I recently posted about a decision in the US in the case of CLS vs Alice Corporation which related to the patentability of software claims.
Subsequently, the Eastern Discrict of Texas has decided a case, DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 2013 WL 3187161 (E.D.Tex. 2013). You can read details on the informative Patently-O blog. The claim that was in issue was:
An e-commerce outsourcing process comprising the steps of:
a) storing a look and feel description associated with a first website in a data store associated with a second website;
b) including within a web page of the first website, which web page has a look and feel substantially corresponding to the stored look and feel description, a link correlating the web page with a commerce object; and
c) upon receiving an activation of the link from a visitor computer to which the web page has been served, sewing to the visitor computer from the second website a composite web page having a look and feel corresponding to the stored look and feel description of the first website and having content based on the commerce object associated with the link.
The court decided that the claim defines an invention that is patent eligible subject matter. The claim was held to define a “specific set of physical linkages that involve a data store, server, computer, that together, and through the claimed interconnectivity, accomplishes the process of displaying composite web pages having the look and feel of the source web page“, and therefore was considered as a “new machine” that could be eligble for patent protection.
So this case seems to indicate that CLS vs Alice has not made a big difference to decision making in the US.
Having said that, and as noted in the Patently-O link above, the case can still be appealed so it may be one to watch. Also, the Patently-O blog also contains a useful list of recently decided cases in this area, which does include some examples that have been decided as being directed to patent-ineligble subject matter.