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Supreme Court To Review "Business Method" Patents
xzvf alerts us to big news on the patent front: the Supreme Court decided today to review the validity of "business method" patents. In particular, the Supremes will look over the "In re: Bilski" case, which we have discussed before. "By agreeing to weigh in on the case, the high court is venturing into controversial terrain. Critics of business-method patents say it was never the intent of the law to protect such things, which in their view are often far closer to abstract concepts or mathematical algorithms rather than physical inventions. Proponents say they are key to promoting innovation in today's knowledge- and service-based economy. ... The court's decision to review the Bilski case caught many observers by surprise. The Bilski patent claims are widely viewed as vulnerable to challenge on a number of grounds, and the sense among some experts was it would make a poor test case. ... The Supreme Court won't hear arguments in Bilski until its next term, which begins in October. A ruling is likely during the first half of 2010."
I hope they throw out all the process patents but it'll be very long if ever.
Not to mention, it would require them to blatantly disregard the patent statute. 35 U.S.C. section 101, "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter ... may obtain a patent therefor[.]"
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Process, as used in 35USC referred to manufacturing processes not thought processes.
TFA says Bilski was rejected by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office on the basis that it simply involved a mental process.
Even if it has been a patent on a proceedure for sorting office papers into filing cabinets that did not require specialized equipment, it would STILL not rise to the level of a patentable process.
Processing raw corn into imitation leather shoe laces via a series of physical and chemical manipulations would be a patentable process.
See the difference?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
True, but I haven't heard anybody argue that process statutes are unconstitutional.
You have now. This is the blurb from Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of These United States of America:
If you ask me, I don't think the Founding Fathers had "business processes" in mind when they wrote this. Understandably at the writing of the Constitution, there were no audio recordings or video recordings or computer software. But business processes did exist, and if the intention was to count their creators among "authors and inventors," I should think that they would have done so, don't you?
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