Patent eligibility for healthcare IT applications

Healthcare IT, which includes electronic medical records, diagnostic systems and medical devices, makes up a market expected to top $100 billion by 2020, according to Grandview Research. But this growth has been tempered by an often hostile environment for patenting, especially under section 101 of the US Patent Act. Decisions of the Supreme Court in Mayo (diagnostic methods), Myriad (gene sequences) and Alice (software) have raised substantial uncertainty around whether certain inventions are an “abstract idea, law of nature, or natural phenomenon” (tending not to be patentable) or if, as claimed, the invention contains additional (potentially patentable) elements.