State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc.

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State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc.
Court United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Full case nameSTATE STREET BANK & TRUST CO., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SIGNATURE FINANCIAL GROUP, INC., Defendant-Appellant
DecidedJuly 23 1998
Citation(s)149 F.3d 1368
Case history
Prior historyFinding for plaintiff, 927 F. Supp. 502, 38 U.S.P.Q.2d 1530 (D. Mass. 1996) (finding U.S. Patent No. 5,193,056 invalid for lack of statutory subject matter)
Holding
A claim is eligible for protection by a patent in the United States if it involved some practical application and it produces a useful, concrete and tangible result.
Court membership
Judge(s) sittingCircuit Judges Rich, Plager and Bryson
Case opinions
MajorityRich
Laws applied
35 U.S.C.   § 101

State Street Bank and Trust Company v. Signature Financial Group, Inc., 149 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 1998), also referred to as State Street or State Street Bank, was a 1998 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concerning the patentability of business methods. State Street for a time established the principle that a claimed invention was eligible for protection by a patent in the United States if it involved some practical application and, in the words of the State Street opinion, "it produces a useful, concrete and tangible result."

Contents

With the 2008 Federal Circuit decision In re Bilski , [1] however, the useful-concrete-tangible test was jettisoned. According to the Federal Circuit's Bilski opinion, the "'useful, concrete and tangible result inquiry' is inadequate," and the portions of the State Street decision relying on this inquiry are no longer of any effect under US patent law. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Federal Circuit in Bilski v. Kappos . [2]

Background

On March 9, 1993, Signature Financial Group, Inc. was granted U.S. Patent 5,193,056 [3] entitled "Data Processing System for Hub and Spoke Financial Services Configuration". The "spokes" were mutual funds that pool their assets in a central "hub". When this is done in connection with certain daily accounting procedures in accordance with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations, the profits are passed through to the shareholders for tax purposes, without being first subject to corporate income tax, as they otherwise would be. [4] The procedures are so complex that they could not be performed, in the time interval IRS regulations allow, without using a programmed digital computer. [5]

It has been pointed out that the patent claim comprises means for performing steps that are the requirements specified in an Internal Revenue Service regulation for avoiding taxes [6] on a partnership. [7] This chart illustrates how the wording of the patent claim corresponds to the US tax statute and regulations. The patent is thus, in effect, one on compliance with US tax law.

How the claim elements of the patent correspond to the provisions of US tax law applicable to Hub & Spokes tax systems
PatentTax Law
1. A data processing system for managing a financial services configuration of a portfolio established as a partnership, each partner being one of a plurality of funds, comprising:

(a) computer processor means for processing data;

(b) storage means for storing data on a storage medium;

(c) first means for initializing the storage medium;

[This part of claim 1 is directed to setting up a computer system for processing data and having access to a source of storage data to be processed in the computer.]
[These IRC provisions establish a framework for treatment of partnership income qualifying it for flowthrough treatment. The terms in italics are relevant to subsequent provisions and to corresponding claim language.]26 U.S.C. § 706(d)(2)(A): [I]f during and taxable year of the partnership there is a change in any partners's interest in the partnership, ...

each partner's distributive share of any allocable cash basis shall be determined—(i) by assigning the appropriate portion of such item to each day in the period to which it is attributable, and (ii) by allocating the portion assigned to any such day among the partners in proportion to their interests in the partnership at the close of such day.

I

Reg. 1,704-1(b)(2)(iv): (a): Except as otherwise provided in paragraph (b)(2)(ii)(i) of this section, and allocation of income, gain, loss, or deduction will not have economic effect under paragraph (b)(2)(ii)(i) of this section and will not be deemed to be in accordance with a partner's interest in the partnership under paragraph (b)(4) of this section [i.e., qualify for partnership flow-through treatment], unless the capital accounts of the partners are determined and maintained throughout the full term of the partnership [i.e., daily] in accordance with the capital accounting rules of this paragraph (b)(2)(iv).

