Supreme Court Strikes Down Another Software Patent (Alice Corp. vs. CLS Bank)

Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd, Petitioner v. CLS Bank International Et Al.
The U.S. Supreme Court found that the abstact idea of mitigating "settlement risk" (the risk that only one party will do what it promised) is patent ineligible even if done with a computer.  The Court held that "merely requiring generic computer implementation fails to transform that abstact idea into a patent-eligible invention."  573 U. S. ____ (2014).

Based on this ruling, Houston software developers should either be pleased or dissatisfied about the future of software patents.