Guest Post by David O. Taylor, Associate Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law. Professor Taylor recently drafted an article summarizing the results of a survey of venture capitalists and private equity investors. The survey explores how the Supreme Court’s recent patent eligibility cases have influenced firm decisions to invest in companies developing technology. -Jason
Numerous inventors, lawyers, companies, industry groups, professors, and judges have decried the Supreme Court’s recent patent eligibility cases—particularly its 2012 decision in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. and its 2014 decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International. These cases replaced the longstanding patent eligibility standard with a new one requiring, in particular, a so-called “inventive concept.”
Building upon judges’ views that they are bound by the Supreme Court’s new standard and their concerns that that standard is having devastating consequences, the American Intellectual Property Law Association and the Intellectual Property Owners Association believe the situation is so untenable that they have proposed that Congress overturn that standard.
Others, however, disagree. They effectively ask: To what extent have the Court’s cases shifting eligibility law actually impacted decisions to invest in the development of technology? Moreover, exactly how have these cases actually impacted investment decisions? And to the extent these cases have had a significant impact on investment decisions, has that impact proven to be positive or negative in the sense of increased or decreased investment?
Existing literature provides surprisingly little data even to begin to answer these questions. And, make no mistake, these questions are fundamental, and the accuracy of their answers is important. Answers to these questions will either support congressional intervention in the law of patent eligibility or counsel against it. Thus, the questions ought to be asked and—more importantly—answered by reference to hard data rather than gut feeling or prognostication. Quite literally, future innovation—perhaps even lifesaving innovation—hangs in the balance.
And so that is exactly what I have done: gathered data to help begin identifying accurate answers to these questions. In particular, I have conducted a survey of 475 venture capital and private equity investors to study the impact of the Court’s eligibility cases on their firms’ decisions to invest in companies developing technology. This survey is the first of its kind, and the data it has provided is sorely needed.