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Abstract
On Jun 19, 2014, the US Supreme Court issued its opinion in Alice Corp v CLS Bank International. The Court held that a group of patents related to mitigating settlement risk were not drawn to patent eligible subject matter under 35 USC 101 because the claims were directed toward a patent-ineligible abstract idea. In so ruling, the Court affirmed the holding of a deeply divided Federal Circuit (sitting en banc). Notably, the Court applied the two-step test promulgated in Mayo Collaborative Services v Prometheus Laboratories Inc to determine whether the claims were directed to an abstract idea. In applying the Mayo test, the Court reasoned that recitation of a general-purpose computer does not add an "inventive concept" to the claims sufficient to transform the claimed abstract idea into a patentable invention. The contours of the "inventive concept" sufficient to transform such ideas into patent eligible inventions, however, remain unclear.