AIPLA offers proposals to alter section 101
The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) has proposed the altering of 35 USC, section 101, the patent subject matter eligibility law.
Section 101 has been at the heart of a number of recent US Supreme Court decisions, including Alice v CLS Bank, which set out a two-part test for patent eligibility.
AIPLA’s report, which was released on Friday, May 12, follows recommendations from the IP law section of the American Bar in March.
“The rules established by the US Supreme Court in their recent decisions of Mayo v Prometheus and Alice have created significant uncertainty about what is eligible for patenting in the US, discouraging investment in future innovation in areas ranging from the life sciences to software,” said the report.
According to AIPLA, legislation is needed to ensure the application of “clear, unmalleable rules” of patent eligibility with “very limited statutory exceptions to provide the needed certainty in the law”.
The Supreme Court’s subjective interpretation of patent eligibility law is “undermining the fundamental principles” underlying the Patent Act 1952, said the association.
It said that Congress must intervene and return the law to what the Patent Act meant to provide: an “objective, evidence-based analysis for awarding patent protection”.
AIPLA added that the courts and the US Patent and Trademark Office are “struggling to find a principled formula to guide their decision-making”.
This uncertainty has weakened the US patent system and discouraged investments in areas ranging from life-saving diagnostic tools to software, explained AIPLA.
The proposed legislation retains the basic eligibility categories of section 101, with a few amendments.
It also includes new provisions to expressly overrule the current judicially created framework.
“This approach represents a clean break from the existing judicial exceptions to eligibility by creating a new framework with clearly defined statutory exceptions,” said the report.
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