Posts Tagged: "business method"

Mandamus sought from Federal Circuit on CBM institution of a non-business method patent

Seeking to push this issue to a head sooner rather than later, Technology Trading International, the owner of the ‘304 patent, has recently filed a Petition for Writ of Mandamus with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. As the mandamus petition explains, the ‘304 patent has been the subject of serial CBM petitions. They are challenging the institution of this CBM because the ‘304 patent is clearly not a business method patent.

PTAB Gone Rogue on Covered Business Methods

In CBM2015-00161, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) at the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) recently instituted a Covered Business Method (CBM) review on a non-business method patent with a clear and unambiguous technological aspect. This institution decision is in direct contravention of the statute, which is by its express terms prevents CBM review from anything with a technical aspect. In short, only covered business methods, which are financial related business method patents without a technological aspect, are supposed to be subject to this special form of post grant review. Even more troubling, the patent in question has been found to be directed to technological improvements by both the European Patent Office and the United States Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Nevertheless, the PTAB still instituted a CBM.

Patenting business methods and software still requires concrete and tangible descriptions

The key to obtaining a software patent is to thoroughly describe the system and processes from a technological level. As to Judge Chen explained in DDR Holdings, in order for software patent claims to be patent eligible they must not “merely recite the performance of some business practice known from the pre-Internet world along with the requirement to perform it on the Internet.” To be patent eligible claims to software must be “rooted in computer technology in order to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm of computer networks.” Of course, this patent eligible example of software patent claims is extremely relevant for business methods because a naked business method is no longer patent eligible. To have a realistic chance of being patented business methods must be tied to a particular compute technology in a meaningful and substantial way. Said another way, the business method really needs to be performed by and through a concrete and tangible system, where the system and processes are painstakingly described.

Are Business Method Patents Dead? It Depends on Who’s Applying for Them

Business method patents are still being granted after Alice, but are being granted at lower rates than before, and some assignees are better at obtaining them than others. The top assignees in the business methods art units have a wide range of allowance rates, from Oracle at 83.3% to Siemens at 35.3%, resulting in a difference of 48 percentage points. Even among the most successful assignees, only three have allowance rates of over 50%.

Software and business methods over half of Google, Microsoft US patents

Software and method patents may appear to have fallen out of favor because of recent court decisions and legislation. However, recent trends indicate that they comprise surprisingly high portions of four US companies’ recent grants. Of the 2,599 US patents granted last year to Google, 1,522, or 59% were in the methods classes. Microsoft, with 2,847 patents received, had 1,575, or 55%, that fall under the heading of methods.