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I bet on SCOTUS | 335 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections Thread
Authored by: NobodyYouKnow on Monday, July 09 2012 @ 08:44 PM EDT
Should any be necessary.

[ Reply to This | # ]

New Picks Thread
Authored by: NobodyYouKnow on Monday, July 09 2012 @ 08:46 PM EDT
For discussion of News Picks.

It is helpful to include the original link.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off Topic Thread
Authored by: NobodyYouKnow on Monday, July 09 2012 @ 08:47 PM EDT
For discussion not germane to the current article.

[ Reply to This | # ]

En Banc?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 09 2012 @ 09:09 PM EDT
Mark: "Expect this decision to be appealed."

Would they be likely to request an en banc hearing?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Unfortunately, Congress is out to lunch....
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 09 2012 @ 09:30 PM EDT
In functional democracies, this sort of behavior by appeals courts results in
judges being removed from their positions.

Either individually, or by dissolving the Federal Circuit.

But Congress is the branch of government given the authority to do either -- and
Congress is non-functional at the moment, so it will neither impeach any judges
NOR reorganize the court system.

This is not how it was supposed to work. How did we end up with such a broken
government?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Proir art
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 01:39 AM EDT
The patent is dated 19 October 1999, and real time gross settlement was
introduced in Australia in 1998;

http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2010/sep/8.html

I'm fairly sure it was introduced in the UK prior to this.

CLS seem to apply the same concept to foreign exchange transactions. And that is
all.

Cheers from the cellar

[ Reply to This | # ]

I bet on SCOTUS
Authored by: kawabago on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 02:29 AM EDT
They have more aces.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCOTUS vs. CAFC, round N+1... FIGHT!
Authored by: achurch on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 07:33 AM EDT

Just a hypothetical question, but out of curiosity: If the Federal Circuit continues this pattern of ignoring Supreme Court decisions, is there anything the Supremes could do directly, such as bar certain judges from participating in Federal Circuit cases? Or would they have to live with this pattern of ignore-appeal-reverse continue until the CAFC has a sufficient change of heart (or people)?

[ Reply to This | # ]

My favourite part of the dissenting...
Authored by: JonCB on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 08:19 AM EDT
At its most basic form, in a transaction between parties ‘A’ and ‘B,’ a middle-man collects funds from ‘A’ but will not pass them to ‘B’ until ‘B’ has also performed. In more complicated settings, the intermediary makes intelligent choices in selecting the parties to the transaction in a way to minimize or hedge the transaction risk. In any event, this basic idea of “credit intermediation” is not just abstract; it is also literally ancient. See Temin, Peter, Financial Intermediation in the Early Roman Empire (November 2002), MIT Department of Economics Working Paper No. 02-39, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=348103 or http://dx.doi.org/10.21 39/ssrn.348103 (exploring the use of financial intermediaries in the Early Roman Empire). Maybe the majority's idea is that if the USA wasn't around when it was in use then it's patentable. Go Prost!

[ Reply to This | # ]

What George Quinn Predicted
Authored by: deck2 on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 09:09 AM EDT
If I recall correctly this is the exact scenario George Quinn predicted when
SCOTUS overturned Bilski. CAFC would continue to rule in this manner in
complete defiance of SCOTUS. I believe they do this out of arrogance and ego
because they believe they are the final arbitrators on patentability as, in
CAFC's opinion, SCOTUS is a bunch of unknowledgable amateurs when it comes to
patent law.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Gosh! And I thought the word 'Computer' came from the people that physically did this
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 10:58 AM EDT
The word Computer is derived from the word used for people
who did the job of computing before it was mechanised. There
have been middlemen around for thousands of years. So why is
a middleman who does calculations special enough to receive a
patent when that middleman is replaced by a computing device?
Honestly, I don't understand the sort of law that allows this
sort of thing.

[ Reply to This | # ]

35 U.S.C. 101 Inventions patentable
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 04:56 PM EDT
35 U.S.C. 101 Inventions patentable.

Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture,
or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain
a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.


35 U.S.C. 100 Definitions.

When used in this title unless the context otherwise indicates -

(a) The term "invention" means invention or discovery.

(b) The term "process" means process, art, or method, and includes a
new use of a known process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or
material.

(c) The terms "United States" and "this country" mean the
United States of America, its territories and possessions.

(d) The word "patentee" includes not only the patentee to whom the
patent was issued but also the successors in title to the patentee.

(e) The term "third-party requester" means a person requesting ex
parte reexamination under section 302 or inter partes reexamination under
section 311 who is not the patent owner.


That's the law. Any insanity here is that people continue to assert that a list
of steps is not a process.

claim 33 is a list of steps. It is therefore a process. Therefore it falls
within a category of the kinds of things that are patentable. Get past it.

