Guy Gosnell, partner in the firm’s Intellectual Property Group, was quoted in Law360 discussing CLS Bank Int’l v. Alice Corporation and Alice Corp.’s appeal of a divided Federal Circuit ruling that failed to set a standard on software-patent eligibility, which, according to some attorneys, gives the U.S. Supreme Court an ideal opportunity to set the software patent bar.
“Companies and attorneys need to have workable standards on when software covers a patent-eligible invention and when it is an abstract idea that cannot be patented,” Gosnell said.
"Most practitioners anticipated and hoped that that would flow from the en banc decision, but instead, it left the water [murkier]," he said.
"This case is teed up for the petition for cert to be considered because of the fairly clear division among the judges on the Federal Circuit on this," Gosnell said. "It's pretty easy to recognize the need for certainty on that issue."
Having two cert petitions dealing with the same question "is indicative of the lack of clarity in this particular space," he said.
"Whether you agree with the decision or not, you could counsel patent applicants with much more certainty," he said. "Right now, it's hard to advise them where they stand."
Gosnell also authored an Alston & Bird advisory on the same case, titled, “CLS Bank Int’l v. Alice Corporation Provides Little Guidance from Federal Circuit on § 101 Eligibility of Method, Computer Readable Medium and Computer System Patents.”