Colleen Chien & Jiun Ying Wu's Decoding Patentable Subject Matter (2018) quantifies 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejections across different technologies and shows how the Supreme Court's decisions in Alice and Mayo affected the patent eligibility of software and medical diagnostics in the USPTO.
From the Abstract:
"The Supreme Court’s patentable subject matter jurisprudence from 2011 to 2014 has raised significant policy concerns within the patent community. Prominent groups within the IP community and academia, and commentators to the 2017 USPTO Patentable Subject Matter report have called for an overhaul of the Supreme Court’s “two-step test.”
Based on an analysis of 4.4 million office actions mailed from 2008 through mid-July 2017 covering 2.2 million unique patent applications, this article uses a novel technology identification strategy and a differences-in-differences approach to document a spike in 101 rejections among select medical diagnostics and software/business method applications following the Alice and Mayo decisions.
Within impacted classes of TC 3600 (“36BM”), the 101 rejection rate grew from 25% to 81% in the month after the Alice decision, and has remained above 75% almost every month through the last month of available data (2/2017); among abandoned applications, the prevalence of 101 rejection subject matter rejections in the last office action was around 85%.
Among medical diagnostic (“MedDx”) applications, the 101 rejection rate grew from 7% to 32% in the month after the Mayo decision and continued to climb to a high of 64% and to 78% among final office actions just prior to abandonment.
In the month of the last available data (from early 2017), the prevalence of subject matter 101 rejections among all office actions in applications in this field was 52% and among office actions before abandonment, was 62%. However outside of impacted areas, the footprint of 101 remained small, appearing in under 15% of all office actions. A subsequent piece will consider additional data and implications for policy."
Copyright © 2018 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label Mayo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mayo. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
Monday, July 31, 2017
USPTO - Patent Eligible Subject Matter: Report on Views and Recommendations from the Public
The USPTO's Report: Patent Eligible Subject Matter: Report on Views and Recommendations from the Public.
Patent eligibility for software and life science has been a controversial issue for decades. And it has not resolved itself despite a set of US Supreme Court's decisions seeking to clarify the patent eligibility standard. The USPTO has issued memos after each decision with guidelines that tend to befuddle applicants and examiners. So this 69 page report appears to restate the support (pages 23-27) and critical views (pages 27-33) rather than a solution. Sure Congress can amend the patent eligibility standard, but the money at stake will always drive the new standard into controversy.
Patent eligibility for software and life science has been a controversial issue for decades. And it has not resolved itself despite a set of US Supreme Court's decisions seeking to clarify the patent eligibility standard. The USPTO has issued memos after each decision with guidelines that tend to befuddle applicants and examiners. So this 69 page report appears to restate the support (pages 23-27) and critical views (pages 27-33) rather than a solution. Sure Congress can amend the patent eligibility standard, but the money at stake will always drive the new standard into controversy.
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