The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit seems bipolar when it comes to Section 101 patent eligibility.

After the Supreme Court tightened eligibility standards with 2014′s Alice v. CLS Bank, the Federal Circuit affirmed every invalidation under Section 101 that reached them in 2015. Then, during the first part of 2016, some members of the court —including six of the seven Obama appointees—began carefully carving out limited safe harbors for software patents within the Alice framework.