AIPLA Issues Letter in Support of the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023

Arlington, VA. November 14, 2023 - The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) submitted a letter in support S. 2140, the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023.

AIPLA supports the passage of S. 2140, the “Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023,”  because we believe that the bill addresses the uncertainty and unpredictability resulting from the Supreme Court’s subject-matter eligibility jurisprudence over the past two decades. The lack of certainty and predictability about what is eligible for patenting in the United States has and continues to disincentivize investment in various fields of technology, including emerging technology, risking our nation’s position as an economic and technological leader.   

In particular, AIPLA agrees that the judicial exceptions to patent eligibility should be eliminated and that any useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or useful improvement thereof, should be patent eligible, subject only to the exclusions set forth in the bill. AIPLA has long supported the fundamental principles that eligibility must be determined by considering the claimed invention as a whole and that the eligibility inquiry is separate and distinct from the patentability requirements of Sections 102, 103, and 112.   

We believe S. 2140 is a substantial step forward in addressing the issues regarding Section 101.  At the same time, we also recognize that this is the beginning of the legislative process, and various stakeholders supporting Section 101 reform continue to discuss the most effective way to make a clean break from the existing, unpredictable judicially created exceptions (i.e., effective abrogation of certain Supreme Court cases). AIPLA greatly appreciates the Committee’s attention to this important issue, and we look forward to working with the Committee on the Judiciary on such matters.