U.S. Patent Grants Fell 7% Last Year, but ‘Software-Related’ Grants Remained at 63%
As an update to my posts from 2017 , 2019 , 2020 , March 2021 , and August 2021 , it has now been 93 months since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank decision. Yet the debate still rages over when a software (or computer-implemented) claim is patentable versus being simply an abstract idea “free to all men and reserved exclusively to none” (as eloquently phrased over 73 years ago by then-Supreme Court Justice Douglas in Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kalo Inoculant Co . ). Further, it has been 11 years since famed venture capitalist Marc Andreessen wrote the influential and often-quoted op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal titled “ Why Software Is Eating the World .” Today, the digital transformation where software is “eating the world” is undeniable. Let’s look at some facts and figures from the USA, Europe, and China. In 2021, M&A values in the technology sector exceeded USD 1 trillion, the...