It’s been over 4 years since the United States of America Supreme Court of Justice issued the its decision on the Alice Corp. v CLS Bank case (the Alice case).  In most of the world, software is not patentable, except for that provided in the Paris Convention with respect to software being an element within a patentable hardware.   The Alice decision refers that abstract ideas are not patent-eligible and that implementing such claims utilizing a computer was not enough to transform that idea into subject matter entitled to patent protection, without specifying –in the opinion of some of the decision’s critics- what would make it patent eligible, since the Court limited its decision indicating that something “significantly more” shall concurred. Notwithstanding the jurisdiction in which the decision was issued, the Alice case provokes questioning if, before the technological advances we are living, isn’t it time to review the way to stimulate innovation hand to hand with software and determine if rules that were defined in the XIX and XX centuries shouldn’t be adapted to the XXI century informatics’ development.  Panelists will debate on the Alice decision’s criteria, the impact it has had, new decisions that seem to have softened such impact and further, where should the efforts focus in order to provide balance and legal certainty when referring to software protection.

Speakers:

	Song K. Jung	Dentons (USA)
	Alan J. Kasper	Sughrue Mion, PLLC (USA)

Moderator:

Roberto Rios

Hoglund & Pamias, P.S.C. (Puerto Rico)