Without making any judgments about whether there should be business method or software patents, I think that advocates are reading more into Bilski than is actually there. The link to the opinion was posted earlier, the opinion is relatively short and generally readable by non-attorneys. Remember that comments in concurring opinions and dissenting opinions are informative, but not law. It is probably better to begin by reading the actual opinion, and only then to look to the comments and analysis on web. The most significant section is the "Opinion of the Supreme Court" written by Justice Kennedy which starts at page 5 and ends on page 20, a relatively quick read. Bilski was addressing the question of a business method at the level of "patent eligibility". Patent eligibility is a first question at the "door step" of the patent process, before an Examiner begins to consider whether the claims of a patent application are novel or non-obvious. The Supreme court rejected the business method claims in Bilski as not patentable since the claims are in the opinion of the court, directed towards an abstract idea. An abstract idea was not patentable under U.S. Patent law before Bilski, this is not new law. The Supreme Court went on to say that Bilski is to be taken as a "narrow" decision and that they were not addressing any question of what constitutes a patentable “process,”. "Today, the Court once again declines to impose limitations on the Patent Act that are inconsistent with the Act’s text." A business patent is different than a software patent. The Supreme court did not make any holding on software patents, nor did they state any new law regarding the patentability (the patent eligible question) of a business method patent. One very interesting aspect of the decision is that the "machine or transformation" test is no longer the only test for evaluating if these classes of patents are patent eligible (this is new). It is unclear if this aspect of the opinion makes the patent eligible field wider (some think yes) or narrower. The terms "Business Method" and "abstract idea" are not well defined. The extent of the "machine or transformation test" (still valid, just no longer an exclusive test) is also not well defined. Regarding the current state of U.S. Patent law, just below the precedential weight of the Supreme court is the CAFC, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The PTO generally follows holdings of the CAFC unless overturned by the Supreme Court or new laws of Congress. For now, there are no changes regarding software patents (perhaps influenced though by what evolves regarding the "machine or transformation test"). The Supreme Court specifically stated that they were not offering a new test: "In disapproving an exclusive machine-or-transformation test, we by no means foreclose the Federal Circuit’s development of other limiting criteria that further the purposes of the Patent Act and are not inconsistent with its text". Probably more guidance will come from future CAFC cases. Actions by the PTO Appeals board, while possibly indicative of some new law to come, usually many years later, in and of themselves are very case specific decisions and highly unlikely to change the current patent law. Also, I do not believe there is currently any simple or distinct test as to what software patents are "patent eligible". Generally some coupling to a machine or apparatus is more likely be taken as patent eligible, however that is not a legal test. Also, more likely to survive is an algorithm that performs some action, such as steering a ship, for example, but again there is no distinct yes or no test.

In message <20108215412.679438@Orchid7-PC>, Joe Geller writes: >I think that advocates are reading more into Bilski than is actually there. Well, so are corporate patent laywers then: There is near panic in several of the big patent pools, because they also read Bilski along the lines I laid out. The Bilski ruling is indeed narrow, but there are more junk patents in that a narrow corridor than you probably imagine. One unofficial estimate, from an insider, is that IBM alone lost "at least 1000, possibly 2000 patents to Bilski". The only reason you have not heard the full roar on this, is that lawyers treasure their vacation. Poul-Henning -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

On 03/08/2010, Joe Geller <joegeller@roadrunner.com> wrote: > but again there is no distinct yes or no test. This in itself should tell us that all software patents are an anathema and should be scrapped completely. Business should compete on its merit, not on it's ability to own patents. Patents as a whole stifle competition and the development of new and better things, they are just a way for businesses to get fat and lazy. I know what your going to say but I ask you to think very carefully before you reply to this point and consider the history before the patent system became so restrictive. Steve -- Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. - Einstein

Hi That or they are quietly selling off the shares in the pool to the "next fool". It will be several years before enough cases are tried to really know what it does or does not mean. Bob On Aug 3, 2010, at 2:23 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > In message <20108215412.679438@Orchid7-PC>, Joe Geller writes: > >> I think that advocates are reading more into Bilski than is actually there. > > Well, so are corporate patent laywers then: There is near panic in > several of the big patent pools, because they also read Bilski along > the lines I laid out. > > The Bilski ruling is indeed narrow, but there are more junk patents > in that a narrow corridor than you probably imagine. One unofficial > estimate, from an insider, is that IBM alone lost "at least 1000, > possibly 2000 patents to Bilski". > > The only reason you have not heard the full roar on this, is that > lawyers treasure their vacation. > > Poul-Henning > > -- > Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 > phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 > FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. >