The Supreme Court of the USA recently initiated a law change that has made patenting of new technologies much more difficult. This has particularly hit some technology families such as cloud services, location based services, machine learning and Big Data. Some ways however have been found out through which companies can continue developing high technology products without compromise. Business innovation must now take place between silos where white spaces are constantly available. Innovations must also take place on absolute top end scientific devices, which are yet beyond the court’s purview as such things haven’t been discovered yet. Parts of a device can be innovated independently, thus avoiding the Alice Rule as this new law has been nicknamed. The overall R & D strategy needs to focus on the greater intellectual property and not only company benefits. The GPS for example that is so helpful to drivers will always escape the purview as that has broader implications for societal benefits.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallphelps/2015/12/15/the-mother-of-all-innovation-challenges/