Editing Software patent debate (section)

=== Subsequent developments ===
After ''Alice'', the Federal Circuit and district courts invalidated large numbers of business-method and software patents based on those courts' interpretations of ''Alice''. Federal Circuit Judge [[William Curtis Bryson|William Bryson]] summed this up in these terms:

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In short, such patents, although frequently dressed up in the argot of invention, simply describe a problem, announce purely functional steps that purport to solve the problem, and recite standard computer operations to perform some of those steps. The principal flaw in these patents is that they do not contain an “inventive concept” that solves practical problems and ensures that the patent is directed to something “significantly more than” the ineligible abstract idea itself. [Citing ''Alice'' and ''Mayo''.] As such, they represent little more than functional descriptions of objectives, rather than inventive solutions. In addition, because they describe the claimed methods in functional terms, they preempt any subsequent specific solutions to the problem at issue. [Citing ''Alice'' and ''Mayo''.] It is for those reasons that the Supreme Court has characterized such patents as claiming “abstract ideas” and has held that they are not directed to patentable subject matter.
<ref>[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15554380012400502922&q=%22Loyalty+Conversion%22&hl=en&as_sdt=20006&as_vis=1 ''Loyalty Conversion Sys. Corp. v. American Airlines, Inc.''].</ref>
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