The U.S. Supreme Court case Alice Corp. Pty Ltd v CLS Bank International in 2013 revolved around the patent eligibility of computer-implemented inventions, specifically software patents. Alice Corporation, a financial market company that held several patents on electronic methods and systems for mitigating settlement risk using a third-party intermediary, sued CLS Bank International for infringement of these patents. The court had to determine whether or not the claims made by Alice Corporation fell within patent-eligible subject matter under Section 101 of the Patent Act. In a unanimous decision led by Justice Clarence Thomas, it was ruled that merely requiring generic computer implementation fails to transform an abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention under this section. The court found that all claims were drawn to an abstract idea (intermediated settlement), while none provided enough inventive concept to transform this abstraction into something more than what they called "a mere drafting effort designed to monopolize the [abstract idea]". This landmark ruling set important precedent regarding software and business method patents in America.

In the case of Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd v. CLS Bank Int'l, there was no formal dissenting opinion as the decision was unanimous (9-0). However, Justice Sotomayor wrote a concurring opinion in which she agreed with the majority's judgment but suggested that any claim that merely describes a method of doing business does not qualify as a "process" under patent law. She argued for an even stricter interpretation of what constitutes patentable subject matter than what is outlined in Section 101 of the Patent Act and expressed concern about patents being granted too easily for computer-implemented inventions.