Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 26 February, 2010
The readers of the Reguligence Weblog are familiar with the fact that I am not a supporter of software and business method patents. Moreover, I am rather a doubter as to those patents’ furtherance to the Information Technology at all. Nevertheless, I should be grateful to Facebook for giving me an occasion to have another post on this issue.
As you might have already perceived, Facebook has been granted the patent #7669123 for “dynamically providing a newsfeed about a user of a social network”. Basically, Facebook has patented the news feed that provides a user of their social network with the information about what other users are currently doing or at best have done on that network.
To me this is a trivial patent par excellence. While the patent eligibility could be easily satisfied under the Federal Circuit’s holding in Bilski, in pursuance to which “a method claim is surely patentable subject matter if (1) it is tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or (2) it transforms a particular article into a different state or thing. ” and a social network could (arguably) serve as an “apparatus”, there are some doubts with respect to that patent’s novelty and non-obviousness. According to GIGAOM, the social network Multiply.com had a similar interface for keeping track of friends’ actions before Facebook launched its own. As regards the inventive step applied, I believe that aforementioned “invention” would be laughably obvious even to a person having just basic knowledge in social networks, not to mention a “person skilled in the art”.
Notwithstanding, the patent, albeit a “weak” one, has been granted and – unless successfully challenged and invalidated- will be valid for the next 17-18 years. I am personally curious whether Facebook will at some time take the risk and attempt enforcement, and hence share the destiny of Amazon and their one-click-patent.
Posted in patent | Tagged: #7669123, business method patent, facebook, multiply.com, newsfeed, obvious, software patent, USPTO | 1 Comment »
Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 4 January, 2010
According to a verdict issued by a jury at the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal District has affirmed , Microsoft had infringed a patent owned by I4I Limited Partnership and Infrastructures for Information Inc. The patent is with regard to “a method for processing and storing information about the structure of electronic documents”. In fact the patent covers the editing of documents containing markup languages like XML and claims to improve said editing process. The patent’s essential output is to be found in an “add-on” software for Microsoft Word, which expands Word’s capability to work with documents containing custom XML.
The claimant alleged that the custom XML editor in certain versions of Word infringed their patent.
Not surprisingly, Micorsoft employed the “attack is the best defence” strategy in an attempt to seek a declaratory judgment that the patent in suit was invalid and thus unenforceable, but has eventually failed as the jury refused to follow the brought arguments. Moreover, the jury found not only that the patent was not invalid, but also that Microsoft’s infringement thereof was wilful.
Upon a lengthy discussion on the claim construction, validity and infringement of the claimant’s patent, the Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling.
To me the importance of the instant case is to be found in that Microsoft is now being served by the consequences of a policy they have advocated in the near past. In my view it would have been better, if they had reflected the 1991 Bill Gates’ warning that patents could bring the software market to a complete standstill and drive out small players.
Posted in patent | Tagged: computer related patent, federal circuit, Micorsoft, patent infringement, software patent | 1 Comment »
Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 13 December, 2009
In a recent patent infringement case, the US Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit decided that claimant’s patent claims were infringed, but invalid as the Court held them obvious and thus non-inventive.
Claimant’s alleged invention claimed a “method of purchasing goods or services over a data network”. In fact the claimed invention offered an e-commerce platform to both purchasers and vendors and filtered their requirements in order to achieve a match between their demands. Could that be inventive nowadays? Upon outlining the exisiting prior art, the Federal Circuit said “No” .
Nothing unusual, at least from a european perspective.
Posted in e-commerce, patent | Tagged: business method patent, federal circuit, lack of invetnive step, obviousness | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 2 December, 2009
In October 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued its decision in re Bilski en banc, describing it as “an historic opportunity to fix the US patent system, as the Bilski rehearing will directly address the boundaries of the subject matter of patents.”
