear this case, so attention is shifted to that. A summary of this ruling would still be useful, and may still get done.
For background to this court case, see: CLS Bank v. Alice (2012, USA)
This is a very important ruling. The US CAFC ruled en banc (all the judges together).
The Court's opinion(s)
The court published an extremely splintered ruling:
The 10 judges wrote 7 opinions, for a total of 135 pages, and the only text they could agree on was this paragraph which is the official opinion of the court:
Upon consideration en banc, a majority of the court affirms 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. An equally divided court affirms the district court’s holding that the asserted system claims are not directed to eligible subject matter under that statute.
So the judges agreed that the patent claims were invalid, but disagreed on why. The various rationales are contained in their individual opinions.
Experts' reactions
(newest first)
- Subject Matter Eligibility Post-CLS Bank, 7 July 2013, Patently-O
- False Distinctions Between Hardware and Software Patents are Not the Answer, 9 June 2013, (note: possible pro-patent bias) Eric Gould Bear
- Judges split on software patents and computer transubstantiation, 20 May 2013, Rob Tiller
- Software Patent Eligibility, 13 May 2013, David Schwartz
- CLS Bank v. Alice Corp: Court Finds Many Software Patents Ineligible, 10 May 2013, Patently-O
- Federal Circuit, en banc, rules in CLS Bank, 10 May 2013, Groklaw
