In a series of decisions over the last decade, the Supreme Court of the United States altered the classes of inventions that are eligible for patent protection—a body of law called subject matter eligibility. One of the more contentious of these decisions, Alice Corp. versus CLS Bank International (Alice), questioned the patentability of a broad class of inventions involving abstract ideas, particularly in digital technologies. Exploiting a quasinatural experiment, we find that the Alice decision reduced favorable patent eligibility decisions by 31% and significantly and persistently increased legal uncertainty in patent examination by 26% for a broad set of technologies. Our analysis quantifies how legal decisions can limit patent protection and highlights the need for further research on how greater legal uncertainty affects upstream investments supporting invention and downstream innovations fueling growth.

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Alice 后的专利资格：美国专利商标局专利审查的证据

在过去十年的一系列裁决中，美国最高法院改变了有资格获得专利保护的发明类别——称为主题资格的法律体系。这些决定中最具争议性的决定之一是Alice Corp. 诉 CLS Bank International (Alice)，对涉及抽象概念的广泛发明的可专利性提出质疑，特别是在数字技术领域。利用准自然实验，我们发现爱丽丝该决定将有利的专利资格决定减少了 31%，并显着且持续地将广泛技术的专利审查中的法律不确定性增加了 26%。我们的分析量化了法律决策如何限制专利保护，并强调需要进一步研究更大的法律不确定性如何影响支持发明的上游投资和推动增长的下游创新。