Guest Posts: Preparing for Mayo v. Prometheus Labs

By Professor John Golden, Professor in Law, The University of Texas at Austin

Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., No. 10-1150 (S. Ct.)

Scheduled for oral argument on Wednesday, December 7, 2011

In Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court looks to address questions of whether and when certain types of medical methods are patentable subject matter. Prometheus specifically involves methods for optimizing patient treatment in which the level of a drug metabolite is measured and a measured level above or below a recited amount "indicates a need" to decrease or increase dosage levels. In 2005, the Court granted certiorari on related issues in Laboratory Corp. of America v. Metabolite Laboratories, Inc., but the Court later dismissed LabCorp as improvidently granted. In 2010, the Court reaffirmed the existence of meaningful limitations on patentable subject matter in Bilski v. Kappos, but the Court but did little to clarify the scope of those limitations.

Will Prometheus bring light where Bilski failed? Arguments to the Court invite it to further clarify the status of the machine-or-transformation test for process claims. Bilski indicated that this test is relevant but not necessarily decisive, and the Federal Circuit relied heavily on the test in upholding the subject-matter eligibility of Prometheus's claims. In the circuit's view, "asserted claims are in effect claims to methods of treatment, which are always transformative when one of a defined group of drugs is administered to the body to ameliorate the effects of an undesired condition." Likewise, a metabolite-level measurement step was found to "necessarily involv[e] a transformation." Although Prometheus's claims include "mental steps," the circuit emphasized that the inclusion of such steps "does not, by itself, negate the transformative nature of prior steps."

Prior posts provide additional background on the Prometheus case. The first wave of merits briefs have been filed. These include the opening brief for the petitioners, briefs in support of the petitioners, and briefs in support of neither party. The respondent-patentee's brief as well as supporting amicus briefs will be due in the upcoming weeks.

BRIEF FOR PETITIONERS (Stephen Shapiro, Mayer Brown): Prometheus's patent claims violate Supreme Court precedent forbidding claims that "preemp[t] all practical use of an abstract idea, natural phenomenon, or mathematical formula." Prometheus's claims "recite a natural phenomenon—the biological correlation between metabolite levels and health—without describing what is to be done with that phenomenon beyond considering whether a dosage adjustment may be necessary." The claims' drug-administration and metabolite-measurement steps are merely "'token' and 'conventional' data-gathering steps" that cannot establish subject-matter eligibility. Patent protection is unnecessary to promote the development of diagnostic methods like those claimed and will in fact interfere with both their development and actual medical practice.

AMICUS BRIEFS SUPPORTING PETITIONERS

AARP & PUBLIC PATENT FOUNDATION (Daniel Ravicher, Public Patent & Cardozo School of Law): "Allowing patents on pure medical correlations … threatens doctors with claims of patent infringement" and "burdens the public with excessive health care costs, and dulls incentives for real innovation." "The Federal Circuit has latched on to trivial steps beyond mental processes, such as the 'administering' step in this case, to uphold patents that effectively preempt all uses of laws of nature." Prometheus's recitation of an "administering" step stands "in stark contrast to most pharmaceutical patents that require a 'therapeutically effective amount' of a drug be administered."

ACLU (Sandra Park, ACLU): In assessing subject matter eligibility, the Supreme Court "has focused on the essence of the claim," using a "pragmatic approach [that] allows the Court to see through clever drafting." Prometheus's insertion of drug-administration and/or measurement steps into a claim "does not alter the fact that the essence of the claim is the correlation between thiopurine drugs and metabolite levels in the blood." Further, the First Amendment bars Prometheus's claims. "What Prometheus seeks to monopolize … is the right to think about the correlation between thiopurine drugs and metabolite levels, and the therapeutic consequences of that correlation."

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF MEDICAL GENETICS ET AL. (Katherine Strandburg, NYU School of Law): The patents at issue "grant exclusive rights over the mere observation of natural, statistical correlations." They "convert routine, sound medical practice into prohibited infringement" and generate burdens and conflicts for patient care and follow-on innovation. "The machine or transformation test is inapposite … to determining whether a claim preempts a natural phenomenon." It can be too trivially satisfied without shedding sufficient light on whether claims "reflect inventive activity" or "improperly preempt downstream uses of the phenomenon."

ARUP & LABCORP (Kathleen Sullivan, Quinn Emanuel): "The patents assert exclusive rights over the process of administering a drug and observing the results…. This not only blocks the mental work of doctors advising patients, but also impedes the progress of research by seeking to own a basic law of nature concerning the human body's reaction to drugs." "Patents on measurements of nature" raise constitutional concerns by removing factual information from the public domain, thereby conflicting with patents' constitutional purpose to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" and threatening to chill "scientific and commercial publication."

CATO INSTITUTE ET AL. (Ilya Shapiro, Cato Institute): This case provides the Supreme Court with an opportunity to strike a blow against the "thousands of abstract process patents which have been improvidently granted since the 1990s" and that are already adversely affecting software and financial innovation. Historically, patentable "processes" "aimed to produce an effect on matter, and these patents do not." The "indicat[ing] a need" clauses in Prometheus's claims do not even form part of a process because they do "not describe an action." Patent claims such as these, "whose final step is mental," impermissibly tread on the public domain and "freedom of thought."

NINE LAW PROFESSORS (Joshua Sarnoff, DePaul College of Law): The Supreme Court "should expressly recognize" that the Constitution requires that "laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas" be treated as prior art for purposes of determining patentability. "Allowing patents for uncreative applications would effectively provide exclusive rights in and impermissibly reward the ineligible discovery itself." Barring claims like Prometheus's under section 101, as opposed to relying on patentability requirements such as novelty and nonobviousness, promotes "efficient gate-keeping" and "sends important signals."

VERIZON & HP (Michael Kellogg, Kellogg Huber): "It is longstanding law that a claim is non-patentable if it recites a prior art process and adds only the mental recognition of a newly discovered property of that process." See Gen. Elec. Co. v. Jewel Incandescent Lamp Co., 326 U.S. 242 (1945). "This principle is soundly based on Section 101's limitation to processes and products that are not only 'useful' but 'new.'" "[A]dding to the old process in Prometheus's patent claims nothing more than a mental step of recognizing the possible health (toxicity or efficacy) significance of the result of the process does not define a 'new and useful process.'"

AMICUS BRIEFS SUPPORTING NEITHER PARTY

UNITED STATES (Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, Jr.): The claimed methods recite "patent-eligible subject matter," and petitioners' objections to patentability are properly understood as challenges to the claimed methods' novelty and nonobviousness. By analogy with "patent law's 'printed matter' doctrine," the claims should ultimately be found invalid because, as construed by the district court, they "merely … appen[d] a purely mental step or inference to a process that is otherwise known in (or obvious in light of) the prior art." But the Supreme Court should affirm the Federal Circuit's holding on subject matter eligibility.

AIPPI (Peter Schechter, Edwards Wildman): AIPPI "encourages all member countries to allow medical personnel the freedom to provide medical treatment of patients without the authorization of any patentee." Unlike the U.S. and Australia, most countries "exclud[e] methods of medical treatment of patients from patent eligibility." When the medical-practitioner exemption of 35 U.S.C. § 287(c)(1) applies, "the courts lack subject matter jurisdiction." The exemption applies to the defendants, who "are plainly 'related health care entities.'" Thus, "the case should be dismissed for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction."

MICROSOFT (Matthew McGill, Gibson Dunn): Subject-matter eligibility tests should not involve "pars[ing] the claimed invention into the 'underlying invention' and those aspects that are 'conventional' or 'obvious' or insignificant 'extra- or post-solution activity.'" Such parsing lacks any guiding principle that can make its application predictable. Petitioners seek an improperly "expansive application of the mental steps doctrine." "[I]f every step of a process claim can be performed in the human mind, that process is unpatentable." But the Federal Circuit has improperly "extended th[is] principle to apply to machines or manufactures that replicate mental steps."

NYIPLA (Ronald Daignault, Robins Kaplan): Innovation's "bewildering pace" argues against "rigid categorization of patent-eligible subject matter." "[T]here is no basis for excluding processes directed to analyzing the chemicals in a patient's body from patent eligibility." When satisfied, the machine-or-transformation test should decisively establish eligibility. But failure of the test should not necessarily establish ineligibility. Preemption analysis "must incorporate a critical assessment of whether the claim at issue actually claims a fundamental principle as a fundamental principle in contrast to an application of that principle."

ROCHE & ABBOTT (Seth Waxman, WilmerHale): Patents are crucial for innovation in personalized medicine and more particularly for the continued development diagnostic tests that can enable such medicine's practice. Arguments "that patents on diagnostic tests stifle innovation and basic scientific research" are "largely based on speculation, rather than sound evidence." Generally speaking, "market-driven business practices and self-enforcing market norms correct for any perceived limitations on the accessibility of patented diagnostic technologies." Congress should be trusted to provide appropriate patent-law exemptions for medical practice and research.

333 thoughts on “Guest Posts: Preparing for Mayo v. Prometheus Labs

  1. 301

    Actual Inventor, section 5 of the American events act.

  2. 300

    Night, I am trying to find out what your position is, as you simply refuse to state it.  Rather, you repeatedly make statements like my thinking is so 1800s, or that Benson reflective thinking from that era.  You simply do not answer questions or actually tell us what it is that you're talking about.  It is like pulling teeth.

    In contrast, I have been trying to be very clear as to what my position was.  I don't think that programmed computers in general are patentable subject matter.  However, my position on this is not that strong to the extent that, for example, the programmed computer basically is a dedicated machine where the software operates all the time to modify the operation of the programmed computer.

    I have repeatedly said, and I agree with
    you, that information transformations can be patentable subject matter if in fact they transform something.  We talk about data.  But what are data in the real world?  They are signals.  Therefore, I think one can draft a process claim to cover new mathematics the process data provided the claim is operating on signals.

  3. 299

    So?  If Congress says that medical treatment is not subject matter of infringement, aren't they saying that patents that make medical treatment and infringement invalid?

    Regardless, let's break this down just a bit more.  If the treatment of a patient require steps A, B and C, one could suggest that by making only C subject to exclusion that they fully intend to leave steps A and B fully liable.

    Is that your thinking?

  4. 297

    Anon, the pathetic joke is that he chooses to lecture MaxDrei on American law and history, almost as if he were an expert.  He was not simply making a point.  He was not arguing his opinion.  He was lecturing.

  5. 296

    Anon, one of the problems the Supreme Court faced was the many briefs that argued that technological innovations directed to business methods were patentable.  One of the briefs that said this, I believe, was IBM's brief.  But there were others.  If they were going to ban business methods, they would have to make a distinction between business methods that were not directed to technology and those that were.  So the question is, what is the distinction.

    In the end, they chose not to answer the question broadly but narrowly.  They found the business method before them to be unpatentable.  The new legislation in Congress made the same distinction.  A business method that was not directed to technology is not patentable, although
    they expressly said that this definition could not be used for section 101 purposes.

    And finally note, the former definition in section 273 has been repealed.

  6. 295

    Can’t speak for 6 or IANAE but it would not surprise me if their experiences with Mr Quinn were similar to mine.

    I tired of Gene’s blog, much as I’m tiring of this one. It’s always the same argument between the same two or three people who have clearly already decided what side they’re on. Politically, as well as legally. At least here, I find the articles relevant from time to time, and somebody occasionally comes up with a correct-ish statement of the facts or the law in a comment.

