USPTO Releases Report on Patent Examination Outcomes After Alice

The US Patent and Trademark Office on April 23, 2020, published a report authored by its Chief Economist titled, Adjusting to Alice: USPTO patent examination outcomes after Alice Corp v. CLS Bank International. The report highlights how recent actions undertaken by the USPTO have brought greater predictability and certainty to the determination of patent eligibility in the technology areas most affected by the decision.

The report’s analysis by the USPTO’s Office of the Chief Economist found that one year after the USPTO issued its January 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (2019 PEG), the likelihood of Alice-affected technologies receiving a first office action with a rejection for patent-ineligible subject matter had decreased by 25%. Likewise, uncertainty about determinations of patent subject matter eligibility in the first action stage of patent examination for the relevant technologies decreased by 44% over the first year following publication of the 2019 PEG compared to the previous year.