(d) second means for processing data regarding assets in the portfolio and each of the funds from a previous day and data regarding increases or decreases in each of the funds, assets and for allocating the percentage share that each fund holds in the portfolio;...(b)(2)(iv): [T]he partners' capital accounts will be considered to be determined and maintained in accordance with the rules of this paragraph (b)(2)(iv) if, and only if, each partner's capital account: ...

is increased by (1) the amount of money contributed by him to the partnership...and is decrease by (4) the amount of money distributed to him by the partnership

(e) third means for processing data regarding daily incremental income, expenses, and net realized gain or loss for the portfolio and for allocating such data among each fund;is increased by (3) allocations to hum partnership income and gain...and is decreased by (6) allocations to him of expenditures of the partnership...and (7) allocations of partnership loss
(f) fourth means for processing data regarding daily net unrealized gain or loss for the portfolio and for allocating such data among each fund; andIRS Reg. 1.704-1(f): A partnership agreement may, upon the occurrence of certain events, increase or decrease the capital accounts of the partners to reflect a revaluation of partnership property... Capital accounts so adjusted will not be considered to be determined and maintained in accordance with the rules if this paragraph (b)(2)(iv) unless—...

(2) The adjustments reflect the manner in which the unrealized income, gain, loss, deduction inherent in such property (that has not been reflected in the capital accounts previously) would be allocated among the partners if there were a taxable disposition of such property for such fair market value on that date.

(g) fifth means for processing data regarding aggregate year-end income, expenses, and capital gain or loss for the portfolio and each of the funds.26 U.S.C § 706(d)(1): [I]f during any taxable year of the partners there is a change in any partner's interest in the partnership, each partner's distributive share of any item of income, gain, loss, deduction, or credit of the partnership for such taxable year shall be determined by the use of any method prescribed by the Secretary by regulations which takes into account the varying interests of the partners in the partnership during such taxable year.

Federal Circuit opinion

The district court held the patent invalid as directed to nonstatutory subject matter. The Federal Circuit reversed, however, in an opinion that was followed by a large increase in the issuance of business-method and software patents. The Federal Circuit stated:

[T]he transformation of data, representing discrete dollar amounts, by a machine through a series of mathematical calculations into a final share price, constitutes a practical application of a mathematical algorithm, formula, or calculation, because it produces "a useful, concrete and tangible result"—a final share price momentarily fixed for recording and reporting purposes and even accepted and relied upon by regulatory authorities and in subsequent trades.

At the time and during the following decade, this ruling was considered by many to be significant because previously "methods of doing business" had been widely thought not to be eligible for patent grants. [8] For example, in Hotel Security Checking Co. v. Lorraine Co., the Second Circuit held that a bookkeeping system to prevent waiters from stealing customer payments for meals could not be patented. [9] In Joseph E. Seagram & Sons v. Marzell, [10] the D.C. Circuit held that a patent on "blind testing" whiskey blends for consumer preferences would be "a serious restraint upon the advance of science and industry" and therefore should be refused. [11]

The Federal Circuit rejected this view in its State Street Bank opinion:

The business method exception has never been invoked by this court, or the CCPA, to deem an invention unpatentable. Application of this particular exception has always been preceded by a ruling based on some clearer concept of Title 35 or, more commonly, application of the abstract idea exception based on finding a mathematical algorithm. [12]

The Federal Circuit found it inappropriate to carve out a further exception [13] to the principle that "anything under the sun made by man is patentable." [14] Accordingly, the Federal Circuit applied that principle to all business methods that "produce a useful, concrete and tangible result."

Aftermath

GAO Analysis of US PTO Data Showing Number of Software and Non-Software Patents Issued Each Year From 1991 to 2011 GAO analysis of patent issuance by type, 1994-2011.gif
GAO Analysis of US PTO Data Showing Number of Software and Non-Software Patents Issued Each Year From 1991 to 2011

The State Street Bank opinion led to a great increase in business method and software patents. In 1991, software related patents represented about 20 percent of the yearly total; by 2011 they accounted for about 50 percent. The absolute number of software patents rose from about 25,000 per year to 125,000 per year in this period. An accompanying graph shows a GAO analysis of such data.

Judicial criticism

In May 2006, Justice Kennedy of the US Supreme Court commented in a concurring opinion in the eBay case [15] that a "burgeoning number" of business-method patents were of "potential vagueness and suspect validity." He was joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Breyer.

