Stephen Glazier wrote an article for Law360 explaining the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s 2019 revised patent subject matter eligibility guidance, regarding Section 101, which applies to all applications, and patents for applications, filed before, on or after January 7, 2019. The new guidance simplifies the concepts of “an abstract idea” and of a claim directed to an abstract idea.
In an article titled, “Illustrating The New USPTO Guidance With A Flowchart,” Glazier explains, “Basically, the 2019 revised guidance represents a swing of the pendulum in the pro-patent direction, that will counteract the preceding anti-patent swing culminating in the Alice case in 2014. This continues a pro-patent trend that the PTO began in the spring of 2018 with the issuance of the Berkheimer memo. […] We can expect this pro-patent trend to continue, partly because of a shift in the national discussion about patent law, from a focus on patent trolls to a focus on the protection of U.S. innovation in a competitive global economy.”