Ball in Federal Circuit’s Court on Patent Eligibility Clarity(1)

The Federal Circuit may be the last hope for clarity on what inventions are eligible for patents—if the judges can agree on what the rules should be.

The nation’s patent appeals court is split 7–5 on whether U.S. Supreme Court precedent limits how much it can say about Section 101 of the Patent Act, which involves eligibility. Eight separate opinions in a recent order denying full court review of an eligibility case show its deep divisions.

Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit may be starting to realize that it’s time for the court to fix ...