Whether it is a new process or an obvious process is a different question and
one that was apparently not at issue.

PLEASE STOP CONFUSING NOVELTY AND OBVIOUSNESS ISSUES WITH PATENTABLE SUBJECT
MATTER ISSUES.

By the way, Prometheus hinged on "law of nature" issues. Please don't
accuse claim 33 of trying to capture a law of nature. There is nothing natural
about the recited securities.


[ Reply to This | # ]

CLS Bank And Prior Art
Authored by: sproggit on Wednesday, July 11 2012 @ 03:42 AM EDT
Through a tenure with one particular employer, I have experience of dealing with CLS Bank and of actually using the mechanisms that I believe are covered by these patents. For those who have not heard of CLS or are not familiar with what they do, one [simplified] way of looking at it would be like this...

A multinational company signs a deal with an overseas client for product or services that runs into a very large sum of money. [ Very large = anything over tens of millions of dollars, often hundreds of millions or more ]. The buyer and seller negotiate a price in a given currency. The seller operates in a different currency, and as a result wants to get their funds exchanged. Working with their bank, the seller sets up a deal on the CLS system to effect a currency swap from one value (say Pounds Sterling) to another (say US Dollar). To do this, the seller's bank needs to find a counterparty (another bank) and agree an exchange rate for the swap. CLS bank creates the market in which these currency swaps happen. They manage the transactions by allowing the subscriber client banks to "pre-book" trades of a given value, on a given day, at a negotiated exchange rate. Then, on the day, CLS bank executes the currency swap and the deal is completed.


Now, what I've just described above, whilst a simplification, is what CLS bank actually does. If you ignore the aspect of this deal which involves the use of two [or potentially more] different currencies, then really all you have is an Escrow service.

Even more interesting, as the History of Escrow shows, this type of service has been in operation since the 1930s.

In other words, there is absolutely nothing new or innovative being performed by the CLS Bank that warrants a patent.

I would go even further. If you look across the globe, there are no other banks, financial institutions or organisations that offer quite the same services as CLS Bank. There is no reason why this is not the case. Except, of course, that CLS has made it harder for competitors to enter the market through their acquisition of patents.

Look at it another way. What are CLS doing that could not equally easily be achieved with a paper ledger and quill pens? Nothing. It would be slower and require a lot more effort, but it could be done. So what has happened here, in effect, is that CLS have been granted a patent by implementing all or part of a pre-existing process on a computer.

The USPTO, with their love affair with granting "patents for any old tat" (TM), have granted a patent. The very act of the grant lends further credence to the "software patent meme" and continues to act as further encouragement to other companies to try the same or similar steps.

Going back to CLS... There is nothing new, unique or innovative in the underlying financial transactions that has not been in place for - at the very least - decades. In fact, at the most basic level, mechanisms to do business this way have been in place for as long as their has been international trade.

I am even reminded of a text book from my school days which covered the period when the norther United States was being colonised by Europeans, and "exchange rates" were agreed between the settlers and indigenous tribes, so that e.g. rifles could be swapped for certain quantities of fur pelts - an exchange rate of sorts.

I do hope that Alice Corporation are willing to take up the gauntlet in the instant case, and get another bogus patent overturned.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Judge Prost doesn't have a clue
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 11 2012 @ 02:01 PM EDT
For example, she complaints that:

"The majority has failed to follow the Supreme Court’s instructions—not
just in its holding, but more importantly in its approach. The majority does not
inquire whether the asserted claims include an inventive concept."

OF COURSE NOT. THAT QUESTION WAS NOT BEFORE THE COURT!

No one challenged the existence of an inventive concept.

The issue before the court was 35 USC 101. Do the claims fall into one of the
categories of patentable subject matter. For example, does claim 33 recited a
method or process.

Clearly it does.

Whether or not there is an inventive concept is a different question and even
the accused infringer did not challenge the patent on that basis.

[ Reply to This | # ]

i wonder what the bible has to say about the judges ruling
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 12 2012 @ 01:06 AM EDT
real time eh so
solomon sitting on his throne would have two parties to a
dispute....each has there say and wella real time solving

WAIT that's what judges do....ya don't need a computer and
there is a lot more then 400 years prior art.
try back to his time or like 2800 years....
or when ever that was...

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Real Old Stuff. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 12 2012 @ 04:45 PM EDT
What is the originalist arguement against Software patents?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 12 2012 @ 10:23 AM EDT
Why is software not a "useful art"? What is the justification
from the constitution of the Judge made law that add
restrictions not in the text, to section 101? What is the
originalist arguement for the restrictions against natural truth
and abstract principles?

[ Reply to This | # ]

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