The Influence of Alice: A Response to Jay P. Kesan & Runhua Wang’s Eligible Subject Matter at the Patent Office: An Empirical Study of the Influence of Alice on Patent Examiners and Patent Applicants

The Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank has had a decimating influence on patents and patent applications. Its long shadow looms over every stage of a patent’s life cycle—from prosecution to litigation and the administrative post-grant process at the patent office. In their article, Professor Jay Kesan and Dr. Runhua Wang offer a penetrating look at Alice’s influence on software, business methods and bioinformatics, all key technologies powering our modern economy. This Response sets out the relevant law on patent eligibility, contextualizes the Authors’ key findings on bioinformatics applications against that legal framework, and considers whether Congress, the courts, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) can be agents of change to alleviate Alice’s baleful influence on patent law.