In June 2006, the Court dismissed certiorari in LabCorp v. Metabolite, Inc. . [16] The Federal Circuit had decided the case on the basis of the State Street precedent. Three Justices (Breyer, J., joined by Stevens and Souter, JJ.) dissented from the dismissal, arguing that the Federal Circuit had decided the LabCorp case on the erroneous "useful, concrete, and tangible result" legal test enunciated in the State Street case. This was a legal test, the dissent argued, under which patents that the Supreme Court had held patent ineligible would be held patent eligible, citing as examples O'Reilly v. Morse , Gottschalk v. Benson , and Parker v. Flook . The Court should therefore decide the case, the dissenting Justices maintained, in order to "diminish legal uncertainty in the area, affecting a substantial number of patent claims."

Bilski

In 2008, in In re Bilski , the Federal Circuit decided to reconsider State Street en banc . In its order, the court listed as one of the questions to be briefed by the applicant, the PTO, and the amici curiae was "Whether the court should reconsider State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc., 149 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 1998) . . . in which the court had held that business methods could be patented, and whether th[at] case[ ] should be overruled in any respect." [17]

In the en banc opinion the court later issued, [18] it jettisoned the "useful-concrete-tangible result" (UCTR) test stated in State Street, but it did not explicitly overrule State Street in its entirety. The court said that the UCTR test "is insufficient to determine whether a claim is patent-eligible under § 101," [19] and "is inadequate," [20] and it reaffirmed that "the machine-or-transformation test outlined by the Supreme Court is the proper test to apply" instead. As to State Street, the court said, "those portions of our opinions in State Street, relying on a 'useful, concrete and tangible result' analysis should not longer be relied on." [21]

The Federal Circuit's majority opinion did not hold that business methods are categorically patent ineligible. Judges Mayer and Dyk agreed with the majority that the Bilski patent application should be denied, but argued that the proper basis of decision was that business methods could not be patented under a proper interpretation of the law.

In his separate opinion in In re Bilski , Federal Circuit Judge Mayer stated, "Not surprisingly, State Street and its progeny have generated a thundering chorus of criticism," and he collected citations to supporting authorities. He quoted one source for the statement, "The Federal Circuit's recent endorsement of patent protection for methods of doing business marks so sweeping a departure from precedent as to invite a search for its justification" and another for this: "To call [the situation following State Street] distressing is an understatement. The consensus . . . appears to be that patents should not be issuing for new business methods."

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of patent ineligibility in Bilski v. Kappos . It did not endorse the use of the machine-or-transformation test as the sole test, but said it was only a "useful clue" to making the determination. The Court's majority also declined to hold business methods categorically patent ineligible. Four Justices, however—Justice Stevens, concurring, joined by Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor—would have held all business methods patent ineligible, on the basis of the historical background of the patent clause of the Constitution. In a separate concurring opinion by Justice Breyer, he listed points on which the Court unanimously agreed. One point was that the State Street Bank case was not a correct statement of the law.

Mayo and Alice

The Supreme Court's subsequent decisions in Mayo v. Prometheus and Alice v. CLS Bank further expanded on Bilski and substantially obliterated State Street. These decisions established a two-step inquiry in which, first, the court is to look to whether the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea or natural principle; if it is, a second step follows in which the court must determine whether the claimed invention implements the abstract idea inventively or instead in a merely routine or conventional manner. Unless the implementation or application of the abstract idea embodies an "inventive concept," the claimed invention is patent ineligible. (These concepts are explained further in the articles on the Mayo and Alice cases.) Under this test the State Street patent would be invalid. [22]

Alice specifically holds that a generic computer implementation of an abstract idea is patent ineligible. In Alice, the Supreme Court held that a software-related invention on an existing business procedure could not be saved from patent ineligibility and be made patent eligible simply by saying, "Do it with a computer." Instead, it would be necessary to implement the procedure in an inventive manner. This decision appears to have overruled State Street sub silentio , as called for in the eBay dissent.

