Posts Tagged: "patentable subject matter"

Last week when I wrote Broken Record, No Bilski for You Today, which was a fun combination of Soup Nazi meets LPs, I dangled the thought that perhaps the Supreme Court would not decide Bilski this term and might hold the case over. I said I refused to speculate at this point, but some of those commenting on that article asked me to engage in the speculation, as did others via e-mail and some that I have encountered in the industry since then. I still think it is unlikely that the Supreme Court will hold Bilski over, just because it is an extraordinarily rare occurrence, but with only two more decision days this term (i.e., Monday June 21 and Monday June 28), it seems appropriate to at least ponder the rare occurrence of the Supreme Court holding a case over, which the Court did in Marbury v. Madison and Brown v. Board of Education.

After 6 months and 15 days we still wait for a decision in Bilski v. Kappos, perhaps the most anticipated Supreme Court patent decision of all time. So, once again, it seems as if the patent story of the day will be the one that never materialized. The difficulty the Supreme Court is facing is in all likelihood this: how do they kill the Bilski patent application as being unpatentable subject matter without also killing the US economy. A decision that is too broad not only could put an end to the pure business methods akin to the Bilski “invention,” but could also put an end to the patentability of software, business methods and medical innovations. Thus, it is hardly an overstatement to observe that the Bilski case, if decided improperly, could destroy an already fragile US economy and set back medical research decades.

You just couldn’t make this stuff up. A team of humans creates genetically altered and a self-replicating synthetic cell using a computer. I suspect that computer was running some pretty powerful and sophisticated software. So the anti-patent crowd should be sufficiently whipped into a frenzy over this story top to bottom. It hits all the hot button issues, life, genetics, software, ethics and it rolls them all into one. But while we might relish the anguish of those in the anti-patent community, this type of scientific advance should not be taken lightly because it has the potential to fire up those with an anti-patent agenda and could also fire up religious groups as well. The coming together of such strange bedfellows would result in an alliance with enormous political power. So innovators need to pay attention and be vigilant.

Today the United States Supreme Court issued four decisions, and none of them were Bilski v. Kappos. If you look back at the lag time between oral argument and decision over the last 17 Supreme Court patent decisions the average is 2.82 months. KSR was 5.07 months and as of today Bilski is 6.29 months. Does this mean Bilski will be more earth shattering than KSR, which is the biggest patent decision of at least the last generation?

There are few things in this world that irritate me more than hypocrisy. Did you know that since 1976 Duke University has had 716 issued US patents, 266 of which in some way, shape or form relate to genetics and 156 of which relate in some way, shape or form relate to both genetics AND cancer. While Duke University throws Myriad Genetics under the bus over its patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes tied to breast and ovarian cancer, Duke has its own patent on identification and sequencing of the BRCA2 cancer susceptibility gene. How convenient!

Last week, on Thursday, April 15, 2010, while many individuals were scrambling at the last minute to file income tax returns in the US, Duke University released a study that, not surprisingly, says patents block competition. WOW! Thank you so much for clearing that up Duke! What would we have ever done without the learned elite at Duke University telling us that patents block competition. Seriously… what was your first clue? For goodness sakes I hope you didn’t take much time or energy coming to that conclusion, given that is exactly what patents are supposed to do. You see, they provide exclusive rights, which means the owner of the right has the ability to exclude. So let’s all breath a sigh of relief that the money spent on an academic study actually reached a conclusion that is true and accurate. Now, if the conclusions drawn from the study were only as commonsensical as the discovery of patents conveying exclusive rights.

The pen and paper myth goes like this: software should not be patentable because anything that can be done with pen and paper is not an invention and exclusive rights should not be given to any one person or entity. Presumably the thought process here is that if you patent software you would prevent someone from engaging in the method using pen and paper. Of course, that is not true, but why would a little thing like reality get in the way of making an otherwise absurd and provably incorrect statement? Such provably wrong statements are rampant in the patent world today, particularly in light of what appears to be an all out media assault on technology and innovation that would make the persecutors of Galileo proud.

Months ago I predicted that the Supreme Court would issue the decision on the day that is least convenient for me. That is what always seems to be the case with big news items. They seem to happen when I am away from my computer and attending to other matters, traveling or teaching. Based on the belief that the decision will issue on either April 19, 20, 21, 26, 27 or 28, my prediction is April 21, 2010. That would be the most awful day for me because of my calendar of events on April 21 and 22. So if you are going to start up an office pool on when Bilski will issue I would beg, borrow and plead for April 21.

Unfortunately, those who oppose software patents frequently, if not always, want to turn the patentability requirements as they apply to software and business methods into a single step inquiry. They want it all to ride on patentable subject matter, which is a horrible mistake. The majority of the Federal Circuit got it completely wrong in Bilski, and other notable recent decisions. Patentable subject matter is a threshold inquiry and should not be used to weed out an entire class of innovation simply because bad patents could and will issue if the other patentability requirements are not adequately applied. That is taking the “easy” way out and is simply wrong.

On January 21, 2010, the United States District Court for the Central District of California issued a ruling in Big Baboon, Inc. v. Dell, Inc. et al, staying further consideration on the motion for summary judgment for invalidity until such time that the United States Supreme Court issues its much anticipated decision in Bilski v. Kappos. This is exactly what I have been suggesting (see Offering Help), and it has amazed me that other district courts and the United States Patent Office are plowing ahead and making Bilski rulings.

It has been just over two months since the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Bilski v. Kappos, and we likely have at least several more months to wait for a ruling. Notwithstanding, pundits and commentators are certainly trying to figure out what the Supreme Court will do, engaging in thought exercises and gazing into crystal balls. The crystal ball…

The patent backlog and all of the associated problems that go along with it, such as the increasing length of time it takes to obtain a patent, is the largest single problem facing the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  In fact, this problem is not unique to the US Patent Office.  Other Patent Offices around the world are also…

It is not at all an overstatement to say the fate of future innovation in the US rests squarely on the Supreme Court getting the Bilski ruling correct. Long ago the manufacturing jobs started leaving and they are gone and not coming back. To the extent that the US has anything other than a service economy it is thanks to intellectual property and intangible assets, and everyone who seriously considers the matter knows that the chief intangible asset for businesses is software.

I thought it might be interesting to take a look at a few recently granted patents and see some of the far more important inventions that are worthy of obtaining patent protection. Before I go any further allow me to point out that I am not trying to beat up on the Patent Office here, but rather to illustrate the complete and total reckless stupidity that is gripping the debate relating to whether we should allow software patents and business method patents. The Patent Office issues patents (again, hurray!) and they are not and should not engage in picking what subjectively warrants protection, KSR and the Supreme Court notwithstanding.

Recently I received an e-mail with a link alerting me to something posted on the 271 blog relating to Bilski. The video (viewable on the 271 blog) is taken from a movie about World War II that focuses at least in part on Adolph Hitler. The video posted is from a scene that appears to be taking place in Hitler’s…