    How many times do I need to read and respond to the same nonsense between Ned, anon, AI, N-Dubz and the rest about whether shuffling bits around is a “transformation”, or why coffin-making is a “business method” but commodities hedging isn’t? No more than I already have, surely. Ned, at least, is better than that. He used to be more fun to debate, though we rarely came to any agreement.

    If your name doesn’t start with M, chances are I’ve decided your posts aren’t worth the bother anymore. For that, anon, you may claim full credit.

  7. 294

    anon, actually, I did verify his post and theory that the US was a FTF country until 1870.  

    Regarding monikers, the real problem is that we need and "ingore" button that works.

  8. 293

    I for one did not have my “game” “shut down”.

    On the contrary, that is exactly what happened. You can try to spin it any way you want, but the thread at Gene’s blog is there for all to see.

    Quite frankly, you were pwned.

    As to your concern for my “distress,” thank you.

    However, you miss the point of that exchange, as my concern with blog “control” is being expressed in response to those at this blog calling for some sort of control, yet disdaining (without reason) a form of control that works to maintain the important aspect of content without gamesmanship.

    Perhaps that point is too subtle for you – after all, you prefer playing the games yourself, albeit rather poorly, as evidenced by the repeated smackdowns you recieve here.

    Maybe I should express some concern for your “distress” at both having your games stopped at Gene’s blog and your long line of defeats at Patently-O, but I guess I am not as kind a person as you are (or maybe I just enjoy seeing your “Shilling” exposed for what it is).

    But by all means, reply with another post like your recent “So what?” reply to an argument that eviscerates your position. Who knows, you may earn more accolades from Ned on your “understanding” of US Patent Law.

  9. 292

    A reminder Ned, here is another of simple questions’ simple questions that you need to answer (as you said you would).

    It is nice that you say that you do not intend to play word games, but let’s see you actually not play word games.

    As to the substantive bature of the question, I believe that we all can agree that any postion advanced by Ned will (of course) have a substantive nature. Simple question’s simple question is merely asking Ned to establish the foundation of his position in a substantive way. Ned should have no problem doing so.

    So Ned, please answer the question posed by simple questions at 10:21 PM – repeated here as to be polite:

    There is no way that the Prometheus claim(s) should have passed the MOT

    Where is this passing the MOT a requirement? I cannot seem to find this in either the legislative law or in valid case law. Can you help me out?

  10. 291

    anon writes:

    “Just ask 6, IANAE and MaxDrei, each of whom have had their games shut down.”

    Since you invite a reply, here it is.

    I for one did not have my “game” “shut down”. Rather, I choose no longer to participate in Gene Quinn’s idiosyncratic blog, his marketing aid aimed primarily at inventors. No loss to him, no loss to me.

    Can’t speak for 6 or IANAE but it would not surprise me if their experiences with Mr Quinn were similar to mine. I always enjoy IANAE’s learned contributions. 6 is an asset; sharp, sometimes amusing and occasionally helpful.

    anon, here’s a suggestion: to avoid distress in future, forsake this uncivilised blog, and instead devote yourself full time to the debates on the Quinn blog that you find so much more to your taste, that is, so decorous, scholarly and focussed.

  11. 290

    If one really wants to understand 101, then you really need to dig into Walker and understand the tension between Walker and Deener. Why have a method of a machine? And, the key to understanding why we need information processing methods is Deener that without a claim to the method a clever patent attorney can always do a design around.

  12. 289

    I said I would respond to substantive questions from simple because of his request

    I guess the next question is “When?

  13. 288

    Close tags, please.

  14. 287

    Actual Inventor,

    I am ever the eternal optimist and still hope that Ned joins the conversation in a calm and meaningful way.

    It is not as if his viewpoint does not have a place in the discussion of patent law. It is only through objectively exposing one’s views to the rigor of opposing views, facts, law and logic do those views mature and develop to something sustainable. And while this board has not seen that maturation and development of Ned’s agenda, I think it is still possible that something useful may come from the Ned “Shilling” Grounds.

  15. 286

    You are too munificent to Ned, as he has not even proffered an argument for which he can be asked to better explain. Just a blatant out of nowhere unprovoked attack.

    Nonetheless, the point has been made, and remains un-rebutted and irrefuted by even the worse this blog has to offer.

    And that is telling enough.

  16. 285

    Ned is terrified whenever someone posts a fact that when addressed, exposes the subterfuge that leads to his hidden agenda.

    So all he can do here is attack.

    Note, no one even addressed Ned in this thread.

    He just jumps in with fangs glaring like a frightened wild animal.

    It makes one wonder, what is it about the statement, “Indeed, there is a reason our PTO is situated under the Commerce Department” – that so terrifies Ned and brings Max to sheer silence.

  17. 284

    MM, your propositions is not about Egyptians riding dinosaurs. Your proposition is about dissecting the mental step or old step from process claims. Your reason for this policy change, and disregard for the current law, is that it saves the public from being successfully sued and prevented from thinking. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable to require you to prove the validity of your theory by citing at least one case were someone was prevented from merely thinking, by a patent.

  18. 283

    ( correcting some minor grammar typosl.)

    MM, posing as Malcolm, posing as Malcolm Mooney, posing as Hans Blix wrote:

    “Actual Inventurd”

    MM, you have to provide the exact quote of the holding in each case. Simply typing the name of cases is not enough.

    For example, it needs to be shown that people were “successfully” sued and thus prevented from merely thinking, and not for “thinking” in conjunction with all of the other steps in the claimed process. Remember claims with thinking steps are statutory subject matter by law.
    See ( Diamond V Diehr)

  19. 282

    MM, posing as Malcolm, posing as Malcolm Mooney, posing as Hans Blix wrote:

    “Actual Inventurd”

    MM, are you have to provide the exact quote of the holding in each case. Simply typing the name of cases is not enough.

    For example it needs to be shown that people were “successfully” sued and thus prevented from merely thinking, and not for “thinking” in conjunction with all of the other steps in the claimed process. Remember claims with thinking steps are statutory subject matter by law. See ( Diamond V Diehr)

  20. 281

    “Simple, the 273 definition you reference has been repealed…”

    Ned if this was an opinion stated by a judge or court please provide the proper pin cite.

    If this was an act of Congress please provide the statute, and quote the text.

    And please do not cite the AIA without first addressing the substantive points made by Simple Questions above at Oct 21, 2011 at 11:26 AM

    You have a chance to begin to redeem yourself Ned. Don’t blow it.

  21. 280

    “He isn’t talking about a “machine”. He is talking about “programming”.”

    Programming can be claimed as a machine as I understand it.

    And breadth and clarity is not a 101 issue.

    If you could make some solid point perhaps we could have a debate.

    So far you have completely failed to show why this case was not decided on the law and Supreme Court precedent, as you originally claimed when it first came down.

    And you have given no reason as why the outcome should or could be any different than what is.

  22. 279

    We know that you believe your consciousness is driven by angels spinning on the tip of needles MM and that your brain is a superfluous organ.

  23. 278

    MM,

    I am not sure who Dale is, or why you think that I am he (I am not), but I invite you and Ned to post your usual bag of tricks over at Gene’s blog and we will see just how long that nonsense lasts.

    Gene simply will not put up with the type of intellectual dishonesty as is rampant here by the “consistent monikered” and the “post in the real name” crowd who have no real control here (and noticably do not call for the actual control that is present at Gene’s blog and that would actually control the rampant gamesmanship.

    Just ask 6, IANAE and MaxDrei, each of whom have had their games shut down.

    It is more than telling just what type of “control” you desire – the desire to be unfettered in your games.

    How about it? Step up to the challenge and post in your monikers and in your same gameplaying style over at Gene’s and we will watch you get shut down.

    I am more than confident that I will sooner see an honest and complete set of answers from Ned on the 101 questions that have been repeatedly put to him then I will see either of you “mighty brave souls” actually put your true legal “characters” to the test.

    At Gene’s, it is not the moniker that counts (as he does allow pseudonym monikers) – it is the content that counts. And content is what you dreadfully lack. And it is content that Ned avoids.

    So, MM, laugh, joke, call names, accuse, use your “_xx_” style of posting, prevaricate, take umbrage, dance, avoid, hyperventilate, conflate, mistate and don’t understand all you want – those types of tricks are simply content-free and are easily much more pathetic and pitiful behavior on a blog that has no true control for veracity and intellectual honesty than a blog you would mock that actually does have gamesmanship control.

  24. 277

    “That is not a fact.”

    You say that but evidence to establish such is readily at hand.

  25. 276

    “6, isn’t that a 112 issue?”

    No.

    “If the machine is part of an enabled disclosure and the machine is inherently in the claim, or implicitly a part then that is satisfactory for 101.”

    He isn’t talking about a “machine”. He is talking about “programming”.

    Stay on target AI. Stop fiddling around jebus. I know you’re old but come on ffs, try to keep up.

    “6, you may get you wish in the next year or so, I know that for a fact. But, you may not like the results from SCOTUS any more that what you are seeing from CAFC.”

    No actually I would. I was there during Bilski remember? The judges there are not out to patent protect and balk at this kind of cra p, as mmm would say. And even if they upheld the method it would be good to have had them step into this arena where guidance is sorely needed.

    Your nonsensical writings about conservatism v liberalism are misplaced old man. The court isn’t divided down partisan lines on patent matters.

  26. 275

    5 + 1 is a transformation of information

    The stxpxd. It burns.

  27. 274

    sockie the pathetic sockpuppet Like MM is not as equally a dxpshxt pseudonym as Malcolm or Malcolm Mooney, all of which are easily the most dxpshxt pseudonyms as regards to posting content?

    I see you’ve missed the point. I’m not surprised.

    I’ll take away the snark so it’s easier for you: posting “predictions” under a pseudonym made up on-the-spot and which will never be used again is just about the most pathetic, pitiful behavior that can be legally engaged in on Internet.

    I guess that’s why sockie the sockpuppet was so quick to “defend” it.

  28. 273

    My suspision that you do not post on the Quinn blog is because he has zero tolerance for mistatements of law

    Megalulz.

    Keep it up, Dale.

  29. 272

    Ned I think the transformation of information is enough for eligibility. We certainly shouldn’t be going back to the 1800’s to understand modern technology and science.

    It is interesting that Benson was written by people that were educated in the 1950’s or before, which is a time period prior to when modern physics and information theory was being taught. So, here we are 40 years later and probably 10 to 100 billion dollars poorer because a bunch of old men refuse to modernize their thinking.

    And, Ned, you know that the Fed. Cir. has held as much that an information transformation is a transformation in the MOT sense. And, that a data structure in memory is patent eligible. Both, of these holding are just a slight nudge away from my position. Of course, if one is force to somehow tie one’s thinking to the 1800’s then of course arguments are more difficult.

    The problem with arguing with you Ned is that you are clearly playing games. You have no interest in clearly stating your opinion as it does not hold water

    .

  30. 271

    “they find that certain steps would require a certain thing in actual practice, not explicitly laid out in the claim. It’s the same bs that people have been spouting about some method claims “implicitly” including a computer because you would have to use a computer to put the method into practical use, even though WHOOPSIE, the drafter left it out.”

    6, isn’t that a 112 issue? It’s is my understanding that a method claim does not have to explicitly recite or describe the machine. If the machine is part of an enabled disclosure and the machine is inherently in the claim, or implicitly a part then that is satisfactory for 101.

