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Specificity and "as a whole" | 297 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Another problem
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 20 2013 @ 01:25 PM EST
Despite the fact that the PTO is obviously incompetent in determining the
validity of patent claims, the *law* says that the determination of the PTO must
be presumed valid unless *proven* otherwise. ICK!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Merchant of Malice - numerosity of patents
Authored by: PJ on Sunday, January 20 2013 @ 01:29 PM EST
1. can happen overnight, should the US Supreme
Court ever decide to do it, and if they are
ever convinced that software is indeed mathematics
and hence unpatentable subject matter, it will
happen. Not only that, but it would be
retroactively effective against all the stupid
patents that have already issued, not just
new ones.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The fun with the laymen Jury
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 21 2013 @ 12:48 PM EST

All it takes is one Jury to invalidate a patent and it's invalidated forever.... unless the Supreme's overrule the Jury.

Entity X enforcing patent 123 against Entity Y with Entity Y failing to prove the patent invalid doesn't prevent me from offering my own proof of patent validity against patent 123. It could even be the exact same evidence and the Jury overseeing my case decides the patent is invalid!

    Poke a stick in it - it's done!

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Specificity and "as a whole"
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 22 2013 @ 12:01 PM EST
The possible remedies are:
1. Reject ALL software patents issued in the past - not going to happen
2. Fully review ALL asserted patents before trial, without restricting on the number of patents that can be asserted - not going to happen
3. Deny injunctive relief absent causal nexus - the only reasonable way out, considering the abysmal quality and astounding numerosity of already issued patents
Left software patents be but correctly enforce the Supreme Court rulings in the lower courts with burden on the plaintiff such as providing all the money upfront.

The basis of the Prometheus patent was very much an algorithm - monitor condition and do something when conditions change. Probably many software patents are either a single algorithm or combination of probably independent algorithms these software patents would disappear if the lower courts correctly applied the Mayo decision as applied to software. Therefore recognize the components that are actual algorithms as a claim could correspond to a single step in the algorithm. Then determine which algorithms are actually infringed. If all are infringing then it is whether or not the algorithms as a whole are better than the sum of parts.

If all algorithms are infringed, which is unlikely for independent implementation of an idea, then there is possible infringement. Otherwise, remove all parts from each algorithm that are pure mathematical constructs, laws of nature and other unpatentable material. Then enforce the exact specificity of the patent claim. Here claims would be removed if it is impossible to do such as the indefinite claims in Allen (if not overturned) or recipe-like claims that have exact specifications.

If someone wants to have a software or genetic patent after those steps, then who I am to deny their right to waste their money?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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