Developments after Alice decision

After the Alice decision, many of the business method patents that had issued as a result of the State Street decision were invalidated. One commentator tabulated statistics through June 2015. He found that the Federal Circuit held more than 90 percent invalid, while district courts invalidated more than 70 percent. [23]

In one of these district court decisions, Federal Circuit Judge Bryson, sitting by designation as a district judge, spoke of these business method patents as uninventive and mere "aspirational" recitations of "methods for performing a commonplace business function" without any description of "any novel manner of performing that function" other than saying "do it with a computer":

In short, such patents, although frequently dressed up in the argot of invention, simply describe a problem, announce purely functional steps that purport to solve the problem, and recite standard computer operations to perform some of those steps. The principal flaw in these patents is that they do not contain an "inventive concept" that solves practical problems and ensures that the patent is directed to something "significantly more than" the ineligible abstract idea itself. As such, they represent little more than functional descriptions of objectives, rather than inventive solutions. In addition, because they describe the claimed methods in functional terms, they preempt any subsequent specific solutions to the problem at issue. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

The software patent debate is the argument about the extent to which, as a matter of public policy, it should be possible to patent software and computer-implemented inventions. Policy debate on software patents has been active for years. The opponents to software patents have gained more visibility with fewer resources through the years than their pro-patent opponents. Arguments and critiques have been focused mostly on the economic consequences of software patents.

Neither software nor computer programs are explicitly mentioned in statutory United States patent law. Patent law has changed to address new technologies, and decisions of the United States Supreme Court and United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) beginning in the latter part of the 20th century have sought to clarify the boundary between patent-eligible and patent-ineligible subject matter for a number of new technologies including computers and software. The first computer software case in the Supreme Court was Gottschalk v. Benson in 1972. Since then, the Supreme Court has decided about a half dozen cases touching on the patent eligibility of software-related inventions.

Business method patents are a class of patents which disclose and claim new methods of doing business. This includes new types of e-commerce, insurance, banking and tax compliance etc. Business method patents are a relatively new species of patent and there have been several reviews investigating the appropriateness of patenting business methods. Nonetheless, they have become important assets for both independent inventors and major corporations.

Patentable, statutory or patent-eligible subject matter is subject matter which is susceptible of patent protection. The laws or patent practices of many countries provide that certain subject-matter is excluded from patentability, even if the invention is novel and non-obvious. Together with criteria such as novelty, inventive step or nonobviousness, utility, and industrial applicability, which differ from country to country, the question of whether a particular subject matter is patentable is one of the substantive requirements for patentability.

Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63 (1972), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a process claim directed to a numerical algorithm, as such, was not patentable because "the patent would wholly pre-empt the mathematical formula and in practical effect would be a patent on the algorithm itself." That would be tantamount to allowing a patent on an abstract idea, contrary to precedent dating back to the middle of the 19th century. The ruling stated "Direct attempts to patent programs have been rejected [and] indirect attempts to obtain patents and avoid the rejection ... have confused the issue further and should not be permitted." The case was argued on October 16, 1972, and was decided November 20, 1972.

Freeman-Walter-Abele is a now outdated judicial test in United States patent law. It came from three decisions of the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals—In re Freeman, 573 F.2d 1237, In re Walter, 618 F.2d 758 ; and In re Abele, 684 F.2d 902 —which attempted to comply with then-recent decisions of the Supreme Court concerning software-related patent claims.

<i>In re Bilski</i>

In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385, was an en banc decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on the patenting of method claims, particularly business methods. The Federal Circuit court affirmed the rejection of the patent claims involving a method of hedging risks in commodities trading. The court also reiterated the machine-or-transformation test as the applicable test for patent-eligible subject matter, and stated that the test in State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group should no longer be relied upon.

The exhausted combination doctrine, also referred to as the doctrine of theLincoln Engineeringcase, is the doctrine of U.S. patent law that when an inventor invents a new, unobvious device and seeks to patent not merely the new device but also the combination of the new device with a known, conventional device with which the new device cooperates in the conventional and predictable way in which devices of those types have previously cooperated, the combination is unpatentable as an "exhausted combination" or "old combination". The doctrine is also termed the doctrine of the Lincoln Engineering case because the United States Supreme Court explained the doctrine in its decision in Lincoln Engineering Co. v. Stewart-Warner Corp.