    Besides this is a 101 subject matter case, and according to this panel, the law is as follows:

    “This court understands that the broadly claimed method in the ’545 patent does not specify a particular mechanism for delivering media content to the consumer (i.e., FTP downloads, email, or real-time streaming). This breadth and lack of specificity does not render the claimed subject matter impermissibly abstract. Assuming the patent provides sufficient disclosure to enable a person of ordinary skill in the art to practice the invention and to satisfy the written description requirement, the disclosure need not detail the particular instrumentalities for each step in the process. That a process may be patentable, irrespective of the particular form of the instrumentalities used, cannot be disputed. If one of the steps of a process be that a certain substance is to be reduced to a powder, it may not be at all material what in- strument or machinery is used to effect that ob- ject, whether a hammer, a pestle and mortar, or a mill. Benson, 409 U.S. at 69-70 (quoting Cochrane v. Deener, 94 U.S. 780, 787-88 (1876)). Moreover, written description and enablement are conditions for patentability that title 35 sets “wholly apart from whether the invention falls into a category of statutory subject matter.” Diehr, 450 U.S. at 190 (quoting In re Bergy, 596 F.2d 952, 961 (C.C.P.A. 1979)). The “coarse eligibility filter” of § 101 should not be used to invalidate patents based on con- cerns about vagueness, indefinite disclosure, or lack of enablement, as these infirmities are expressly addressed by § 112. See 35 U.S.C. § 112; see also Research Corp., 627 F.3d at 869 (“In section 112, the Patent Act provides powerful tools to weed out claims that may present a vague or indefinite disclosure of the invention.”).

    13 ULTRAMERCIAL v. HULU”

    6, you may get you wish in the next year or so, I know that for a fact. But, you may not like the results from SCOTUS any more that what you are seeing from CAFC. Proving Obama does not get re-elected and rapidly appoint 1 or 2 more liberal judges to the Court.

  31. 270

    Ned, I understand simple questiosn to be discussing the part of the AIA that deals with defense.

    You do realize that you must have patent eligible material to even begin to have a defense against such, and that it simply makes no sense to have a defense against something that is simply not eligible for patent protection in the first place, correct?

    It is evident that what you said and what you think you said are two different things. Try not to be in a rush of judgment to think that others have not addressed what you actually have said. My understanding of the written conversation is that it is you that need to pay attention to what actually has been expressed – and it is you that is asking simple questions to read your mind as to what you may have meant to have said.

    And remember, do not shoot the messenger.

  32. 269

    Ned,

    This is yet another example of you playing games and trying to kick up dust. Overlook’s posts are as plain as day, and it is only you that is trying to manipulate the points brought up.

    Indeed, your post at 6:19 PM is very trollish and merely seeks to mistate what Overlook posted.

    Please stop your games.

  33. 268

    Actual Inventor,

    Please note too that Publius’ actual bone of contention with Ned has never been answered by Ned. No workable “theory” or actual better control of posters and their content has ever been demonstrated by posting in one own’s actual name.

    Not ever.

    All this call is is yet another game, another kick-up-the-dust sidetrack while real issues, real questions go unattended.

    It would be nice to see as much affort go into actually addressing the issues raised as the level of effort expended in avoiding those issues.

  34. 267

    I see no pathetic joke in what Actual Inventor points out.

    Please leave out the personal attacks and explain better your actual argument here Ned.

  35. 266

    Ned,

    The Supreme Court’s discussion of how to understand text applies equally well to the passage in Congressional law as it does to the passage in the Constitution.

    As far as “no well accepted definition,” that would be incorrect, as I have laready pointed out that Congress provided a definition, and the Supreme Court explicitly referenced that very definition in the Bilski passage that you adamently refuse to address.

    Just because a definition is very broad, does not mean that there is no well accepted definition. More correctly, your attempted re-definition is just not well-accepted. But that is only a problem for your “agenda” and is not a problem for the legal undertstanding of the issue that the rest of us understand to be in play.

  36. 265

    I never look at Quinn’s blog, and to the extent I have heard of his points of view

    I think there is something seriously wrong for you to be labeling Quinn, having never actually looked at his blog.

    You are admitting to making a judgment about a person and his blog on the n_aked assertions of others.

    “Supporting” his blog by reading or posting on it? You sound just like MM who cries for some level of “poster control”, yet decries Quinn who does the very thing asked for. My suspision that you do not post on the Quinn blog is because he has zero tolerance for mistatements of law and your constant harkings would be quickly banned for what they are. Here at Patently-O, there is no such control for legal correctness.

    Can you say “duplicity?”

    Lastly, the “issue” of consistent monikers is not what needs attention on this blog. Rather, the “gameplaying” by (mostly) the consistent monikers is what needs attention and control. It is that gameplaying that destroys credibility and there is no way you can say with a straight face that just posting under one’s real name or even under a consistent moniker that “credibility” is achieved. The games are played the most by those vocal few (the empty wagon crowd), with posting under one’s real name and even under a consistent moniker. There simply is no guarantee that by posting under one’s real name and even under a consistent moniker that the content of the posts are reasonable, on point, accurate to existing law, and not simply pushing an agenda (the current rage of the day). None. To say so otherwise is to blatantly l_ie.

  37. 264

    “LOL, sure AI, we’ll get to your proof right after we prove to some commenter at Answers in Genesis that the Egyptians didn’t ride dinosaurs.”

    But what if they did MM? How COOL WOULD THAT SHT BE?

    link to google.com

    link to google.com

    A boy can dream can’t he?

  38. 263

    Actual Inventurd, you or your sockpuppets consistently demand that someone give you an example of a person being successfully sued for patent infringement for mere thinking. I’ll give you two:

    1) Mayo, in Prometheus v. Mayo; and
    3) LabCorp, in Metabolite v. LabCorp.

    Are those enough, or do you want more?

  39. 262

    Night, I had no idea that you would go so far.

    But now that I know your position, I understand why you do not like
    Benson. It was the whole bit about Math being unpatentable subject matter.

    Rader actually said as much in Alappat as well. He suggested that what Benson had in mind were laws of nature, not math in general.

    But, from a patentability point of view, I think the only things covered by patents are applications of mathematics. As I suggested earlier, the broadest way to claim math is to transform signals. I think such claims may well pass muster from a 101 point of view.

  40. 261

    I said half a dozen things in this thread at least. You’re going to have to be more specific.

  41. 260

    ” I thought it was the Federal Circuit that was suppose to set the precedent for District Courts to follow. Also, isn’t it within their right to decide if they want to construe claims or not?”

    It sure is and it sure is.

    Also note that they do not (usually?) make factual findings in the first instance (i.e. where the lower court did not make them). What they based this decisionlol on was facts, not a claim construction. It is not included in the claims, implicitly or otherwise, that they require “intricate and complex programming”. What they based it on was a factual consideration masquerading as a sub-part of claim construction.

    “That is not a fact. ”

    It sure is. Because they’re trying to say that, as a factual finding, they find that certain steps would require a certain thing in actual practice, not explicitly laid out in the claim. It’s the same bs that people have been spouting about some method claims “implicitly” including a computer because you would have to use a computer to put the method into practical use, even though WHOOPSIE, the drafter left it out. That may well be so, but that is not an question of law, it is a question of fact.

    “The term “extensive: makes no difference to the outcome of this case.”

    Perhaps and perhaps not.

    I would love to see the USSC get its hands on these recent nonsensical cases from the Circuit. Just reading their wise words on issues the Federal Circuit has to throw up smokescreens to patent protect would be interesting.

  42. 259

    PROVE IT!!!!

    LOL, sure AI, we’ll get to your proof right after we prove to some commenter at Answers in Genesis that the Egyptians didn’t ride dinosaurs.

  43. 258

    Ned,

    The only one trying to kid anyone is you.

    It’s really simple to do. Press the “Ctrl” key and the “F” key at the same time and look for “simple questions” On this thread alone he has posted 11 times (and you actually did answer him once).

    The point Ned, is that a host of questions have been put to you and you have point-blank refused to answer them. The last evasion of yours even categorizing the questions as “when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife” type questions. The only reason you do so categorize the questions like that is because the rational answers to the questions destroy your agenda. There is no way that you will ever put forth a reasoned, calm response to the set of questions put forth repeatedly to you. Ever.

    I for one do not expect you to do so. But until you do, those questions will immediately spring up every time this subject comes up and you start with your agenda-driven posts. It is inevitable, because those questions knock the foundation out from your agenda. My advice (offerred knowing full well it will not be taken) is for you to answer the questions (the Bilksi 11,14, USC 235, or whatever and the AIA series) and deal with the consequences to your agenda. The way to get rid of a shadow is to shine a light where that shadow is. These questions that knock away the foundation of your agenda will forever shadow your posts until you actually deal with them.

    And to be “polite,” I am asking you to please deal with them.

  44. 257

    Actual Inventor,

    Indeed, you have not been paying attention. The reason why this blog has so many posts from the same few people is exactly because certain interests are being shilled.

    When all complete and rational arguments are systematically avoided, when the games being played become so evident (and chief amongst these being the “accuse the other side of your own actions” game, the “I take umbrage” game, and the “I never address the actual points raised” game), it is more than clear just why these vocal few are so very vocal.

    No matter how much “dialogue”, “conversation,” “discussion,” or “learning” is posted as the object to be obtained, the true object is just the Shilling of an agenda.

    This is as it has ever been here.

  45. 256

    Ned is at it again.

    The game: Umbrage.

    Seriously, MaxDrei is the last person on these boards who should be listened to when it comes to US law. Whether or not MaxDrei is well-educated in other areas is not at issue, but MaxDrei has exhibited incredible lack of knowledge and understanding of US law. His flavor of Shilling is the drive to make all law EPO law. This Shilling permeates all of his posts.

    The umbrage you post at Actual Inventor is utter nonsense. The pathetic joke is your game. You are in no position to decide just who can “deign to lecture” and who cannot.

    It is obvious why you ply this game of yours. You do not want to go down the path of reason as to why the Patent Office is located in the Commerce Depratment. Actual Inventor may lack formal legal training, but that does not make his point “grotesque,” “ignorant,” or “pathetic.” And yes, I know that you used these adjectives for other than the actual point, but like so many ideas on these boards, you have not addressed the actual point made.

    I gladly join the chorus of those urging Ned to stop his game playing. Rather than umbrage, let’s see some simple logical and legal reasoning calmly applied to the point raised. Stop kicking up dust.

  46. 255

    Ned is at it again.

    The game: Umbrage.

    Seriously, MaxDrei is the last person on these boards who should be listened to when it comes to US law. Whether or not MaxDrei is well-educated in other areas is not at issue, but MaxDrei has exhibited incredible lack of knowledge and understanding of US law. His flavor of Shilling is the drive to make all law EPO law. This Shilling permeates all of his posts.

    The umbrage you post at Actual Inventor is utter nonsense. The pathetic joke is your game. You are in no position to decide just who can “deign to lecture” and who cannot.

    It is obvious why you ply this game of yours. You do not want to go down the path of reason as to why the Patent Office is located in the Commerce Depratment. Actual Inventor may lack formal legal training, but that does not make his point “grotesque,” “ignorant,” or “pathetic.” And yes, I know that you used these adjectives for other than the actual point, but like so many ideas on these boards, you have not addressed the actual point made.

    I gladly join the chorus of those urging Ned to stop his game playing. Rather than umbrage, let’s see some simple logical and legal reasoning calmly applied to the point raised. Stop kicking up dust.

  47. 254

    Also note that the Fed. Cir. has essentially held as much in several cases where something is represented in the computer memory and then changed and this counted as a transformation in the MOT sense. Ergo, all canges in the state of computer memory are transformations that require space, time, and energy.

