Posts Tagged: "Software"

So now what does SCOTUS’ ruling in Bilski “really” mean to us “mere mortals”? First, we’ve got two “wild cards” to deal with as noted above: (1) Stevens has retired; and (2) what does Scalia’s refusal to join Parts II B-2 and C-2 of Kennedy’s opinion for the Court signify. Some aspects of “wild card” #2 are dealt with above, but as also noted, there are still some aspects which are unclear or at least ambiguous as to how this refusal by Scalia should be viewed. This lack of clarity/ambiguity will require some sorting out by the Federal Circuit, which may come as early as the reconsideration by the Federal Circuit of Prometheus, Classen, or even the appeal in AMP v. USPTO involving the gene patenting controversy. In AMP, District Court Judge Sweet’s invalidity ruling regarding the method claims for determining a pre-disposition to breast/ovarian cancer using the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes relies at least in part upon the “M or T” test which, as noted above, SCOTUS unanimously relegated to “second class” status in Bilski as not the only test for patent-eligibility.

The reality is that individuals and companies fuel the piracy market. Simply stated, if there were no demand there would be no supply, so it is quite disingenuous for us to only point the finger at the supplier, but rather we ought to acknowledge that there is plenty of blame to go around, which may be a hard pill to swallow. And while there may an intellectual distinction between sharing software or music with a friend or family member, there exists a cultural indifference that borders on contempt for the rights of creators.

I have wondered out loud why we don’t have more of a bounce coming off this Great Recession. Certainly the historical dysfunctionality of the Patent Office prior to Director Kappos has something to do with that. It seems to me that open source has also lead many otherwise capable individuals to turn away from innovating. They are not looking for paradigm shifting open spaces and instead toward copying, or simply being blissfully ignorant about whether they are advancing or simply reinventing what others have already invented. The march forward has ceased in part due to the Patent Office backlog and due to an infatuation with open source and reinventing the wheel.

Companies enter into software development deals with independent contractors without adequately addressing copyright ownership. Many times, it is assumed by the programmer that the copyright, including the right to modify and prepare derivative works, remains with her or him. From the company side it is generally assumed that when someone is paid to create copyrighted material that flows from the original creation those copyrights will be owned by the commissioning party. Neither assumption is true, which means that when a dispute arises, litigation ensues and unnecessary expenses mount.

The Supreme Court held that the machine-or-transformation test is not the sole test for patent eligibility under §101, and that the Federal Circuit erred when it ruled that it was the singular test to determine whether an invention is patentable subject matter. Delivering the opinion for the Court was Justice Kennedy. There were no dissents, only concurring opinions, which is in and of itself a little surprising. In any event, Kennedy explained that the Federal Circuit decision ignored well established rules of statutory interpretation, and further explained that there is no ordinary, contemporary common meaning of the word “process” that would require it to be tied to a machine or the transformation of an article. Nevertheless, the machine or transformation test may be useful as an investigative tool, but it cannot be the sole test.

It is true that math itself is not protected, because it has been deemed (and rightfully so) an abstract idea, but the use of math in other processes and inventions is different. If you or I come up with a useful process that includes a mathematical calculation as one of its essential steps, then that calculation can be patented as part of the process.

Just because algorithms are processed mathematically by a computer, doesn’t mean the results have any mathematical value. The electrical charges that zip around inside a computer only have value because we assign it to them, not because they have any inherent value of their own. A piece of software is usually not designed to make mathematical calculations for the purpose of obtaining numerical results, but rather to transform information represented numerically into other pieces of information that do have value to us.

As a result of the useful, concrete and tangible result test and in conjunction with the disposition of the business method exception that never existed in the first place, software could come out of the closet and out into polite patent society. Gone were the days that patent attorneys would protect software by pretending that it was the hardware that presented the magic. So rather than claim a machine that accomplished a certain task patent attorneys could acknowledge that the machine is not the piece that makes things unique, but rather the software that drives the machine is the patentable innovation, of course presuming that it is new and nonobvious.

If you ever thought of starting a patent software company, I have some good news for you. Unlike the general software markets for, say, antivirus or mp3 software, the legal software market is just not very saturated. A lot of the existing software for patent lawyers is outdated, ridiculously expensive, and frankly, not that good. There is definitely room for…

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?

IFW Insight is a web-based application for searching, sharing and collaborating on US Patent Image File Wrapper (IFW) documents, which are also commonly referred to as “File History” documents. The IFW Insight search interface includes powerful search features including support for both proximity and Boolean search operations. The IFW Insight database currently includes over 1,000 IFW documents. IFWs are created by the USPTO as image-based documents, and are thus not searchable. Notwithstanding, by applying proprietary optical character recognition (OCR) algorithms The Patent Box is able to expose text data embedded within these image-based documents, thereby making them fully searchable.

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.

When embarking on a software development project it is critical to understand that in order to maximize the chance of obtaining a patent you need to approach the task with an engineering mind set, as well as a healthy familiarity with Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and once you release the process to end users a human element will complicate what should otherwise be a predictable, linear, machine driven response. Embrace the uncertainty and challenges because the fact that software rarely, if ever, works like it should is what makes a working process patentable.

As you can see from the first cartoon in the series, the creator of a project has left the company and his unfinished project is being passed on to the hapless Dilbert. Scott Adams, through Dilbert, teaches us not only that no one should ever trust Dilbert, but also about the importance of documenting your invention. I then take this opportunity to also opinion about the impending first to invent changes to US patent laws. What fun!

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.