The Post-Bilski Era Gets Underway

bfwebster writes "A set of pharmaceutical process patents for 'evaluating and improving the safety of immunization schedules' (Classen v. Biogen et al.; see US Patents 6,420,139; 6,638,379; 5,728,385; 5,723,283) were held to be invalid due to unpatentability. The decision was appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but was upheld with a terse citation to In re Bilski (which decision we discussed here). Here's the entire text of the appeals decision: 'In light of our decision in In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc), we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment that these claims are invalid under 35 U.S.C. 101. Dr. Classen's claims are neither "tied to a particular machine or apparatus" nor do they "transform a particular article into a different state or thing." Bilski, 545 F.3d at 954. Therefore we affirm.' It will be interesting to see what happens when these same standards start getting applied to software-related patents."

Comments

To low-scored poster: Nor the first time

[Jane Q. Public]

that you have gotten it wrong. I do understand the difference between creative and functional, but apparently you are not familiar with the legal history of same, except perhaps only some that is pretty recent, which is exactly the problem I was pointing out. Please see my reply to the other respondent.

Re:That sidesteps the issue.

[rsborg]

Once it's compiled and running through a particular state machine to accomplish certain transformations of data, it's most certainly a method and apparatus.

Calling it a state machine doesn't make it any more physical.

There's no particular reason in my mind why a machine has to be physical to somehow magically be patentable.

However we're not discussing "in your mind" (unless you happen to be a judge hearing IP cases) but in terms of the law, which is based on judicial review and jurisprudence. This ruling pretty much aligns with both historical and current popular views, that "virtual" machinery does not constitute "real" machinery. The fact remains that scarcity in real physical goods is inherent and thus patents make sense.

Re:Irrelevant.

[Joe U]

In Windows thanks to OLE, my spreadsheet (Excel) has a browser in it. A browser that can run Flash or Java.

My spreadsheet application is nothing but a series of objects in an interlinked multipurpose computer.

Yeah, I understand what you're trying to say, unfortunately it's broken.