  48. 253

    Ned: >>Night, transformation of information, again, is a process.

    No Ned. It is not. One may need a process to transform information, but an information transformation is a change in the state of the information like a change in the state of matter. Let’s take a simple example of adding 1 to 5 to get 6. This is not a process, but a transformation just like transforming matter. 1 + 5 = 6 is a transformation of the information that requires space, time, and energy to perform. Your brain does this by representing the numbers, then adding the numbers to transform the numbers into a new state. This is a transformation of the information that is every bit as much a transformation as MM’s smelly test tube chemicals. Physics recognizes this after about 1920. And, in fact the understanding of this came at the time of quantum mechanics and development of the modern computer. Benson is 1920’s science.

    Ned>> If transformation of information is patentable as a process, it will be patentable independent of whether the process is performed on a machine or by human being.

    This is a red herring. Again, in Deener the claim was to a process of transforming grain. The process included no recitation of a machine. A human body could have performed the process. So, information is being transformed by 1 +5. That is all that is needed to bring it under 101. It is a policy issue as to whether or not to say that a human brain can infringe or not.

    Ned>>>I am sure you would agree that a human being, using conventional tools such as paper and pencil, transforming information is not what you had in mind as patentable subject matter.

    Oh yes it is. The fact that a human brain can transform information is not relevant to the inquirer at all. It is sign of tea party patent member that this is even brought up. The machines we have invented are ones that can process information just like our brains. Before we were inventing machines that did what our body did now we are inventing machines that can do what our brains can do.

    Ned>>>What you seem to be talking about more than anything else is the energy or the potential

    At this point the rest of your post is nonsense. The point is that 5 + 1 is a transformation of information just like a chemical transformation. Nothing needs to be added to this statement just as nothing needs to be added to the statement that combining hydrogen and oxygen will transform the hydrogen and oxygen into a new state of water.

    That information is being transformed is irrefutable under modern science. Irrefutable. Nothing more needs to be added. Nothing for patent eligibility. None of your nonsense is material. Your nonsense goes back to 1920’s science and bizarre almost psychotic claims that things are laws of nature, and that apparently magic is involved in our thinking. If you are genuine about this, then you need to catch up on the last 100 years of science.

    Note that there are still 112 issues with claims that involve human words, which essential are did you enable the scope of your words, are your words clear enough for one skilled in the art to practice the invention, etc.

    Note that a claim to a data structure is memory is essentially a claim to an information transformation like a new molecule.

  49. 252

    Great post AI!! Just great! Benson is close to a criminal misinterpretation of science to advance a policy goal. In other clear legislation from the SCOTUS. Benson is a reviled opinion by all those that respect patent law.

    As to the cutting up the claims with this old and new business: I’ll say it again that there will be a CLE: How to write claim elements that cannnot be held to be old.

  50. 251

    AI, just how may of the sock puppets do you control?  

    I have no idea why I even bother with you.  Un fricken believeable.

  51. 250

    Though they may continue, your conflation and subversionary tactics will no longer be effective.

    “People should know when they are conquered. ”

  52. 249

    Anon, a small point here, but a significant point. In the passage you quote, the Supreme Court is talking about a statute. The Supreme Court is not talking about “useful arts” from the Constitution.

    However, I do agree now after discussing the issue with Actual Inventor at length, that, because there is no well accepted definition of “business method,” the Kennedy majority could not simply ban business methods without potentially creating unforeseen collateral damage.

  53. 248

    Actual Inventor, I find it grotesque that a person as ignorant as you are would deign to lecture a well-educated person such as MaxDrei on the US patent system and the U.S. Constitution. Actual inventor, you are a pathetic joke.

  54. 247

    Max, there is nothing to fear if you understand what Useful Arts truly means in the context of patents and our Constitution.

    You see, here in the USA, commerce is useful, and is the core foundation for the application of every invention ever issued a patent.

    I would go so far as to say commerce is the “Useful Arts!” Indeed this is what sets the Useful Arts apart from the liberal arts and social activity.

    (Even if you go back to 1789 all those first patents were for inventions being applied to commerce.)

    So, when you understand that the Useful Arts are for commerce, people can still do whatever they wish for liberal art, fun, and social activity, including merely thinking without fear of being sued for patent infringement.

    But when a concept is applied to industry, or a specific marketplace, A.K.A Commerce, that is the realm of patents.

    Indeed, there is a reason our PTO is situated under the Commerce Department.

  55. 246

    AI, as noted in the quote, your so-called DCAT is a very old test.

    Also, the MOT of Benson, applied in Diehr, is old as well. Came from Cochrane v. Deener.

  56. 245

    Publius said in reply to Actual Inventor…
    “Whether or not Ned is a “shill” for any certain industry, I do not comment upon.”

    Publius I had not considered that before either. But if it were proven true I would not be surprised.

    I have read about companies planting people on blogs to promote their products. Why not for example, the Silicon Valley send in a subversive on one of the most popular blogs on the internet to spread propaganda about existing patent law, laws they want overturned or weakened and/or pending cases that my be not be in the best interest if their companies? Not so far fetched a notion. And It would explain a lot actually.

  57. 244

    Yes.

  58. 243

    But is there a difference between i) applying an abstract concept to “a known structure or process”, or “a technology in the marketplace”, and ii) merely thinking about so applying such an abstract concept?

  59. 242

    Read my post one more time. Why don’t we discuss what I said, rather than what you think I said.

  60. 241

    6, Why does the CAFC have to be obsequious to the lower court? I thought it was the Federal Circuit that was suppose to set the precedent for District Courts to follow. Also, isn’t it within their right to decide if they want to construe claims or not? The case was decided on the law and in accordance with Supreme Court precedent.

    “Although abstract principles are not eligible for pat- ent protection, an application of an abstract idea may well be deserving of patent protection. See Diehr, 450 U.S. at 187 (“an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection”); Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 591 (1978) (“While a scientific truth, or the mathe- matical expression of it, is not a patentable invention, a novel and useful structure created with the aid of knowl- edge of scientific truth may be.”). The application of an abstract idea to a “new and useful end” is the type of invention that the Supreme Court has described as de- serving of patent protection. Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972). After all, unlike the Copyright Act which divides idea from expression, the Patent Act covers and protects any new and useful technical advance, including applied ideas.” ( Ultramercial)

    What’s wrong with that 6?

    6: None of the steps required intricate or complex computer programming.

    AI: That is not a fact. But Rader’s position is supported by the following factual statement: “And, of course, if the products are offered for sale on the Internet, they must be “restricted”—step four—by complex computer programming as well.” Just because you can ( or claim) you can program the computer does not negate the fact it must be programed.

    6:”There is another one AI. “extensive” is a relative term and it is a factual consideration as to whether or not the invention does in fact involve “extensive” computer interface”

    AI: The court said: “This court does not define the level of programming complexity required before a computer-implemented method can be patent-eligible. Nor does this court hold that use of an Internet website to practice such a method is either necessary or sufficient in every case to satisfy § 101. This court simply find the claims here to be patent-eligible, in part because of these factors.” ( Ultramercial)

    The term “extensive: makes no difference to the outcome of this case. Again, see above why the court found the claims patent -eligible. Got anything else 6, or are you done?

  61. 240

    6, Why does the CAFC have to be obsequious to the lower court? I thought it was the Federal Circuit that was suppose to set the precedent for District Courts to follow. Also, isn’t it within their right to decide if they want to construe claims or not? The case was decided on the law and in accordance with Supreme Court precedent.

    “Although abstract principles are not eligible for pat- ent protection, an application of an abstract idea may well be deserving of patent protection. See Diehr, 450 U.S. at 187 (“an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection”); Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 591 (1978) (“While a scientific truth, or the mathe- matical expression of it, is not a patentable invention, a novel and useful structure created with the aid of knowl- edge of scientific truth may be.”). The application of an abstract idea to a “new and useful end” is the type of invention that the Supreme Court has described as de- serving of patent protection. Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972). After all, unlike the Copyright Act which divides idea from expression, the Patent Act covers and protects any new and useful technical advance, including applied ideas.” ( Ultramercial)

    What’s wrong with that 6?

    6: None of the steps required intricate or complex computer programming.

    AI: That is not a fact. But Rader’s position is supported by the following factual statement: “And, of course, if the products are offered for sale on the Internet, they must be “restricted”—step four—by complex computer programming as well.” Just because you can ( or claim) you can program the computer does not negate the fact it must be programed.

    6:”There is another one AI. “extensive” is a relative term and it is a factual consideration as to whether or not the invention does in fact involve “extensive” computer interface”

    AI: The court said: “This court does not define the level of programming complexity required before a computer-implemented method can be patent-eligible. Nor does this court hold that use of an Internet website to practice such a method is either necessary or sufficient in every case to satisfy § 101. This court simply find the claims here to be patent-eligible, in part because of these factors.” ( Ultramercial)

    The term “extensive: makes no difference to the outcome of this case. Again, see above why the court found the claims patent -eligible. Got anything else 6, or are you done?

  62. 239

    And you sir, stop it as well.  You know very well what you said.  So stop denying it.

    This is the same s h I t we all experienced for weeks when we were discussing your statement 

    Sent from iPhonethat BMPs were patent eligible. You alternated between denying you said it, and repeating the statement .

  63. 238

    Simple, you have to be kidding.

    You have yet to make a point or ask a question.

    If you actually expect me to read your mind,  then you have to kidding yourself.

    Sent from iPhone

  64. 237

    Verizon and HP: “This principle is soundly based on Section 101’s limitation to processes and products that are not only ‘useful’ but ‘new.'” “[A]dding to the old process in Prometheus’s patent claims nothing more than a mental step of recognizing the possible health (toxicity or efficacy) significance of the result of the process does not define a ‘new and useful process.'”

    Okay I bet Steven’s paid these guys to write this. Or they have never read Diehrs holding on mixing new in 101 with new in 102. Which is as follows:

    “It has been urged that novelty is an appropriate consideration under §101. Presumably, this argument results from the language in §101 referring to any “new and useful” process, machine, etc. Section 101, however, is a general statement of the type of subject matter that is eligible for patent protection “subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.” Specific conditions for patentability follow and §102 covers in detail the conditions relating to novelty.13 <450 U.S. 190> The question therefore of whether a particular invention is novel is “fully apart from whether the invention falls into a category of statutory subject matter.” In re Bergey, 596 F.2d 952, 961, 201 USPQ 352, 361 (CCPA 1979). See also Nickolas v. Peterson, 580 F.2d 898, 198 USPQ 385 (CA6 1978). ” ( Diehr )

  65. 236

    CATO: Patent claims such as these, “whose final step is mental,” impermissibly tread on the public domain and “freedom of thought.”

    PROVE IT!!!! Oh CATO, I just read the claim and no one busted down my door and took me to jail or anything. These guys drank the MM special Tea. Stop the lie!!!

  66. 235

    Gang of Nine Law Professors Wrote: “Barring claims like Prometheus’s under section 101, as opposed to relying on patentability requirements such as novelty and nonobviousness, promotes “efficient gate-keeping” and “sends important signals.”

