The patentability of financial processes after the Supreme Court's Alice decision

In the recent Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International decision, the Supreme Court invalidated a patent directed to a method for managing settlement risk because it was merely claiming an "abstract idea." This decision will force the Patent Office and lower courts to determine what "abstract idea" means according to the newly adopted two-step framework for evaluating whether a patent is impermissibly directed to an abstract idea. This column examines the U.S. Supreme Court's decision and assesses its implications for those with intellectual property in the financial services industry, concluding that financial services providers need to be proactive in assessing the impact of the Alice decision in order to protect their stake in intellectual property and mitigate the risk of their patents being deemed patent-ineligible.