The late 1990s and early 2000s brought the gold rush of software patents in the United States. On the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in State Street Bank, which confirmed that business methods and related software inventions could be patented in the United States, and in the midst of the dot-com boom, thousands flocked to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to file new patent applications on software inventions. Many of those patents were related to the ways in which data could be stored and manipulated in computer systems.

In recent years, the pendulum has, by all accounts, swung back in the other direction, as the federal courts and the Patent Office have tightened the reigns on the patentability of software. Database patents, covering systems and methods for arranging and storing data, in particular, have been a lightning rod. The Federal Circuit has repeatedly weighed in on the patentability of such systems; in some instances, finding them to be non-patent eligible, but in other instances upholding the validity of such patents.