    AI: Conflation of the separate categories is efficient gate keeping? And important to whom? Big corporations in Sillicon valley perhaps? These guys can’t be serious. How does that philosophy agree with the following spirit of the original law:

    “Achieving the ultimate goal of a patent,” wrote Judge Giles S. Rich, 2 “involves, to use an analogy, having the separate keys to open in succession the three doors of [35 U.S.C. 3] sections 101, 102, and 103.” 4 Thus, to secure patent protection for an invention, an inventor must first establish, under section 101, that the invention falls within one of the statutory categories 5 and that the invention is “useful.” 6 After the inventor satisfies the requirements of section 101, “he is allowed to pass through to the second door, which is [section] 102.” 7 Here, the inventor must establish that the invention is novel. 8 The third “door” is section 103, where the inventor must establish that the invention is non-obvious. 9 Only after the inventor has satisfied the requirements of all three sections – securing the “key” to each of the “doors of sections 101, 102, and 103″ – will the inventor be permitted to secure a patent for an invention. 10”

    I wonder who paid for this gang of nine?

  67. 234

    NWPA, I am a bit more optimistic than you on this one. Stevens is gone. And there is no way Scalia is gonna cozy up to the wise latina on what has been a conservative strong hold issue. So we still have a working majority on the Court and Rader is holding the line at the Federal Circuit. Things look fairly safe for the moment.

    With Bilski 14 opening the door, I hope this panel will crack down on Flook and out right over rule Benson. After all you really can’t have Diehrs claims as a whole approach and concept and application analysis and Bensons preemption at the same time.

    One has to control the other. One has to rule. The majority already said Diehr’s approach controls so they should just come out and be downright specific about the non sense in Benson no longer being good law.

    Besides who is left over from the Benson Court to offend anyway?!?!? The majority needs to overrule that Sheeet.

    A 5th grader knows enough general science to tell you that math equations are not laws of nature, and has enough common sense to know a computer is a machine, especially one with software!

    I read what the opposition briefs stand for and it’s downright criminal the way they disregard, ignore, twist, and violate the law! Especially that CATO! Who the bleep do those people think they are!?!?!?!?

    I hope this Court’s majority comes right out and says this war ends now! Stop sending us this 101 dissection preemption craaap. Do as Diehr told you and take claims as a whole. Use the concept and application approach. Then if you think you have a 102, 103 or 112 case bring it on!

    Well that’s my rant. Power to the 99%!!!!

  68. 233

    Mooney and Hans talk to themselves like they are two different people. Now that’s clever. Or insane.

  69. 232

    Show me where they said that if there was no 273, they would have sided with Stevens.

    What games are you trying to play?

    What kind of question is this? This is not what I said – this is what you said. You are trying to have me prove a conjecture that I said simply did not exist, nor needed to exist.

    What the Majority expresly stated was that 273 expressly provides for business methods as patent eligible subject matter as I directly stated at 11:24 AM.

    Stop being a troll.

  70. 231

    Ned,

    WHen can I expect my substantive and detailed responses? So far I have received nothing.

  71. 230

    they are not patent eligible.

    Is there a reason why you choose to conflate terminology?

    PLease try again and read this section of law. NOWHERE does it even remotely indicate that this is a “patent eligibility” issue. Quite in fact, the opposite, as the section deals with defenses to admiited patente eligible items.

  72. 229

    MaxDrei “I think we need a better test of eligibility than the MOT test.”

    We already have one Maxie. It’s the DCAT Diehr Concept and Application Test. The ONLY Supreme Court sanctioned test and controlling analysis for 101 Subject Matter for the last 30 years!

    The MOT has only been and remains merely a clue for processes of the type used in the 1800’s.

    The DCAT works exactly like the Court used it in Diehr. You take the claims as a whole, including the concept. Then analyze the claim to see if there is an application to a specific industrial and/or marketplace process.

    If the answer is yes you pass 101!

    Its worked well for 30 years!

    See the cite history as follows:

    ( Diehr) : It is now commonplace that an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection. See, e.g., Funk Bros. Seed <450 U.S. 188> Co. v. Kalo Co., 333 U.S. 127, 76 USPQ 280 (1948);Eibel Process Co. v. Minnesota & Ontario Paper Co., 261 U.S. 45 (1923); Cochrane v. Deener,94 U.S. 780 (1876); O’Reilly v. Morse,15 How. 62 (1853); andLe Roy v. Tatham, 14 How. 156 (1852).

    ( Bilski) Page 14 : Finally, in Diehr, the Court established a limitation on the principles articulated in Benson and Flook.

    (Research Corp): Indeed, this court notes that inven- tions with specific applications or improvements to technologies in the marketplace are not likely to be so abstract that they override the statutory language and framework of the Patent Act.

    (Ultramercial): Although abstract principles are not eligible for pat- ent protection, an application of an abstract idea may well be deserving of patent protection. See Diehr, 450 U.S. at 187 (“an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection”)

  73. 228

    anon, I never look at Quinn’s blog, and to the extent I have heard of his points of view, I can understand that at times he can be completely wrong. I think he was the source of the theory that the US was a FTF country until 1870. That was repeated in Congress, and is complete nonsense.

    But because he said it, I consider the man to be the “enemy” of the US patent system and a friend of international big business. He seems to be a shill for their point of view.

    I could never support his blog by reading or posting on it for this reason.

    In contrast, Dennis is usually right on everything he posts. He personally is reliable and conservative on the law. His fellow academics are also right on. I, for one, appreciate Dennis and his blog. I really do.

    But, to the extent that there is constant bickering going on here because people’s feelings are hurt, Dennis really should consider some remedy. I agree with Malcolm that we need people to post with consistent monikers to reduce pettiness.

  74. 227

    I’m game.

    Show me where they said that if there was no 273, they would have sided with Stevens.

  75. 226

    Night, I gave you a substantive and detailed response.  Since then you continue to post this c r a p.  I thought you were a serious poster.  Was I mistaken?  Should I lump you into the troll category as well?

  76. 225

    AI: This also makes perfect sense to me. If these claims run afoul of 35 U.S.C. § 287(c)(1) then why not just say so and be done with it?

    I agree to an exent. I think the court should hold that if claims such as Prometheus’ run afoul of the statute and cannot be infringed except in violation of the statute, they are not patent eligible.

  77. 224

    If Ned and MM are getting really angry and finding reference to people with guns, then I think it is I that should be worried.

  78. 223

    Night, given MaxDrei’s examples, I am sure what you are talking about art entropy-reducing transformations. Not so?

  79. 222

    Max, Rader is playing games. MOT is supposed to work on the process claim as a whole. If the claim ends in an abstraction, the claim as whole is doing nothing in the real world. See the US government brief on this point. Imaginary steps are not steps,

    Rader perverts the MOT by looking for transformations in the data gathering steps. He does this with mockery, because he cannot be serious.

    Regarding the information transformation theory, I am sure that what Night is really talking about is entropy-reducing transformations. Your examples do not reduce entropy, they increase it.

  80. 221

    UNITED STATES (Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, Jr.): The claimed methods recite “patent-eligible subject matter,”

    AI: I agree. A process with physical steps, mental steps, and a required use of a machine or apparatus to execute is a patent eligible claim. Not to mention the inherency of transformations when it comes to drawing blood.

    “US SG petitioners’ objections to patentability are properly understood as challenges to the claimed methods’ novelty and nonobviousness.”

    AI: Exactly, why not just go for 102/103? And if the claims are too broad and vague why not also go for 112?

    AIPPI : “When the medical-practitioner exemption of 35 U.S.C. § 287(c)(1) applies, “the courts lack subject matter jurisdiction.” The exemption applies to the defendants, who “are plainly ‘related health care entities.'” Thus, “the case should be dismissed for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction?”

    AI: This also makes perfect sense to me. If these claims run afoul of 35 U.S.C. § 287(c)(1) then why not just say so and be done with it?

    “Preemption analysis “must incorporate a critical assessment of whether the claim at issue actually claims a fundamental principle as a fundamental principle in contrast to an application of that principle.”

    AI: Again, agree here as well. Diehr’s Concept & Application Test (DCAT) controls over Benson’s Preemption analysis as was established by the Supreme Court in Bilski,

    Bilski 14 baby!!!!

  81. 220

    Thanks for the link. When I got this far, I really got angry.

    “Despite the sideshow of the Patent Troll Tracker blog posts and the libel suits, Verhoeven’s strategy for winning the case for Cisco focused on the facts surrounding the assignment of Girard’s patent. He discovered that Girard had signed an employment agreement, which included an invention-assignment clause, before starting work at Iperia, the telecom company that employed him in April 2001. That’s when Girard filed a provisional patent application, which ultimately became the ‘059 patent.

    With evidence in hand that Iperia, rather than Girard, owned the rights to the ‘059 patent, Cisco negotiated to purchase the patent for $500,000–which included a $200,000 “kicker” if the purchase ultimately held up in court. Iperia’s former CEO, who is a friend of Girard, filed a declaration stating that he was fine with Girard’s patenting activity and that it wasn’t covered by the employment agreement. But Judge Folsom disagreed, finding that Girard’s invention was in an area of technology quite similar to Iperia’s. Any oral agreement between Girard and Iperia’s CEO was ultimately less important than Girard’s written agreement to give Iperia rights to his inventions, he ruled. (Here is Judge Folsom’s order.)”

    The whole concept that former employer has more than an equitable right to an assignment is completely wrong as recently noted by the Supreme Court. I hope the Feds take this case en banc and reverse their prior precedent to the contrary.

  82. 219

    MOT might be a useful guide but as a Y/N test it just doesn’t cut the mustard. Unless a process does nothing whatsoever to anything, it has to change something. And as soon as something is changed, folks can cry “There, see, a transformation”. Even as it was proposed, there were folks pointing to manifestly eligible subject matter, famous patents from the past, where it was a hopeless stretch to argue that the process they claimed brought about a “transformation”.

    No wonder Rader CJ isn’t convinced.

    Meanwhile, I’m having difficulty accepting that data processed is data “transformed”. When I shuffle a deck of cards, on screen or in my hands, or when I shake the bag of still available letter tiles during a game of Scrabble, in what non-trivial de minimis sense is the data “transformed”?

    And even if information is conserved, like mass and energy are conserved, so what? How does that help to prove that shuffling cards is “transforming” the deck, or that shaking the bag is “transforming” its content?

    I think we need a better test of eligibility than the MOT test.

  83. 218

    Night, transformation of information, again, is a process. If transformation of information is patentable as a process, it will be patentable independent of whether the process is performed on a machine or by human being. I am sure you would agree that a human being, using conventional tools such as paper and pencil, transforming information is not what you had in mind as patentable subject matter.

    What you seem to be talking about more than anything else is the energy or the potential energy state of signals, which are physical. Transforming a signal from one state to another based upon information is something that humans cannot do. I think the general principles involved here were discussed in the Telephone Cases, which allowed the patenting of a process of modulating signals, electrical signals, using information from a detector that was modulated by air vibrations. I think these cases can be abstracted into a general principle that would take signals from the real world, applying the transformative information processing, and then retransmit the signals. The signals would be of course forms of energy, which would have to have some physical existence in time space.

    There are recent Federal Circuit cases of course that hold that signals are not patentable as articles of manufacture. However, the Telephone Cases do tell us that modulating a real world signal according to information (derived from the real world) is patentable as a process.

    Now if you would agree to the above, I think we have common ground and can move forward with the discussion.

    Not how does one modulate a signal with new information? Of course a general purpose digital computer coupled with other apparatus may do the trick, albeit purely physical, analog apparatus, consisting entirely of circuits, may be all that is required.

    Given all of the above, the problem with patenting the computer programmed to take data and to output data is that it is not complete. The process must work on “real” signals. I hope you understand the difference.

