Unpatentable subject matter
A pair of Federal Circuit opinions last week rejected patents involving patent-ineligible subject matter.
What does that include, you ask?
As Blawgletter noted last year in "You Still Can't Patent Ideas":
Section 101 of the Patent Act allows patents on "any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of
Last week, a 9-0 Supreme Court ruled that human genes do not count as patent-eligible subject matter but that fake genes with some DNA missing may. Ass'n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., No. 12-398, slip op. 12 (U.S. June 13, 2013) ("Groundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant discovery does not by itself satisfy
You can get a U.S. patent if you invent "any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof" if you meet "the conditions and requirements" of U.S. Code title 35. 35 U.S.C. § 101.
The first of the four things the statute lists — a "process"