Federal Circuit Appeals Court Limits Business-Method Patents

Zordak writes "The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has just issued its much-anticipated opinion in In Re Bilski [PDF]. This was a re-visit of the State Street issue of what constitutes patentable subject matter (including whether software and business methods are patentable). In summary, the court has affirmed and strengthened the 'machine-or-transformation' test, upholding the patent office's rejection of claims on a method for hedging risk in the field of commodities trading. Although the court refused to exclude software patents categorically, it is likely that the reasoning of this decision will be used to reject many software patents (note that some of the dissenting judges would have completely overturned State Street and tossed out all software and business method patents). Although not as sweeping as some had hoped for, it is certain that this decision, along with the Supreme Court's KSR decision last year, will lay a difficult mine field for those who want to patent software and business methods."

Comments

To patent something...

[ChromaticDragon]

It helps to be first

Re:To patent something...

[princessproton]

I recently took an IP law class (taught by a patent attorney) and he mentioned this fact. He also said that the best way to get a patent through is to contact the patent reviewer assigned to your application near the end of the month, agree to a rejection on specific grounds (even if they are minor, simply to help them fill their quota), and then resubmit the next month with a response to those issues. The reviewer assigned to your case is always the same, so they will recognize your application and approve it on its second time through as a quid pro quo. So yes, there's no denying there are issues and opportunities for corruption within the approval process, but it's actually more natural for the reviewers to reject rather than approve to make a dent in their caseload. Also, the grounds for objection (obviousness, for example) can be very subjective so it is possible to reject many patents based on a combination of several pieces of prior art and the assumption that it could have been discovered or invented by anyone with ordinary skill in the art, even if this might be unlikely in reality.

Full text as HTML

[schestowitz]

To those interested, here it is as HTML and here it is as a more complex HTML version with images.

Re: I'm a Democrat ..

[Warll]

$10 he's a free-loader .. give a man $700 billion he's a captain of industry ...

Those two are not mutual exclusive...