  84. 217

    Whether you think so or not is not material.

    The Majority expressly stated so.

  85. 216

    6, why do you say that?

  86. 215

    I will not repsond…

    ANY questions for Ned on the topic of his agenda will be of the nature of that.

    Nice “out” – a coward’s way of redefining any attack on your position as will not be answered.

  87. 214

    Gee, not only are you not responding to my challenge but now you are contriving examples from patent law 101 that mix 103 with 101. How clever. You are just so good at confusing us poor simple minds.

  88. 213

    I don’t have many patent things faved at home.

    Here you go AI:

    ” Many of these steps are likely to
    require intricate and complex computer programming. ”

    None of the steps required intricate or complex computer programming. That is a factual issue, as is the likelihood of the steps requiring intricate or complex computer programming.

    Notably I will be glad to give testimony (and a demonstration) that I personally can implement all aspects of the “invention” in a day, or, with some preparation, half a day, with a lot of prep I could probably pull it off in a half hour. And I’m way under the ordinary skill in that art. If I had ordinary skill I could probably get all of it done in a few hours, from scratch in my living room, especially with an assistant or two.

    ” Viewing the
    subject matter as a whole, the invention involves an
    extensive computer interface. ”

    There is another one AI. “extensive” is a relative term and it is a factual consideration as to whether or not the invention does in fact involve “extensive” computer interface. In this case the computer interface need not be all that extensive at all.

    In any event, the decision is based upon factual considerations never even made by the lower court and it is inappropriate for the Federal Circuit to try to make such factual findings on its own. Especially as here where the factual findings they make cannot be supported by evidence because any evidence gathered would lead any reasonable judge or jury to the opposite finding. Indeed, even the CAFC might have found substantially differently had they have had some evidence before them.

  89. 212

    Move, just a test:

    Is this patentable under any of 101, 102, 103?

    I claim a computer programmed to take a value from location A and add it to the value from location B, where the value of location A is number and the value of location B is a number;

    Where the prior art shows a computer that takes the value from any location and adds its contents to any location. Note, that the locations are uniquely specified in the example.

    Your theory suggests that specifying particular location converts the general computer into a particular machine.

    Also, assume that no prior art shows or suggests these particular locations.

  90. 211

    Moving, I said I would respond to substantive questions from simple because of his request.  I will not respond to general sockpuppets of other Monikers who ask questions, as you just did, of this ilk:
     
    "When will you stop beating your wife?

  91. 210

    I wonder, do you also suspect that it was bad claim drafting practices over the last decade that will have led up to that smack down?

  92. 209

    Golden calf, beware of false gods. 
     
    I will grant you this, that Rader and Kennedy are on the same page regarding BMPs.

  93. 208

    Over, I think the Kennedy majority would have come out the same way regardless of 273.

  94. 207

    Check, you might be confused.  There are in fact two Halliburton cases on the same topic.  The English case did hold that programmed machines are patent eligibile when the claimed program of necessity can only run on a machine.

  95. 206

    Gee MM, way to address my point regarding represented information. I think you just proved my point. If you csn’t respond to my point you are a troll not interested in a quality discussion. You cannot refute my point can you, MM? Your silence is an admission.

    You are right Hans Blix, I suspect a smack down that isn’t going to be good for 101 jurisprudence.

  96. 205

    equally dxpshxt pseudonym

    Like MM is not as equally a dxpshxt pseudonym as Malcolm or Malcolm Mooney, all of which are easily the most dxpshxt pseudonyms as regards to posting content?

    Pull your head out and get over yourself. No one and I mean no one has ever appointed you “guardian of the blog posters.” Perhaps, like Ned, you should focus less on the “who” is saying something and focus more on the “what” is begin said. Yes, I know that would require you to actually note and (gasp) might actually require you to add subsance, but you might find that the wagon ride is actually a bit more smooth when the wagon has something in it.

    Further, your obsession with Gene Quinn is more than just a bit odd, in that Gene does control his blog posts, you seem to want Dennis to control the blog posts, yet, you also seem to despise Gene.

    Is it because Gene’s blog ranked higher than Patently-O this year that has you so upset?

    Is it because Gene’s blog pulled in more first person interviews with key people in the patent world, while Patently-O merely pulled in academics (some of which would not reveal sources and asked all to simply “trust” the desired results)?

    Is it because the courts are catching up to the games at Patently-O (particualrly the games of the loud minority of commentors) and noting the drop in credibility while at the same time (and even though Gene makes no bones about his bias – in fact, Because Gene makes no bones about his bias – and readily admits when he has it) Gene’s influence is spreading in the patent world?

  97. 203

    “The clues are there if people place their agendas to the side for a moment: Rader is very much in touch with what the majority of the Supreme Court think and Rader’s crafting of 101 Jurisprudence at the CAFC level is very likely to be affirmed by the SC.

    You have to admire the confidence and bravery of the sockpuppet who posts this bold prediction and then disappears forever behind another equally dxpshxt pseudonym.

    It would be a fine tradition, I think, for Dennis to compile a list of each month’s most abused IP addresses, sockpuppetwise, and ban the top two. Of course, there would be a great deal of complaining on Lord Quinn’s blog is such draconian measures were taken. Go figure …

  98. 201

    Sure AI, be a good servant and fetch me a copy.

  99. 200

    Four posts in 29 minutes, none of which were replied to by anyone. On a Saturday no less. Wow. I’m sensing that even you acknowledge that the CAFC is going to get its sharpest rebuke ever. You think Ned is committing an act of violence by not submitting to you? You’re a pretty interesting character.

  100. 199

    “So Ned, how about it? Will you ever actually provide the answers? Will you ever actually stop your games and be intellectually honest and provide answers?”

    No,

    No.

    Hellll No!

  101. 198

    a general purpose computer plus software is a particular machine.

    That is the pith and essence of the law.

    In Bilski, notwithstanding the fact that Bilski was not about computer implemented/software inventions, the Supreme Court directed the CAFC to redevelop the jurisprudence of 101.

    In Ultramercial, the CAFC has done precisely that in regards to the MOT clue. The CAFC has taken the jurisprudence of the MOT and has redeveloped the MOT in relation to software – actually has taken the opportunity to forcefully and unequivocally reinforce what MANY have always maintained: the holding of Alappat. The question of what makes a paticular machine has been fully answered and reinforced in Ultramercial, and one must look at what Ultramercial has to say about “software.”

    From page 11:
    “…to satisfy the “particular machine” requirement. This court confronted that contention nearly two decades ago in the en banc case of In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526 (Fed. Cir. 1994). At that time, this court observed that “programming creates a new machine, because a general purpose computer in effect becomes a special purpose computer once it is programmed to perform particular functions pursuant to instructions from program software.” Id. at 1545.”

    From page 12:
    “In other words, a programmed computer contains circuitry unique to that computer. That “new machine” could be claimed in terms of a complex array of hardware circuits, or more efficiently, in terms of the programming that facilitates a unique function”

    It is clear that NWPA has been completely vindicated in his expresed views of software and a general computer being a particular machine – a new machine – that software transforms the general purpose machine and that software thus satifies both the machine prong and the transformation prong of MOT.

    It is clear that the courts are getting tired of the
    policy driven attemtps to limit inventions based on the attempted nose-of-wax bendings of 101 and trying to limit patent eligible inventions to 18th century thinking.

    It is clear that we all need to move forward and embrace the fact that the patent world is supposed to be forward looking, not backward limiting.

    It is clear that the views of 6 and Ned in regards to Alappat have been expressly denied.

  102. 197

    Notice that Ned does not provide any answers in his reply.

    Notice that Ned stops reading when Ned gets “That is all I needed”

    Notice that Ned reacts to the messenger and not to the message. Why? you may ask. Because the message is the k_iller, and it is easier to react to the messenger and ignore the message if that message k_ills “the agenda.”

    Notice that Ned is all about “his agenda” and never really gets into any discussion that shows the holes in “his agenda.” Never. Ned appears to be all about engaging in discussions, but Ned’s “discussions” are always one sided affairs, always his view and never never never about what the law actually is.

    Notice the offer to listen, but that listening is not what is being sought from Nef. Answers are being sought. Answers.

    So Ned, how about it? Will you ever actually provide the answers? Will you ever actually stop your games and be intellectually honest and provide answers?

  103. 196

    Ned,

    Answer these questions already!

  104. 195

    AFter you address this isssue, I will gladly shot down again, again, your silly little arguments regarding cannons, general purpose computers, and the other frivilous arguments you present.

  105. 194

    And, then Ned, ask yourself how the method in Deener is fine when it could be carried out by a human body, but the information processing methods are not ok because they can be carried out by a human brain.

    Get it? The reason I am sure I am right is that all of this is very simple in my framework. Simple to understand. Occam’s razor.

    And, please, when thinking about information tell us about information and black holes. Yes, black holes and information and the great geniuses of our day. Get out of the iron age. Anyone with an IQ as high as yours Ned has an obligation to try and honestly understand these issues and not try to obfuscate the issues to get policy based arguments put through that belong in Congress. To do less is to commit an act of violence against our society and the law which is our profession.

  106. 193

    I will also point out that if one performs a thought experiment and says that a tranformation of represented information is a transformation then all of sudden you find all of these arguments are trivial to understand. The methods are acting on a substancd like the grain in Deener. Represented information. You see that is the job of patent attorneys and decent human being. To try to understand modern technology. Not exploit weakness in the human mind to get policy based reasoning.

    You are smart Ned, but you are not a decent person. You motives are bad and thinking muddled and impure. Face the music. Game, set, match. You lose. Represented information being transformed is a transfomratin every bit as much as a grain of wheat being transformed.

    And if you want to continue to interact with me address my assertion directly and in terms of modern physics. Not your 1920 physics.

  107. 192

    Information transformed is a transformation under MOT.

    a general purpose computer plus software is a particular machine.

    You want to skip over information being transformed. Why? Because it destroys your arguments. Try to refute that. Modern physics recognizes conservation of information. Information is now seen as a fundamental property of nature. A transformation of information is work. It takes time, energy, and space. You lose, Ned. You cannot fight that. You avoid it because you lose. Either argue with me over this point or be seen forever as a troll. A policy based troll that for whatever reason is not interested in a quality discussion.

    That is modern physics. Modern information theory. You cannot skip over this point. Not possible. You face it or you are not interested in real debate. A bad human being trying to use the law for your policy based arguments.. Man up or drop out.

  108. 191

    For all the Rader h_ate being expressed, it is amazing then, that the highly fragmented Supreme Court in Bilski actually found common ground in one particular spot: Rader’s legal thinking.

    Also note that Rader, in Ultramercial led in with the Bilski majority quote of what the 101 purpose is.

    The clues are there if people place their agendas to the side for a moment: Rader is very much in touch with what the majority of the Supreme Court think and Rader’s crafting of 101 Jurisprudence at the CAFC level is very likely to be affirmed by the SC.

    Rader Love.

    link to youtube.com

  109. 190

    I think the reason that the majority did not join the Stevens minority and simply ban business methods from patent eligibility was because there was no clear definition of business method.

    That and the little fact that Congress expressly provided for business methods as patent eligible subject matter in Section 273…

  110. 189

    So please stop making these dishonest statements.

    Not. Going. To. Happen.

    Ever.

  111. 188

    “confine his claims as did the Halliburton court did in England to processes that necessarily must run completely on machines.”

    ???

    I think that is the opposite of the Halliburton court result.

  112. 187

    And what if Congress said no patent may issue on a claim directed to a human organism?

