By far the most important takeaway from today’s Supreme Court decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank is the Court’s acknowledgment that “many computer-implemented claims are formally addressed to patent-eligible subject matter.” Despite failing to alleviate the profound confusion caused by its recent §101 analysis in cases like Bilski, Myriad, Mayo, and plenty of earlier cases going all the way back to Benson, the Court once and for all put to rest the absurd notion that computer-implemented inventions are not patentable under §101. Read more
Category: Software Patent
A Historical Perspective of Patent Litigation: Continued Innovation & Recurrent Controversy
In her forthcoming George Mason University Law Review article, “Trolls and Other Patent Inventions: Economic History and the Patent Controversy in the Twenty-First Century,” Professor B. Zorina Khan sheds light on today’s hot-button patent issues and controversies through a detailed exploration of concerns surrounding our patent system throughout its two hundred and twenty-four year evolution into what is today “the most effective economic engine known to man.” Read more
The Unintended Consequences of Patent "Reform"
By Steven Tjoe
Much of today’s patent policy debate focuses on the dynamics of patent litigation. Sensational anecdotes of abusive demand letters, litigants strategically exploiting bad patents, and tales of so-called “patent trolls” (reinforced by now debunked empirical claims) have captured the public’s imagination and spurred Congress to rush to revise the patent system. Read more
An Insightful Analysis of “Fair and Reasonable” in the Determination of FRAND Terms
By Steven Tjoe
In his forthcoming George Mason University Law Review article entitled “The Meaning of ‘Fair and Reasonable’ in the Context of Third-Party Determination of FRAND Terms,” Professor Damien Geradin explores the delicate balance of interests protected by the current system of arm’s length negotiations in the standard-setting process, and the detrimental effect disrupting this balance would have on standards-related technologies and our innovation economy. Read more
Crowdfunding's Impact on Start-Up IP Strategy
A Brief History of Software Patents (and Why They’re Valid)
Today, there is significant public debate over patents on the digital processes and machines that comprise computer software programs. These are often referred to as “software patents,” but this is an odd moniker. Aside from the similarly mislabeled debate over “DNA patents,” nowhere else in the patent system do we refer to patents on machines or processes in a specific technological field in this way; for instance, people do not talk about “automobile brake patents” or “sex toy patents” as their own category of patents deserving of approval or scorn. Read more