In United States patent law, the machine-or-transformation test is a test of patent eligibility under which a claim to a process qualifies for consideration if it (1) is implemented by a particular machine in a non-conventional and non-trivial manner or (2) transforms an article from one state to another.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piano roll blues</span>

The Piano Roll Blues or Old Piano Roll Blues is a figure of speech designating a legal argument made in US patent law relating to computer software. The argument is that a newly programmed general-purpose digital computer is a "new" machine and, accordingly, properly the subject of a US patent.

<i>In re Ferguson</i>

In re Ferguson, 558 F.3d 1359 is an early 2009 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, affirming a rejection of business method claims by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). One of the first post-Bilski decisions by a Federal Circuit panel, Ferguson confirms the breadth of the en banc Bilski opinion's rejection of the core holdings in State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc.

Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593 (2010), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that the machine-or-transformation test is not the sole test for determining the patent eligibility of a process, but rather "a useful and important clue, an investigative tool, for determining whether some claimed inventions are processes under § 101." In so doing, the Supreme Court affirmed the rejection of an application for a patent on a method of hedging losses in one segment of the energy industry by making investments in other segments of that industry, on the basis that the abstract investment strategy set forth in the application was not patentable subject matter.

AT&T Corp. v. Excel Communications, Inc., 172 F.3d 1352 was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the decision of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, which had granted summary judgment to Excel Communications, Inc. and decided that AT&T Corp. had failed to claim statutory subject matter with U.S. Patent No. 5,333,184 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit remanded the case for further proceedings.

Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), was a 2014 United States Supreme Court decision about patent eligibility of business method patents. The issue in the case was whether certain patent claims for a computer-implemented, electronic escrow service covered abstract ideas, which would make the claims ineligible for patent protection. The patents were held to be invalid because the claims were drawn to an abstract idea, and implementing those claims on a computer was not enough to transform that abstract idea into patentable subject matter.

DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, was the first United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision to uphold the validity of computer-implemented patent claims after the Supreme Court's decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International. Both Alice and DDR Holdings are legal decisions relevant to the debate about whether software and business methods are patentable subject matter under Title 35 of the United States Code §101. The Federal Circuit applied the framework articulated in Alice to uphold the validity of the patents on webpage display technology at issue in DDR Holdings.

<i>In re Lowry</i>

In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579 was a 1994 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on the patent eligibility of data structures. The decision, which reversed a PTO rejection of data structure claims, was followed by a significant change in PTO policy as to granting software related patents, a cessation of PTO appeals to the Supreme Court from reversals of PTO rejections of software patent applications, an increasing lenity at the Federal Circuit toward such patents and patent applications, and a great increase in the number of software patents issued by the PTO.

<i>In re Alappat</i>

In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, along with In re Lowry and the State Street Bank case, form an important mid-to-late-1990s trilogy of Federal Circuit opinions because in these cases, that court changed course by abandoning the Freeman-Walter-Abele Test that it had previously used to determine patent eligibility of software patents and patent applications. The result was to open a floodgate of software and business-method patent applications, many or most of which later became invalid patents as a result of Supreme Court opinions in the early part of the following century in Bilski v. Kappos and Alice v. CLS Bank.

<i>In re Schrader</i>

In re Schrader, 22 F.3d 290 is a 1994 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in which the court summarized and synthesized its precedents under the Freeman-Walter-Abele Test of patent eligibility. Under this test a key element is that the claimed invention is implemented with some type of hardware—that is, a particular machine. This was one of the last Federal Circuit decisions using that test.

Versata Development Group, Inc. v. SAP America, Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, is a July 2015 decision of the Federal Circuit affirming the final order of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), the recently created adjudicatory arm of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), invalidating as patent ineligible the claims in issue of Versata's U.S. Patent No. 6,553,350. This was the first case in the Federal Circuit reviewing a final order in a Covered Business Method (CBM) invalidation proceeding under the America Invents Act (AIA). The case set an important precedent by deciding several unsettled issues in the interpretation of the CBM provisions of the AIA>, including what are business-method patents under the AIA and whether the AIA authorizes the PTO to hold such patents invalid in CBM proceedings on the ground that they are patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as "abstract ideas."

Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, is a 2016 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in which the court, for the second time since the United States Supreme Court decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank upheld the patent–eligibility of software patent claims. The Federal Circuit reversed the district court's summary judgment ruling that all claims were patent–ineligible abstract ideas under Alice. Instead, the claims were directed to a specific improvement to the way computers operate, embodied in the claimed "self-referential table" for a database, which the relevant prior art did not contain.