  113. 186

    Max, also note that he speaks of a transformation of data. At least he now admits that we are speaking of processes.

    And, without more, he claims any means for transforming, including the human brain with or without using aids, like paper and pen.

    Night, of course will add limits if pressed. And, when pressed hard enough, he might confine his claims as did the Halliburton court did in England to processes that necessarily must run completely on machines.

  114. 185

    Night, “enough to transform data.”

    That, miene freund, is a process.

  115. 184

    And what if Congress said one cannot patent medical methods of treating patients?

  116. 183

    Regarding Chief Judge Rader, it is clear that this man has a significant problem with the MOT test. He absolutely refuses in any case to acknowledge that it exists or will apply it except in a perversion of the test as he did in Prometheus.

    Sent from iPhone

  117. 182

    Night , then we will agree to disagree.

    Regarding Bilski: I think the reason that the majority did not join the Stevens minority and simply ban business methods from patent eligibility was because there was no clear definition of business method. 

    Bilski had little or nothing to do with the patentability of program computers.  That issue was not before the court in that case.

    Sent from iPhone

  118. 181

    Europe requires subject matter to be tied to a machine, you report. How about the claims the EPO issues, directed to a signal, an electromagnetic waveform carrying data?

    By contrast, electromagnetic activity within the human brain is not actionable, in free-thinking Europe, as an infringement of a presumed valid claim duly issued by the Patent Office.

  119. 180

    It does not sound like you want a quality discussion. It is enough to transform the data. Period. We are not Europe where we are chained to try to tie our inventions to a piece of hardware in some specific way. 1920’s thinking.

    Ned: Rader is a great judge. Rader does not need to walk through the swamp of SCOTUS cases based on iron age technology. The SCOTUS did not do this for Bilski and this was a business method not tied to a machine. He worked within the framework set out in Bilski. Nice that you like this old cases with 1920’s thinking. The SCOTUS did not in Bilski.

  120. 179

    Mayo then says: ” The “administering” and “determining” steps of Prom- etheus’s claims are not, however, its inventions. The drugs involved and the method of blood testing for metabolites are well known and have been used by physicians and researchers for decades.”

    Oh really? used by physicians and researchers for decades???? Why not just argue 103 and end this? With KSR out there you can knock the claims out in a heart beat. And you would not even have to do any of that MM dissection of mental/old steps craaaap.

  121. 178

    Mayo cries:” Prometheus insists that Mayo cannot develop a test with different criteria relating to any autoimmune disease unless it invents (needlessly) an entirely new way of examining the body for metabolites.”

    Hello??? That’s called asserting your patent rights! Don’t like it? Then get off your lazy azz and design around the patent or pioneer something better. That’s call promoting the progress of the useful arts and is what patents are supposed to.

    Part III

    Mayo says: Prometheus thus asserts the power to prevent doctors and researchers—who considered metabolite levels on their own years before these patent claims were filed (see supra, p. 4)—from exercising inde- pendent medical judgment based on ordinary blood evaluations.

    Dam right! Patents equal power to assert rights! Don’t like it start your own country with MM, Ned and 6.

    Mayo citing Diehr: ( Oh and I love how after relying on discredited dissection analysis in Flook and cabined principles in Benson they cite Diehr as if it helps their case. ) “The claimant did not seek to preempt use of the equation generally, but only to foreclose its use “in conjunction with all of the other steps in their claimed process” in the particular application of molding raw rubber into finished products. Id. at 187.”

    Duh??? Isn’t this just what Prometheus is doing? It’s an application of a concept to a specific industrial process. The claims are tied to a transformation and inherently require the use of a machine and apparatus. ( How the &&%$ you gonna test blood without drawing it?) It does not matter if the claims had a mental step or where old or whatever. Did the Mayo attorneys skip class the day they taught U.S.C. 100 (b), new use of a known process. And If the claims were anticipated prove it. If its obvious then show it! All this incessant whining, especially from a big company that gladly used the patent services of another company and is now crying cuz it has to pay a royalty when they ripped them off is too much for an Actual Inventor to stomach.

  122. 177

    6, can you state one factually unsupportable principle in Ultramericial?

  123. 176

    MM: “practitioners of the prior art being sued because they’ve learned something new and they dare to THINK about it.”

    Remember Malcolm, you can’t cite one case were someone was successfully sued for merely thinking about a patent. Let alone successfully prevented from thinking.

    So please stop making these dishonest statements.

    Your entire proposition is just a ruse to dissect claims and eliminate process patents.

  124. 175

    simple, I didn't read all of you post.  I stopped when I read that you sincerely wanted to discuss issues.  That is all I needed.

    You have to understand something that may not be apparent until it happens to you too.  If you are beset by pest who uses a variety of difference monikers to pretend to be different people, you begin to suspect everyone with a similar kind of moniker for being the pest and react accordingly.  I no longer even try to distinguish between the monikers, but treat them all as the same
    person.

    Regarding Um No, I repeatedly offered the olive branch and asked him time and again to again ask what it was that he said he had asked and I did not answer.  (I pointed out that I did not, as far as I know, ignore his argument as I truly did not know what he was talking about.)  Instead, he ignored the offer, did not repeat the question and has never once behaved civilly again.  He is simply angry that I , once upon a time, allegedly ignored his question.  His only discussion with me is to endlessly repeat this mantra.   It is tiresome, its old and it is a bit extreme.

    So, if you truly do want to discuss the law, I am here to listen to your views and arguments.  

    Regarding MM, he doesn't play games and is serious.  I may not always agree with him, but I listen to him.  I do not have a sense he is here to be a pest.  Just to the contrary.  He has a point of view and wants to express it.

  125. 174

    Malcolm, I agree.  The way Rader treats "transformations" is to turn the MOT into a mockery of a test.  I think that was and is his plan anyway.  He is a subversive if ever I saw a subversive.  If one could remove a judge for willful disobedience to judicial precedent, I would remove Rader.  If one disagrees with precedent, one dissents.

    Benson, the precedent it followed, and every Supreme Court case since Benson required the claim as a whole to transform an article such that the abstract elements, or the laws of nature, modified a physical step to cause something new to happen.  The Supreme Court never sanctioned tagging mental steps onto transformative data gathering steps where the novelty, the alleged invention, was in the mental
    steps.  

    It is little wonder that the Supreme Court took up Prometheus so soon after Bilski.  Rader made it clear that he held little or no respect for the opinions of all nine justices.

  126. 173

    Ned,

    As tiresome as you believe my post to be, I am sure that your repeated non-responses are much, much more so to those that would attempt to have actual answers from you.

    You say to be polite in your directions immediately above.

    I was not born yesterday. I would fully expect the same gamemanship to my questions that you have displayed to others. Quite in fact, I have received that very same gamesmanship, as you have not answered any of my questions, including the questions that I asked that others have asked.

    Indeed I was hoping that as a new person asking, in the politeness you suggest, would fair better, as I believe that a common ground may be achieved – but only if you actually move towards that common ground and away from your agenda.

    And do you know what I received? I received an insult from you, calling me “simpleminded.” Do you really expect me to think that you are ever going to answer the questions that have been put to you, no matter how politely I bring them to you again when you do not answer questions politely brought to you in the first instance?

    You now ask “Why bother?” I bother because I want to discuss the answers to the questions that have been put to you. Fight or discuss, you ask, but that is too, mererly a game, as it seems that you have no intention of providing answers to those questions. Fight or discuss, you ask, and I know waht it takes to discuss, that would be you actually supplying answers, and I know what it takes to fight, you palying the same repeated games.

    You now ask “Why bother?” I bother because I want to see you answer legitimate questions that take your agenda and put it on its head. It is not a matter of “fighting,” as I hope that in seriously answering those questions you either advance your theory in support of your agenda, or you realize that your agenda is not supportable in the face of the law as it is and you stop shooting yourself in the foot by claiming the law says something it does not.

    As for Actual Inventor’s response, the fact that you do not understand why he responded as he did only means that you have ignored my post as I explained why – you want to move on without providing answers that set the foundation and it appears that you want to do so because you are losing the discussion. It appears that to actually answer the questions put to you on top of the points that you cannot sustain would mean that you would have to stop pursuing your agenda, and it appears that that is something you would rather receive dishonor to your name than do.

    I would say, don’t shoot the messenger for what I tell you, but you already have fired at me several times.

    Likewise, I note, you have fired on several others. In fact, I do recall Um, No. explaining to you his visceral reaction to you, and his not accepting your olive branch because you never did answer the points he raised, and you simply starting playing your games with him, just as you are doing with me.

    Lastly, I note with no small irony that MM stops by to shoot some of his typical nonsense from the sidelines and really do hope that you do not follow his path towards total lack of respect (although I do note that you have posted quite some admiration for him, which is beyond my understanding to understand why).

    And please, do not inslut me by saying my post is too long. The points within th epost are short enough that you can understand them one at a time. Take a paragraph at a time if you must, but at least try to be intellectually honest and give me the courtesy that a true gentleman would do.

  127. 172

    MM, in a sense, he did, but not in a way that made any sense.  And, that is the real takeaway.  

  128. 171

    simple, such posts are really tiresome.  Why even bother.  What do they accomplish?

    If you want to discuss a legal point, do so.  If your point is ignored, or you think it ignored, politely bring it to the attention of the person with who you are discussing the point.  

    Now, I was saying to AI that I agreed with him on a couple of points.  He reacted as if I touched an infected wound and basically said that he would never agree with me.

    So what are we doing here, I ask?  

    Fighting or discussing?

  129. 170

    The Grams “tests” did not expressly require transformations.

    The Grams tests certainly did require transformations. Where in the In re Grams decision does it say that the tests did not require transformations? The data being analyzed in Grams claims could not be obtained without the same sort of transformation recited in Prometheus’ claims.

    The CAFC also engaged in some very slick handwaving wherein they try to pretend that the Prometheus’ claims somehow “optimize” treatment when, in fact, they do nothing of the sort. Or they pretend that the transformation steps aren’t mere data gathering because they’re “therapeutic” (also not true).

    There is an unclever game that the CAFC likes to play. It’s called “find the transformation only when we feel like it.” Hence, Classen’s claims and Myriad’s claims that were found ineligible were very conveniently construed to not require a transformation, in spite of the fact that some animal’s skin had to be broken and transformed in order to obtain the information.

    The bottom line (again) is that the “any transformation saves the claim” test is a test that a five year old would come up with if you gave him just one minute to think about it. It’s childish, simple-minded and, unsurprisingly, leads to unacceptable outcomes, i.e., practitioners of the prior art being sued because they’ve learned something new and they dare to THINK about it.

  130. 169

    Ah, I see. The Grams “tests” did not expressly require transformations.

    A Grams test simply measured the presence of, for example, metabolites. When the claim, as in Prometheus, additionally requires a preliminary administering step, that is enough, it seems. The claim “as a whole” is part of a treatment method, not just a calculation.

    Yet, the claim actually does not include the treatment step, as that is statutorily excluded subject matter.

    Regardless of the answer in other contexts such as oil exploration, the claim as a whole here makes a treatment method infringing when Congress has expressly excluded that treatment method from infringement.

    So, how does the placement of the treatment method exclusion in 287 and not in 100 operate on the patentablity of such a claim? It is patentable, but not enforceable? That makes no sense.

    I think the better conclusion is that it really is subject matter statutorily excluded from patentability.

  131. 168

    How did Rader distinguish Grams?

    He didn’t.

