Thursday, October 30, 2008

Court Greatly Limits Software And Business Method Patents

Techdirt reports, Court Greatly Limits Software And Business Method Patents:

"The summary is that the court has said that there's a two-pronged test to determine whether a software of business method process patent is valid: (1) it is tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or (2) it transforms a particular article into a different state or thing. In other words, pure software or business method patents that are neither tied to a specific machine nor change something into a different state are not patentable. That means a significant number of software and business method patents are about to disappear, freeing up many industries to be much more innovative -- at a time when that's desperately needed."

This sounds like really good news as the software world was getting buried with crazy, not particularly innovative patents.

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