The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday granted the solicitor general of the United States permission to participate in oral arguments next week in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. V. CLS Bank International, giving the government a voice in one of the most closely watched patent cases of the year.
The case, which has drawn more than 50 amicus briefs since it was taken up by the high court in December, will consider the extent to which software warrants patent protection. Although software has been considered patent-eligible for almost half a century, the standards for determining which software patents pass muster were put in flux last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, whose fractured ruling in the CLS case included six separate opinions.
