Last year, Axios’s managing partner, Adam Philipp, cautioned that Bilski hardly spelled the demise of software patents. And now I’m predicting that the Supreme Court is about to overturn Bilski and emphasize that software is still patentable in the process. Allow me to explain . . .
Category Archives: Recent Cases
Prediction: Supreme Court to embrace software patents
Also posted in Legal Update, Litigation, Patent Prosecution Tagged Bilski, federal circuit, In re Bilski, Supreme Court Leave a comment
Bilski’s “blank slate” is bad news for Every Penny Counts
Over at the 271 Patent Blog, Peter Zura summarizes Every Penny Counts, Inc. v. Bank of America Corp., 2-07-cv-00042 (M.D. Fla. May 27, 2009, Order) (Magnuson, J.). In this case, the district court holds that, under Bilski, the claimed system is not patentable subject matter under § 101.
In Every Penny Counts, the district court uses Bilski as Judge Newman predicted in her Bilski dissent: “each trial court… will have a blank slate on which to uphold or invalidate claims based on whether there are sufficient ‘meaningful limits’” imposed on the claim by the use of a particular machine.
Also posted in Patent Prosecution Tagged Bilski, federal court, means-plus-function, patent Leave a comment
One of the hidden (literally!) values of method claims
Yesterday, the Federal Circuit reminded us of another reason why method claims are so valuable. In Crown Packaging Technology, Inc. v. Rexam Beverage Can Co., No. 08-1284 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 17. 2009), the court held, among other things, that a method claim does not require markings to enforce the patent in litigation.