Protecting Software and Business Method Inventions After Alice: A Section 101 Strategy Guide

67 questions on protecting software and business method inventions after alice, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Can a patent allowed under the 2019 PEG still be invalidated in court?
• Can software still be patented after Alice?
• How broadly does the statute itself read, and where does the friction come from?
• How can a patent be extinguished before an answer is even filed?
• How did BASCOM win at Step Two?
• How did Berkheimer change the balance of power at Step 2B?
• How did State Street and Bilski bracket the business-method era?
• How did the framework dispose of the Alice patents themselves?
• How do copyright, contracts, and design patents fill the gaps?
• How does a routing-optimization claim illustrate the AI drafting divide?
• How does Broadband iTV treat organizing and recommending?
• How does § 112(f) functional claiming intersect with eligibility?
• How does the Alice framework fare against blockchain and quantum computing?
• How do the layers compare on Alice exposure, term, and disclosure?
• How do two fraud-detection claims illustrate the drafting divide?
• How do you defuse a mental-process objection?
• How do you fix a result-oriented claim?
• How openly has the Federal Circuit acknowledged the doctrine's unworkability?
• How should a practitioner deconstruct a Section 101 rejection?
• How should eligibility shape the inventor interview?
• How should the USPTO's eligibility examples be used?
• Is USPTO guidance binding on courts?
• Should an algorithm be patented or kept as a trade secret?
• What are Step One and Step Two of the Alice/Mayo framework?
• What are the three abstract-idea groupings under the 2019 PEG?
• What are the three foundational terms a non-patent-lawyer needs?
• What can a § 1.132 declaration do, and what must it avoid?
• What clean argument does the grouping structure hand applicants?
• What corrective tools exist for a patent with eligibility weakness?
• What did Enfish establish about improvements to the computer itself?
• What did Ex parte Desjardins hold?
• What did Recentive Analytics decide about applying machine learning to a new domain?
• What did the July 2024 AI update tell examiners?
• What does DDR Holdings stand for?
• What does the 2025 mental-process clarification require?
• What do the numbers show about Section 101 invalidation rates?
• What do trade secrets protect that patents cannot?
• What genotype do the surviving cases share?
• What has the Supreme Court done about Section 101 since Alice?
• What is preemption, and why does it matter to every eligibility argument?
• What is the Benson-Flook-Diehr arc?
• What is the central thesis of Section 101 practice?
• What is the collect-analyze-display trap?
• What is the competitiveness argument for PERA, and what is the objection?
• What is the "do it on a computer" trap?
• What is the practical-application inquiry at Step 2A Prong Two?
• What is the prosecution checklist for a Section 101 rejection?
• What is the specification-claim disconnect that Symantec illustrates?
• What is the specification-drafting checklist for Section 101?
• What made the Finjan security claims eligible?
• What question should every software claim answer?
• What should an eligibility audit of an existing portfolio look for?
• What should a Section 101-proof specification read like?
• What should the strongest AI claims focus on?
• What single diagnostic question separates survivors from casualties?
• What warning from Diehr has the modern doctrine honored mostly in the breach?
• What would the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act do?
• Why are examiner interviews underused?
• Why can patents alone not fully protect software?
• Why did McRO's rule set survive?
• Why did the Core Wireless interface claims survive?
• Why does Section 101 carry such outsized weight in litigation?
• Why draft independent claims at varying specificity?
• Why is "abstract idea" still undefined?
• Why is Desjardins an institutional course correction?
• Why is narrow drafting affirmatively persuasive rather than merely defensive?
• Why keep a continuation pending throughout prosecution?