Uncertainty surrounding patent eligibility jurisprudence has been a thorn in the side of many patent applicants, patent holders, scholars, and judges for years, leading voices in the patent sector to issue repeated, though unavailing, calls for legislative action. Recent activity by lawmakers, however, suggests that rising innovation in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector may be viewed as a catalyst for change.

Central to the issue of patent eligibility is the framework set forth in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Labs, 132 S.Ct. 1289 (2012) and Alice v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014). The Patent Act permits patents for “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof …” But “laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas are not patentable.”