​What you need. What we know.™ – Patents: Non-Patentable Subject Matter

“Anything under the sun that is made by man” is patentable. Or so the US Supreme Court once quoted in a 1980 case involving an “invention of a human-made, genetically engineered bacterium capable of breaking down crude oil[.]” Emphasis on the word “made”; abstract ideas are non-patentable subject matter.

Most recently in the spotlight in the area of non-patentable subject matter, 35 U.S.C. § 101, is the ...