"Bilski" Case May End Business Method Patents

hey sends us to a blog at NYTimes outlining the upcoming appeal of the case known as "re Bilski," which could spell the end of patents on methods of doing business later this year. One patent expert is quoted: "I think this is the unraveling of business method patents... I think there is a process we are going to go through to get there and the Supreme Court is going to be the one that decides it." But another expert thinks the case is unlikely to bring down the whole class of patents: "Definitions of business method patents always end up being circular. You can't really ban something unless you can define it and no one is offering a definition we can use."

Comments

Re:WTF? Am I missing something?

[theM_xl]

I'm no more a lawyer than you are, but I don't think common sense is allowed when it comes to law. Though there are also those who claim common sense is patented, and the cost of a license is prohibitive _

Re:^_^

[Critical Facilities]

They use all this legal-speak to define their patent, in order to make them seem novel and inventive.
What the hell are you talking about? You obviously have no experience in creating/drafting patents. Take, for example, the patent I hold entitled "Manually actuated pressure initiation of uni-phonetic communication" which claims benefit under provision F.U.D. 34-19.2 of Provisional Application License 453/21.2532 filed in April 1984 which very clearly states:

This invention relates to a method of interfacing between an operator and a portable peripheral of an electronic calculation and computation machine (heretofore referred to as a "computer") for the purposes of allowing a methodology wherefore force may be applied at incremental levels from the operators singular or multiple digits to individually assigned and actuated surface switches (heretofore referred to as "keys") with the designed intent being to allow for individual transference of intended characters occurring in the alphabet of said language/verbiage (referred to in Section 12-4.987) in the order of the operator's determination with the sole intent of creating collections of said characters for the purposes of "spelling" and relating notions, ideas, and phrases (henceforth referred to as "words").

See? How simple is that? I mean, come on, it's not like I went out of my way to make that complicated, you must not understand this type of thing very well.

Re:How about

[fluffywuffy]

But if National Geographic were to publish an article entitled "The Girls of the California Junior College System Hunt the Wildebeest Naked, ..."

I'd be at the front of the queue to buy it :-)