Posts Tagged: "Software"

Disclosure Requirements in Software Patents: Avoiding Indefiniteness

How much detail is needed in a patent application for a software-based invention? Software patents present some unique challenges that many other kinds of patent applications do not need to contend with, one of them being the level of disclosure and care in drafting needed to avoid indefiniteness issues. While source code is not required in most cases, a growing body of case law indicates that insufficient detail about the algorithms underpinning the invention could render the patent claims indefinite, meaning that the scope of the claimed invention is too ambiguous. If the patent examiner deems the disclosure to be inadequate during examination, indefiniteness could prevent a patent from issuing. In the case of an already-issued patent, indefiniteness could render the claims unenforceable.

The Upshot of Google v. Oracle: An Absurd Ruling Will Lead to Absurd Results

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, or so states Newton’s third law of motion. It is safe to say that Newton never met an intellectual property lawyer, and he never had to deal with the whims and fancy of an arbitrary and capricious Supreme Court. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in Google v. Oracle, in which the Court ruled that Google’s intentional copying of 11,500 lines of computer code from Oracle was a fair use despite the fact that Google made many tens of billions of dollars in the process, and despite the fact that the record showed that Google consciously chose to copy, rather than independently create, because programmers were already familiar with the 11,500 lines of code they wanted to take.

License to Copy: Your Software Code Isn’t Safe After Google v. Oracle

In characteristic form, the Supreme Court has once again managed to blow it in another intellectual property case. This time, the Justices blessed Google’s copying of Oracle’s code and called it fair use despite the fact that Google copied that portion of the Sun Java API that allowed programmers to use the task-calling system that was most useful to programmers working on applications for mobile devices. In the infinite wisdom of the Supreme Court, the copying of this code was found transformative because Google only used it to circumvent the need to license Java from Oracle with respect to Android smartphones. Of course, that isn’t exactly how the Supreme Court characterized it, but make no mistake, that is what they decided.

Four Out of Eight Doesn’t Cut It: The IP Safeguards that Most Lawyers Miss When Protecting Software

Software is an extremely valuable good for those who produce it because it provides value to the software’s end users. That value, however, also makes it a target for those who would prefer to obtain the value without compensating the software producer. As a result, like with any valuable asset, software suppliers and Internet of Things (IoT) companies must implement safeguards to protect it. Since software is intellectual property, attorneys who work for or advise software producers (which, let’s be honest, is just about every technology company these days, given the addition of hardware manufacturers via the ubiquity of their “smart” devices to the existing desktop, mobile, and SaaS applications that we all use in both our personal and business lives), are frequently asked to advise on how to best protect this valuable asset. Unfortunately, as discussed below, most lawyers only deliver half of what they should.

Protecting COVID-19-Related Software Innovations

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently announced the COVID-19 Prioritized Examination Pilot Program, under which the USPTO will advance certain patent applications related to COVID-19 “out of turn,” resulting in prioritized examination for qualifying applications. Under this program, the USPTO reportedly aims to provide final disposition of qualifying applications within one year of the filing date, meaning that a final office action or notice of allowance will be mailed (or a notice of appeal will be filed) during this shortened one year timeframe. For comparison, it typically takes the USPTO roughly 16 months from the filing of an application to mail a first office action.