By Michael Borella — One of the more frustrating aspects of current patent-eligibility law is that it lends itself all too easily to mischief. In particular, given that the eligibility test under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as interpreted by the courts is poorly-defined, conclusory reasoning frequently rears its ugly head. Such reasoning is sometimes found in § 101 rejections of claims by examiners of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The more egregious of these rejections involve little actual analysis, no actual analysis, the ignoring of claim elements, the ignoring of stated improvements of the claimed invention, and attempts to…
