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Supreme Court To Review Software Patents
New submitter chrylis writes "SCOTUSblog is reporting that the U.S. Supreme Court has accepted an appeal in Alice v. CLS Bank, a case in which the Federal Circuit ruled haphazardly that the particular patents in question were invalid but did not address the issue of software patents generally. 'The case will provide a new test of the Patent Act’s most basic provision — Section 101, which broadly outlines what kinds of inventions are patentable. One of the long-standing exceptions to the types of inventions mentioned in that section is that an abstract idea can never be patented. That issue arises frequently these days, especially with rapidly developing technology in computer software. The EFF wrote a summary of the issues in the case when it was before the Federal Circuit this spring. The case files are also available."
IAAPA (I am a patent agent)- My take on the matter is that software patents pass the threshold for patent eligibility, but not for patentability, which is quite different. Most software-implemented subject matter is certainly patent-eligible, but ought to be struck down under 35 U.S.C. 103 (non-obviousness). Courts have said that 101 is a threshold inquiry, and in my opinion I don't see why slashdotters would have a problem with striking down software patents not because as a class of subject matter they are ineligible, but because the vast majority are obvious.
The case involves Alice Corporation who holds four patents originating in the 1990s of which was for "a computerized system for creating and exchanging financial instruments such as derivatives." These patents were challenged by CLS Bank International in 2007. The district court ruled summarily for CLS in that none of patents were valid. The Federal Circuit initially reversed the lower court; however, the full panel (en banc) voted 7 out of 10 to affirm the district court but also issued 5 separate concurring and dissenting opinions.
This confusion was noted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in its amicus brief:
" . . . the Federal Circuit has failed to implement a workable standard—or, frankly, any standard at all—as to what computer- and Internet-implemented inventions are patentable. The resulting legal instability has driven up the already-ballooning costs of patent litigation . . ."
In my opinion, it appears that main patent simply added "on the computer" to an existing process, namely in an business transaction between two parties, there is a third party that ensures that payment is made and is facilitated. The computer made the transaction faster and more automated as noted by Judge Lourie in his opinion.
“simply appending generic computer functionality to lend speed or efficiency to the performance of an otherwise abstract concept does not meaningfully limit claim scope for purposes of patent eligibility."
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Fuck you very much, NSA.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I'd give them somewhat more credit than that. They definitely made the right call in Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics (ruling that genes couldn't be patented), even though they had no knowledge about biology.
The fact that they're willing to hear this case makes me somewhat optimistic; if they truly didn't understand or care about software patents, they wouldn't have gotten involved. The worst they can do is maintain the status quo, which is what would happen if they didn't intervene.