"Patents drafted before the Supreme Court's 2014 decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), were written in a different era of patent law where Section 101 was often an absent watchman even for software and business method claims. Specifications from that period routinely described the problem being solved in business terms and the solution in generic technological ones. This made sense under the legal regime that existed at the time."
"But times have changed and the same specifications now must support claims that need to demonstrate a concrete technical improvement - and that can be a very hard task when the underlying disclosure treats computer components as interchangeable commodities. Two decisions from the Federal Circuit this past week illustrate the problem. In the precedential GoTV Streaming, LLC v. Netflix, Inc., No. 2024-1669 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 9, 2026), Judge Taranto reversed an jury infringement verdict and held three related patents invalid under Section 101."
Patents filed before the 2010s frequently lack the technical specificity now required for eligibility under Section 101 following Alice v. CLS Bank (2014). Specifications from that era commonly framed problems in business terms and described solutions in generic technological language, treating computer components as interchangeable. The Federal Circuit recently invalidated pre-2010 patents in GoTV Streaming v. Netflix and affirmed invalidations in Innovaport v. Target, finding claims ineligible under Section 101. Some asserted patents overcame post-Alice examination rejections, but courts did not defer to the Patent Office on eligibility. Prosecution histories in those cases lacked factual records showing inventive technical improvements.
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