supreme court invites acting SG to file brief in American axle

On May 3, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court invited the Acting Solicitor General to file a brief in the cert petition filed by American Axle & Manufacturing. On July 31, 2020, in a decision written by Judge Dyk, the Federal Circuit held American Axle's patent invalid for patent ineligible subject matter.  American Axle & Mfg, Inc. v. Neapco Holdings LLC, et al., No. 2018-1763 (Fed. Cir. July 31, 2020). American Axle sued Neapco alleging infringement of its patent directed to a method of manufacturing drive shaft assemblies by inserting a liner into a drive shaft to dampen certain vibrational modes. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment as to eligibility of the asserted claims and the district court held the asserted claims ineligible under Section 101.  At step 1 of the Mayo/Alice analysis, the district court concluded that the asserted claims considered as a whole are directed to the mere application of Hooke's law.  At step 2 of the Mayo/Alice analysis, the district court determined that the additional steps consist of well-understood, routine, conventional activity already engaged in by the scientific community and add nothing significant beyond the sum of their parts taken separately.  American Axle appealed to the Federal Circuit.  In affirming the decision, the Federal Circuit held that the asserted claims are directed to a natural law because it clearly invokes a natural law, and nothing more, to accomplish a desired result. In her dissent, Judge Moore stated that the majority's true concern was not that the asserted claims are directed to Hooke's law but rather the patentee's failure to precisely claim how to tune a liner to dampen both bending and shell mode vibrations.  Full text of the Federal Circuit opinion is available here. 
After the Federal Circuit declined to hear the case en banc in a 6-6 vote, American Axle filed its cert petition with the Supreme Court.