Hi, Does anyone know how this affects us -if it does- and if it might change anything for the packages and programs that have problems with software patents? Might there be any consequences out of this -even though it is somehow USA-specific- or is it just blog noise?
Greetings, Miry The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc. [1] The Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in article 101 of the Patent Act. In the most recent of these three — the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal — the Office takes the position that process inventions generally are unpatentable unless they 'result in a physical transformation of an article' or are 'tied to a particular machine. [2] In two recent decisions announced after the oral arguments in the Bilski case, Ex parte Langemyr (May 28, 2008) and Ex parte Wasynczuk (June 2, 2008), [3] the PTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences has now supplied an answer to that question: A general purpose computer is not a particular machine, and thus innovative software processes are unpatentable if they are tied only to a general purpose computer. [1] The Death of Google's Patents? http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2008/07/the-death-of-go.html [2] The Death of Nearly All Software Patents? http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/07/24/1458215.shtml [3] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/bpai/its/fd081495.pdf http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/bpai/its/fd081496.pdf -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
