Whether computer-implemented inventions that provide useful user functionality but do not improve the basic functions of the computer itself are categorically ineligible for patent protection

QUESTION PRESENTED In Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), the Court declined once again to define the scope of the “abstract idea” exception to patent eligibility created by this Court. It did, however, assume that claims that “purport to improve the functioning of the computer itself” would be patent eligible. Here, a panel of the Federal Circuit held, in conflict with other panel decisions, that inventions providing useful functionality to users, but without improving the basic functions of the computer itself in a manner akin to improved hardware, are directed to abstract ideas and therefore patent ineligible. Accordingly, the questions presented are: 1. Whether inventions that provide useful user functionality but do not improve the basic functions of the computer itself are categorically ineligible for patent protection. 2. Whether the Court should overrule its precedents recognizing the “abstract idea” exception to patent eligibility under the Patent Act of 1952.