Is Facebook an Abstract Idea? Watch the Movie
Today is Christopher Columbus Day and if you remember he invented America. No that’s not right… he discovered America. Of course he thought he landed in India and we’ve been mistakenly calling Native Americans Indians ever since and today we celebrate his mistake. It used to be you would plant a flag into the ground […]
Post-Bilski Guidelines for USPTO Patent Examiners
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has prepared further interim guidance for the patent examining corps to use when determining subject matter eligibility hof a business method patent application under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in view of the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court in Bilski v. Kappos (.PDF). This […]
Blawg Review #274
Welcome everyone to Blawg Review #274! Blawg Review is still the place to find out where the best law blogs are posted, and because today is the 20th anniversary of the Americans Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) I am going to share some informative and interesting stuff about the ADA. But I will also try […]
Senator Leahy Uses Bilski to Push Patent Reform
In an effort to push forward patent reform, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) posted a press release using the highly publicized Supreme Court decision in Bilski v. Kappos (.PDF) as a reason as to why reform is needed. Bilski affirmed a Federal Circuit decision denying a patent for a process for hedging on […]
USPTO Sends Bilski Memo to Patent Examiners
Almost immediately after the Supreme Court handed down the Bilski decision Robert W. Bahr, Acting Associate Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy sent a memorandum to the patent examining corps which gave guidance as to how the USTPO examiners should interpret the case. Bahr told examiners to examine patent applications for compliance with section 101 using […]
Bilski vs. Kappos Decision
To summarize today’s Supreme Court ruling in Bilski (PDF), business method patents remain viable subject matter and the machine-or-transformation test enunciated as the sole test by the Federal Circuit is not the exclusive test, but merely one tool in the Examiner toolbox. The court affirmed that Bilski’s risk-management method was not patentable subject matter. “Indeed, […]
Bilski vs Kappos
What’s taking the Supreme Court so long to hand down an opinion on the Bilski vs Kappos case? Bilski was argued on Nov. 9, 2009… 225 days ago. There has been much speculation that the decision will be published when the Supreme Court next releases its opinions on Thursday (June 24, 2010) or next Monday. […]
Legal community weighs in on Bilski v. Kappos
In Matt Chandler’s Buffalo Business First article, Legal Community Weights in on Patent Case, Western New York’s business newspaper, I was quoted along with other Western NY patent attorneys regarding the US Supreme Court case of Bilski v. Kappos (the case which will decide how business method patents are to be reviewed by the United States Patent […]
Business method patents…what will the Supreme Court Do?
On November 9, 2009 the Supreme Court heard an oral argument on the appeal from the Federal Circuit of the case of Bilski v. Kappos, wherein the central issue was whether the Federal Circuit erred by holding that a business method patent application based on a “process” must be tied to a particular machine or […]