References

The citations in this Article are written in Bluebook
style. Please see the Talk page for this Article.
  1. ↑ 545 F.3d 943 (Fed. Cir. 2008).
  2. ↑ 561 U.S. 593 (2010).
  3. ↑ US 5193056 "Data processing system for hub and spoke financial services configuration" filed March 11, 1991. Named inventor Todd Boes did not originate the hub-and-spokes technique. It had been devised earlier, but Boes developed it for computerized use at Signature Financial Group. The actual programming, apparently, was performed by others under his direction.
  4. ↑ When the regulations are satisfied, IRS treats the mutual fund as if it were a partnership rather than a corporation or trust.
  5. ↑ The IRS regulations require a daily allocation of gains and losses to "partners" in the fund within the eight hours from 4 p.m. when the New York Stock Exchange closes and 12 midnight.
  6. ↑ In oral argument, Judge Rich asked counsel for the patentee whether the patent was not one directed to a "tax dodge."
  7. ↑ Scope-of-Protection Problems with Patents and Copyrights on Methods of Doing Business, 10 Fordham Intel. Prop., Media & Ent. L.J. 105, 121 and Appendix A (1999). The foregoing Appendix is a table showing the elements of the claim and the corresponding parts of the regulations, side by side. The following chart is based on that table.
  8. ↑ See Donald S. Chisum, Patents: A Treatise On The Law Of Patentability, Validity And Infringement § 1.03[5] (1990 ed.) (stating that business methods are not patentable). See also Ernest Bainbridge Lipscomb III, Walker on Patents § 2:17 (3d ed. 1984) ("[A] 'system' or method of transacting business is not an 'art,' nor does it come within any other designation of patentable subject matter apart from the physical means of conducting the system."); Peter D. Rosenberg, Patent Law Fundamentals § 6.02[3] (2d ed. 1995) ("Whereas an apparatus or system capable of performing a business function may comprise patentable subject matter, the law remains that a method of doing business whether or not generated by an apparatus or system does not constitute patentable subject matter.").
  9. ↑ 160 F. 467 (2d Cir. 1908).
  10. ↑ 180 F.2d 26 (D.C. Cir. 1950).
  11. ↑ See generally Business method patent#United States.
  12. ↑ Id. at 872, 157 USPQ at 617.
  13. ↑ In addition to those for laws of nature, abstract ideas, and the like. See Gottschalk v. Benson .
  14. ↑ The phrase is a quotation from the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Chakrabarty decision, based in turn on a phrase in a 1952 report from the Congress, attributed to Pat Federico, and eventually derived from the Book of Ecclesiastes, in which the phrase "under the sun" appears thirty times. Ecclesiastes#Themes.
  15. ↑ eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. , 547 U.S. 388 (2006).
  16. ↑ LabCorp v. Metabolite, Inc. , 548 U.S. 124 (2006).
  17. ↑ In re Bilski, 264 Fed. Appx. 896 (Fed. Cir. 2008).
  18. ↑ In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc).
  19. ↑ Bilski, 545 F.3d at 959.
  20. ↑ Id. at 960.
  21. ↑ Id. at 960 n.19.
  22. ↑ Under a Mayo-Alice analysis, the claims in State Street are directed to the abstract idea of complying with certain IRS regulations governing taxation of hub-and-spoke funds as partnerships. The implementation is a conventional generic computer implementation.
  23. ↑ See Robert Sachs, Bilskiblog Archived 2016-06-29 at the Wayback Machine , "#AliceStorm In June: A Deeper Dive into Court Trends, and New Data On Alice inside the USPTO" (July 2, 2015) ("For example, the 73.1% invalidity rate [after Alice] in the federal courts breaks down into 70.2% (66 of 96) in the district courts and a stunning 92.9% in the Federal Circuit (13 for 14).").
  24. ↑ Loyalty Conversion Sys. Corp. v. American Airlines, Inc., __ F. Supp. 3d __, No. 2:13-cv-655, 2014 WL 4364848 (E.D. Tex. Sept. 3, 2014)(citations to Alice and Mayo omitted).
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