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USPTO: No Change to Software Patentability Evaluation | 244 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
USPTO: No Change to Software Patentability Evaluation
Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, May 22 2013 @ 11:53 AM EDT
Gene Quinn wrote:
The message [from the USPTO] was this: “there is no change in examination procedure for evaluating subject matter eligibility.” (emphasis in the original)
What Gene Quinn failed to note was that his headline does not relate what the USPTO actually said.

I have few problems with the USPTO guidelines for the examination procedure.
The plain and unambiguous meaning of section 101 is that any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may be patented if it meets the requirements for patentability set forth in Title 35...

Federal courts have held that 35 U.S.C. § 101 does have certain limits. First, the phrase “anything under the sun that is made by man” is limited by the text of 35 U.S.C. § 101, meaning that one may only patent something that is a machine, manufacture, composition of matter or a process... Second, 35 U.S.C. § 101 requires that the subject matter sought to be patented be a “useful” invention...

The subject matter courts have found to be outside of, or exceptions to, the four statutory categories of invention is limited to abstract ideas, laws of nature and natural phenomena.
CLS Bank v. Alice Corp requires no change to the process. It is the understanding that adding software to an existing machine does not create a new and useful machine which should change the outcome of the process.

I think that Gene Quin has failed to see that comments like:
[E]very general- purpose computer will include “a computer,” “a data storage unit,” and “a communications controller” that would be capable of performing the same generalized functions required of the claimed systems to carry out the otherwise abstract methods recited therein.
makes a dramatic difference on how the procedure will apply to software on a general-purpose computer.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

USPTO: No Change to Software Patentability Evaluation
Authored by: DannyB on Thursday, May 23 2013 @ 01:50 PM EDT
So are you saying that the patent approval process is to drop applications into
a room full of cats with their feet attached to PATENT GRANTED stamps?

---
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

If it is Gene Quinn...
Authored by: deck2 on Thursday, May 23 2013 @ 02:37 PM EDT
If it is Gene Quinn commenting on a patent issue you know it is in favor of
patenting anything and everything for no reason at all.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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