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Canada Rejects Business Method Patents
"Canadian Patent Appeal Board Rules Against Business Method Patents," says a new post from Michael Geist; Lorien_the_first_one writes "Looks like the US courts could face some peer pressure," and supplies this excerpt: "[T]he panel delivered very strong language rejecting the mere possibility of business method patents under Canadian law. The panel noted that 'since patenting business methods would involve a radical departure from the traditional patent regime, and since the patentability of such methods is a highly contentious matter, clear and unequivocal legislation is required for business methods to be patentable.' ... In applying that analysis to the Amazon.com one-click patent, the panel concluded that 'concepts or rules for the more efficient conduct of online ordering, are methods of doing business. Even if these concepts or rules are novel, ingenious and useful, they are still unpatentable because they are business methods.'"
I really wanted to see that Amazon patent fail, and I'm glad Canada make this decision on Business Method Patents. Maybe IBM's 45 minute meeting patent will meet the same fate.
Remember folks, the very pro-business conservative government is in power right now so they could introduce legislation to allow business method patents at any time. All it will take is the right amount of money greasing the right palms.
Patent Law in Canada falls under federal jurisdiction. However, patent law can be enforced in either Federal Court or in the provincial courts. It is up to patent holders to enforce their patents by suing infringers, and nowadays they usually choose to do this in the Federal Court.
The criteria for patents under Canadian law are:
Also, there are certain matters that cannot be patented, according to the Patent Act. These areas differ quite a bit from those things that can/cannot be patented in the US. For example, in the US software cannot be patented (although they could be copyrighted), in Canada software can be patented if it meets the usual requirements - if it has an immediate, real-world, practical and useful result. Medical treatments within the body also cannot be patented, although external diagnostic tests or devices can be.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
clear and unequivocal legislation is required for business methods to be patentable
Since when has that stopped anyone? :(
The courts in Canada often defer to Parliamentary supremacy. In the Supreme Court case about the "oncomouse" (genetically-engineered mouse that Harvard College was trying to patent) the patent was rejected, but not because the court said that higher lifeforms could not be patentable, even though it seemed that that was what the court wanted to decide and that was what the government was arguing before the court (they wanted to patent rejected). Instead, the court rejected the patent on much more technical grounds, because the patent application claimed to patent the "manufacture" of the "composition of matter" of the mouse. The court did not reject the patent by saying that higher lifeforms were exempt from patents. The court explicitly said that for such a major matter, that if the government did not want such lifeforms to be patentable, then Parliament should change the patent legislation to explicitly state that such lifeforms were non-patentable.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
When has the US ever decided to follow suit?
Metric system?
Foreign Policies?
I'll just wait till next week when the US puts Canada on some anti-capitialist watchlist for not adopting their patent laws, much like they did with the copyright/DMCA laws.
Bring a sweater. A really, really warm sweater.
It's not intended to stop anyone. This is the courts doing what they're supposed to do. They look at the laws, they look at what someone is trying to do and apply the law. They then say: "You don't like our decision, change the basis on which we made it."