High Court Skips Case Challenging Its Patent Eligibility Test

The US Supreme Court turned away a case challenging how courts have applied its test to screen out abstract ideas from patent eligibility.

Audio Evolution Diagnostics Inc. sued the federal government in 2020, alleging infringement by telemedicine tools used at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities, but the Justice Department convinced the US Court of Federal Claims that the two asserted patents covered abstract concepts not eligible for patent protection under Section 101 of the Patent Act. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the decision without issuing a written opinion.

AED argued in its January cert petition that the Claims Court misapplied the high court’s test from Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, a 2014 opinion that narrowed the scope for patent eligibility, excluding from patentability inventions that claim to automate processes traditionally done by humans using conventional technology.

The case is the latest in a long string of challenges to the Alice test and its applications in the lower courts. Patent-rights advocates including John A. Squires, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the US Patent and Trademark Office, have also criticized Alice. Squires told members of the US Senate during a confirmation hearing the current requirements for patent eligibility are “costing American competitiveness.”

In a twist, US Solicitor General D. John Sauer declined to defend the government’s winning Section 101 argument on appeal.

Sauer’s brief said the high court shouldn’t take the case, because it “does not present any better vehicle for reexamining Section 101" than previous cert petitions the court has previously batted down. He wrote, though, if the justices do grant review, “the United States will not defend that aspect of the judgment below, but instead will argue that the relevant claims are patent-eligible.”

GlobalMedia Group LLC, which makes some of the allegedly infringing telemedicine tools used at government health facilities was joined as a third-party defendant in the case at the Claims Court. It waived its right to respond to AED’s petition.

Corcoran IP Law PLLC and SRIPLaw PA represent AED. GlobalMedia is represented by Snell & Wilmer.

The case is Audio Evol. Diag. Inc. v. US, U.S., 24-806, cert. denied 6/6/25.