Posts Tagged: "Martin Goetz"

Have We Gone Too Far to Eradicate Weak Patents?

Asking whether the industry has gone too far to eradicate weak patents misses the point entirely, and to some extent will allow those who want the patent system to continue its march off the cliff to inappropriately claim the moral high ground. Regardless of how you prefer to characterize problem patents, whether it be as weak, bad, low quality, or invalid, no one wants those problematic patents to issue or be used to harass individuals or businesses as they sometimes have been used by bad actors. But that begs the real question. In an attempt to eradicate the system from those problematic patents have things gotten out of control and, thereby caused collateral damage in an indiscriminate way to all patents, including high quality, strong patents? To that question the answer must be a resounding yes!

Patent and Trade Secret Wishes for 2016

This year our panel has a diverse variety of wishes. We see the usual wishes relating to patent eligibility and the abstract idea exception, with a reference to a Moody Blue’s song to make the point. We also see wishes relating to inter partes review (IPR) and the biotech industry, and a wish for uniformity at the Federal Circuit. There is a wish for federal trade secret legislation to finally pass, and a reminder that elections matter, even for us in the intellectual property space, a topic that we will return to quite a lot during 2016 here at IPWatchdog.com. We also see several exasperated wishes, hoping for solutions to the real problems facing the industry rather than the same old tired cries for “reform” that would benefit only a handful of large entities while harming practically everyone else.

What Mattered in 2015: Insiders Reflect on Biggest Moments in IP

This year our panel of industry insiders is quite diverse, with commentary from Bob Stoll (Drinker Biddle), Ashley Keller (Gerchen Keller), Paul Morinville (US Inventor), Alden Abbot (Heritage Foundation), Marla Grossman (American Continental Group) and Steve Kunin (Oblon). Unlike last year where there was near unanimous agreement that the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank was the biggest moment of the year, this year our panel of industry experts focused on a variety of different matters. There was one recurring theme, however. The inability of patent reform to advance on Capitol Hill was undoubtedly one of the biggest stories of the year.

Picking winners and losers based on innovation design is unsound, unwise, and just plain stupid

On some basic level everything can be characterized as an idea. It is also all too easy for those who are not technically trained to believe, no matter how wrongly, that implementation is a trivial or ministerial act. Just monitor the windmills, if they are operating at a less than optimal level adjust them, tilt the blades a little. No big deal. Anyone could have thought of that, and a college student could have written the code over a weekend. Moreover, windmills are extremely old technology, so merely applying a computer process to something so old can’t be patent eligible.

The History of Software Patents in the United States

Software patents have a long history in the United States. Computer implemented processes, or software, has been patented in the United States since 1968… Originally in Benson, the Supreme Court decided that software was not patentable, but then later retracted the blanket prohibition against patenting software in Diehr. The Federal Circuit then spent the better part of two decades trying to figure out under what circumstances software (or computer related processes) should be patented. This seemed to culminate in the 1998 ruling of the Federal Circuit in State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc. Unfortunately, the waters were once again made murky as a result of the 2008 ruling by the Federal Circuit in In re Bilski. Some questions were answered when the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Bikski v. Kappos in 2010, notably saying that business methods are patent eligible, but the Supreme Court did not definitively say that software is patent eligible. Then in June 2014, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank, which has for the time being slammed the door shut for many, if not most, software patents.