SAN FRANCISCO — A U.S. Supreme Court opinion that never mentioned the word “software” is expected to have a big impact on the software industry. Silicon Valley lawyers and academics were debating just how big on Thursday after the high court ruled in Alice v. CLS Bank International that an abstract idea does not become patent eligible merely by implementing it through a generic computer.
“I expect that holding to invalidate the majority of all software patents in force today,” predicted Stanford law professor Mark Lemley, who is also a partner at Durie Tangri.
