Searching_ _ _
December 13th, 2008, 06:28 AM
Much of the patent portfolio of some of the world's biggest software companies has become worthless overnight, thanks to a ruling yesterday by the US patent court.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in Washington DC has decided that in the future, instead of automatically granting a patent for a business practice, there will be a specific testing procedure to determine how patentable is that process.
The decision is a nearly complete reversal of the court's controversial State Street Bank judgement of 1998, which started the stampede for patenting business practices.
Randy Lipsitz, a patent specialist at Kramer Levin in New York, said the ruling is likely to hit certain industries very hard, especially insurance, banking, accounting, and software.
Original Article (http://www.itexaminer.com/us-court-throws-out-most-software-patents.aspx)
Oh no, Microsoft! My cracked copy of Windows XP Pro is now legal, I think.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in Washington DC has decided that in the future, instead of automatically granting a patent for a business practice, there will be a specific testing procedure to determine how patentable is that process.
The decision is a nearly complete reversal of the court's controversial State Street Bank judgement of 1998, which started the stampede for patenting business practices.
Randy Lipsitz, a patent specialist at Kramer Levin in New York, said the ruling is likely to hit certain industries very hard, especially insurance, banking, accounting, and software.
Original Article (http://www.itexaminer.com/us-court-throws-out-most-software-patents.aspx)
Oh no, Microsoft! My cracked copy of Windows XP Pro is now legal, I think.