미국 소프트웨어 특허의 인정범위-Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International 판결을 중심으로-

Recently, a notable judgement(Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International) which is able to change the criteria of patent eligibility came out from the Supreme Court of the United State of America. The issuing patents are for mitigating settlement risk by using a computerized trading platform for conducting financial transactions in which a third party settles obligations between two other parties to eliminate the risk. The Supreme Court held that the patents are invalid because the claims were drawn to an abstract idea, and implementing those claims on a computer was not enough to transform that idea to a patentable invention. According Alice case, in order to analyze the judical exceptions which are nature of law, natural phenomena and abstract idea under the 35 U.S.C. § 101 for the subject matter eligibility, Mayo framework has been introduced. It is expected that the influence of software patent rights is getting weaker than before in the United State of America because of Alice case. As the ground of non-eligibility of software invention is established, the measure is prepared to invalidate any software invention directed to abstract idea in order to weaken the patent trolls' litigation. Therefore, the problem of litigation abusement of patent trolls would be expected to be solved partially. Also, the Alice case is going to affect judgments of the related cases in Korea, as well as Japan and other countries which have been influenced by the patent policy of the United States of America.