Tonight, check out Gene Quinn's article Erosion of Patent Rights Will Harm US Economy. Basic idea? The Federal Circuit is creating an expansive view of what is obvious, while the US Supreme Court has a narrow view of what subject matter is eligible for patent protection. Gene also notes the Supreme Court's failure to replace the CAFC's machine and transformation test with a software patent eligibility test that can be consistently applied.
I agree and add we now get a test that encourages decision makers to rewrite patent claims to a pithy snippet that is surprise an abstract idea! The test then asks: Is what is left in the claim significantly more than an abstract idea? If it's just a computer, your software patent is ineligible! Yes, because software is such an important part of the US economy, such untrammeled law may ultimately harm it.
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