The re Bilski appeal arose from the rejection by the USPTO of all claims because they failed to limit the method’s performance to a specific machine or apparatus, and the method did not involve a transformation of one thing into something different from the original, with the machine-transformation test having been previously articulated in the decisions of the US Supreme Court in Gottschalk v Benson, Parker v Flook and Diamond v Diehr. The Federal Circuit’s decision is thought to have turned the tide for business method patents in the United States. While affirming that business methods are still patentable, the Court has rejected State Street Bank’s “useful, concrete, and tangible result” test, which many believed had cleared the way for improper patents on fundamental principles and everyday activities that had no connection to technological innovation.
In January 2009, Bilski petitioned the US Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, seeking to overturn the Federal Circuit decision. In the meantime the Court granted certiorari and heard oral arguments on 9 November 2009.
Reading that transcript is a quite funny thing. The Justices seem to openly show their reluctance and, even malice, against petioners’ alleged invention. Mr Jakes, counsel for the petioners, had to stand for questions like the one of Justice Breyer “You know, I have a great, wonderful, really original method of teaching antitrust law, and it kept 80 percent of the students awake. They learned things — (Laughter.) — it was fabulous. And I could probably have reduced it to a set of steps and other teachers could have followed it. That you are going to say is patentable, too?”
Chief Justice Roberts went even further asking “I’m looking at your Claim 1, in Joint Appendix page 19 to 20. How is that not an abstract idea? You initiate a series of transactions between commodity providers and commodity consumers. You set a fixed price at the consumer end, you set a fixed price at the other end, and that’s it. I mean, I could patent a process where I do the same thing. I initiate a series of transactions with sellers. I initiate a series of transactions with buyers. I buy low and sell high. That’s my patent for maximizing wealth. I don’t see how that’s different than your claim number 1.”
I would not be surprized if the Supreme Court affirmed the Federal Circuit. In such an event, the Justices should take their awaited decision to, hopefully, provide for a long expected clarity on the patentability of business methods and software implemented inventions.
Posted in patent | Tagged: Bilski, business method patent, federal circuit, In Re Bilski, software patent, supreme court, Warsaw | 1 Comment »
Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 18 November, 2009
I bet that President Obama did not like this message during his visit in the People’s Rebulic. According to the news reporting, Obama has again been pressing China to enforce its law on intellectual property more vigorously. And so did the chinese judicateure – this time against one of the world’s largest beneficiaries in terms of intellectual proprty protection. Indeed, this merits to be called “legal infotainment”!
According to the facts, a Beijing based company, Zhongyi Electronic Ltd, claimed that Microsoft had exceeded the scope of a previous agreement to use and sell fonts, patented by Zhongyi, in Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Microsoft had thus infringed Zhongyi’s exclusive rights under patent law, so Zhongyi’s claim.
Beijing’s Intermediate People’s Court No.1 followed claimant’s argument and ruled against the defendant Microsoft. The court’s ruling now prevents Microsoft from importing and distributing above mentioned software products in China, but does not appear to affect Microsoft’s latest operating systems, including Windows 7, which went on sale last month.
Needless to say that Microsoft will go on appeal which – from my perspective – could make the story even funnier. I will keep an eye on that!
Posted in patent | Tagged: china, infringement, microsoft, obama, patent | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 28 September, 2009
Yes, this article regards the story of a US case decision. Frankly, where else the Patent and Trademark Office, but also several courts would spend time and effort to examine the application for a method of playing games – a subject matter clearly excluded under the European Patent Convention and its underlying jurisdictions.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s in Re Lister outlines the funny story of a clinical psychologist having become tired of “the horrendously slow pace of a game of golf” and willing to seek intellectual property protection for a method increasing both, game’s speed and players’ scores. Proceeding without professional help, the applicant first obtained a registration from the US Copyright Office. This very fact almost deprived him from patent grant…
Posted in patent | Tagged: federal circuit, non patentable subject matter, patent, patent law, playing games, us pto | Leave a Comment »