  132. 167

    Night, I welcome a serious discussion on this topic. I think a lot about it, looking not only to understand it for my own purpose, but to see if there is some way of simplifying the description of the general principles involved.

    For example, data compression transforms data into a more compact form. This reduces time to transmit data and the space it requires to store on media.

    So how does one properly claim such an invention that has real physical significance?

    I would like to claim it in two forms:

    1) as a way to reduce time in a transmission; and
    2) as a way to reduce space on a storage medium.

    I am not so sure the source of data is all that relevant.

    I would propose a process claim that ended either in a transmission or in a storage of the data. The recital of a computer may or may not be important, for, after all, the compression may be performed equally well by dedicated circuits.

    What say you?

  133. 166

    AI, the reason this case is important is that Congress declared that the practice of medicine per se is not an infringement. Thus, patent attorneys have attempted to stop their claims just short of treatment. We now have “diagnosis” claims which, even so, effectively make the practice of medicine infringing regardless of the Congressional prohibition.

    I have said here that I wish I had voted at the time I did have a vote not to ban the practice of medicine from infringement. But, Congress did act, and we have to respect the law.

    That is the big picture here, AI. That is why this issue is important to the practice of medicine.

  134. 165

    Do you also agree that it is factually unsupportable?

  135. 164

    I agree with the logic and holding in Ultramercial v. Hulu.

  136. 162

    In re Grams

    Indeed Malcolm, that case is exactly on point to Prometheus. It follows In re Christensen, and In re Walter. A mental “step(s)” must modify a physical step (or define interrelationships between structure). If it does not, then the other elements, even if physical or transformative, may simply be data gathering.

    Thus Diehr is patent eligible, while Christensen and Grams are not.

    But there is a different line of authority from Rich and his followers. Whenever they form(ed) the panel, they tend to ignore the Grams line of authority and emphasize the physical nature of the data gathering steps. Perhaps the reason is, as you suggest, is that these steps themselves might be new.

    But, when novelty of the physical steps is not claimed, then, I will agree emphatically, that Grams holds the physical steps to be data gathering only. The mental steps that follow do not define patentable subject matter.

    How did Rader distinguish Grams?

  137. 161

    “Not sure why the browser resets when I select reply”

    If you’re using the latest IE then hit the “compatibility” button and that might help. More “magic” unprotected by the darned ol’ patent system that doesn’t work right.

  138. 160

    I will say though Ned if you want to really put an effort into understanding my arugments I may take he time to present them to you. But, if you are going to be a troll, then not.

    Your second example is actaully an interesting question and guess what? You can blame Benson for why this is like it is.

    But, Ned, do you agree that represented information is tranformed by a computer?

  139. 159

    Ned: (for some reason I can’t respond directly to your comments and have to make a comment here at the bottom. Not sure why the browser resets when I select reply.)

    As I suspected, you hold underlying assumptions of which I do not agree. They are, of course, part of the canon, pun intended, of Benson. I do not have time to discuss this with you right now, but they are central to the discussion–at last. Maybe I can respond to them tomorrow.

  140. 158

    What exactly were you hoping to achieve by posting your message

    The answer (playing to MM’s strengths):

    A weird, whiny [post]… suggesting that [MM] has no clue…

    Mission accomplished.

    Pass the lulz.

  141. 157

    Alright NWPA, then let us discuss this seriously. I will concur with you that it would definitely be best for congress to take care of the issue and then either side will have to live with the tyranny of the majority. Or perhaps a compromise could be reached where a new form of protection is made available to software and business methods etc. while removing them from the patent system. However, I also feel as if it would be far better if a congress that was not bought by big interests decided the issue. I believe that you might also concur with that.

    In light of the fact that Congress abstains from dealing with these matters, and is corrupt in any event, will you join me in McPherson square tomorrow evening to protest the government’s inaction on these issues and rampant corruption? Will you also join me in gathering a crowd to specifically protest re this issue? Maybe we can protest outside the USSC just prior to Prom oral arguments?

    A few hundred people might even do the trick on such a non-issue in the congress, to at least turn it into an issue. We already have a ready made crowd in the park eager to make such a demonstration. I’m on the action committee, you can bring your ideas for a protest directly to me.

  142. 156

    What exactly were you hoping to achieve by posting your message?

    A weird, whiny response suggesting that the commenter has no clue that its endless “battle” with Ned became tiresome years ago.

    Mission accomplished.

    Pass the lulz.

  143. 155

    Now my offering of a personal opinion (that runs counter to a particular view of the world) means that I am a sockpuppet with a game?

    Sorry, but Ned’s refusal to address the clear points cannot be ignored.

    Of course, if you MM don’t want to actually have a conversation (which does typically involve more than one particular view of the world) and you only want to preach from a pedastal (or soapbox), then by all means, accuse anyone with a different viewpoint of merely having a game.

    Problem is, that game has been played so often on these threads as to be easily seen for what it is.

    What exactly were you hoping to achieve by posting your message? Do you think that you have invigorated Ned to address issues that should be addressed in order to try to find some common ground? What do you expect to accomplish with such jeers from the sidelines?

  144. 154

    Personally, the exchanges that run on (and on) make it appear that you are being beaten at the fight

    LOL. Every once in a while the sockpuppet’s game is laid bare for all to see.

    Too funny.

  145. 153

    You do not want to come to any agreement or meet on common ground

    Ned, aren’t you assuming that there is a common ground? Aren’t you assuming that a “discussion of the law” has taken place (at least one enough to establish soome common ground)?

    As for meeting at some common ground, I cannot tell if that is even possible yet because you have not answered questions or addressed the issues laid out by Anon and others.

    When you address the issues and discuss the actual points (for example, your attempted use of the new Covered Business Methods section in defining a 101 platform – in express violation of that new law), maybe a ground that is common can be identified.

    Until then, I see only your rhetoric and ideals that have been rejected, and it is difficult to find commonality of any sort when your line of reasoning has not been accepted.

    Personally, the exchanges that run on (and on) make it appear that you are being beaten at the fight and that you want to move on, yet you also want to move on with your ideals as the focal point (as if the fight never took place to begin with and like your ideals should be the focal point).

    That’s a great rhetorical move, if you can get away with it. I just don’t think your opponents will let you get away with it.

  146. 152

    Now let’s talk about circuits.

    The invention of one circuit to perform a function does not entitle one to claim all circuits that perform that same function, or any machine that might be programmed to perform that function.

    Your argument about equivalency is seductive, but false.

    While it may be true that the invention of a new process may be implemented in a number of machines or circuits; the converse is not true and the law does not entitle one to claim all machines and circuits for inventing one that may perform the function.

    But a process claim does. It is independent of circuits and machines.

    So when you make the argument you make, you make the process argument.

    Think about it Night.

  147. 151

    NWPA,

    Let’s take a cannon that has gear that may be adjusted to aim at different targets. If i adjust the gear to aim a new target, can I re-patent the cannon?

    Now, the sophist would point to the different arrangement of parts of the gear and say the machine is new.

    The man on the street would laugh.

    NWPA, get serious.

    The new use of an old machine is a process!!!!!!!

  148. 150

    Simple, the 273 definition you reference has been repealed, I believe.

    Regardless, it is way too broad. Such a definintion could include patentable inventions to the technology that enables business.

    Such lose definitions are the very reason the Kennedy majority could not agree with Stevens to ban BMPs. There was no good definition of what they are.

  149. 149

    Publius, the banking industry did react, as was its right.

    The software industry has reacted.

    There is a lot of reaction to the Rich era, and all of it negative.

  150. 148

    And, one more point, if I agree with you, and you say that we do not agree on anything, then I would suggest that you AI simply have no real interest in discussing the law. You do not want to come to any agreement or meet on common ground, and will do anything to continue a verbal conflict.

    You are emotionally wedded to the fight. Admit it.

  151. 147

    "I" am doing something?  Me?  Congress did not pass the law in question?

  152. 145

    MM: >>That’s why you’ll be cheering along with the rest of us >>when the PTO starts ignoring mental steps when considering >>the novelty and non-obviousness of claims. Right?

    Non sequitur.

  153. 142

    bizarre arguments about science and technology

    ?

    gives the PTO excuses not to enforce 102, 103, and 112

    That’s why you’ll be cheering along with the rest of us when the PTO starts ignoring mental steps when considering the novelty and non-obviousness of claims. Right?

  154. 141

    ….which, as I understand it, is the PTO Board of Appeals saying they can’t find “technical” in the patent statute. But that’s right, isn’t it? To grant patents (and thereby restrain trade) outside the ambit of the “useful arts” though; that would be un-Constitutional, would it not?

    As I understand it, 4 SCOTUS judges failed to turn just one of the remaining 5 to issue a blanket ruling, that everything falling under the rubric “business method” must, by definition, be outside that ambit. That’s not really surprising either, is it?

    So SCOTUS is miles away from announcing that every business method under the sun is, by definition, inside the ambit. The undistributed middle of the business method subject matter range remains, for the time being, undistributed between eligible and not eligible. All we know so far is that Bilski methods aren’t eligible. A good start, I would say.

  155. 140

    6: sure I’ve thought about it, but these issues are best dealt with in Congress not the courts. Making up all these bizarre arguments about science and technology to exclude subject matter under 101 just causes untold billions of dollars in waste and gives the PTO excuses not to enforce 102, 103, and 112. And, it is dishonest,and shameful. And, the art wrought by twisted sick minds.

  156. 139

    If you are talking about

    Yes, Ned, that is precisely what I am talking about.

    Do you think that you are exempt from the direct meaning of the law? It is abundantly clear that this law was written expressly not to change the given understanding of Business Methods as eligible subject matter under Section 101.

    It appears that you are doing something that is expressly forbidden by the writers of the law in that you are attempting to use the section definition of a subset of Business Methods that fall into the category of Covered Business Methods to make a 101 argument against Business Methods as patent eligible subject matter.

    I do not understand how you think you can even begin to fashion an argument that this section supports your theory. Quite in fact, this section takes the legs out from your position. If Congress indeed meant to change the status of Business Method eligibility – as confirmed in the Supreme Court case of Bilski, the America Invents Act was an unmistakable opportunity to directly do so. Congress chose not to. What do you think this means?

    Further, you ask if I have a “better” definition and I think that your asking such a question is a red herring.

    First, I don’t need a better definition, because I am not trying to change the more global definition already given in the legislative section as pointed out by Anon above (35 USC 273(a)(3)). Second, I think you are implicitly making a vallue judgment regarding “better” and in making that value judgment, you have assumed that whatever end-goal you have in miind is fully justified (in other words, you have assumed a conclusion that is likely unwarranted).

  157. 138

    In all honesty NWPA, do you never stop to think that your “basic tenant of why we have patent laws” simply might not be applicable to everything in the whole universe? Just be honest, have you ever even considered it?

  158. 136

    The CATO brief is a pure policy BS paper. It quotes pure academic-policy driven ideas and conjures up an anti-software bias completely disassociated with any legal foundation.

    I am now going to take a second shower to try to clean the stench of that brief from my being.

  159. 135

    MM: the purpose is to promote innovation. Without patents diagnostic methods will not see the same amount of innovation. A computer would not have to be recited for a long diagnostic method. But, typical MM tactic, dodge the real issues, and make bold assertions about what others can’t prove when they are simply reciting the basic tenants of patent law. So, let’s see MM, no I can’t prove without a lot of money that not have patents for diagnostic patents is going to hurt the development of diagnostic methods, but that is a basic tenant of why we have the patent laws to begin with so it is fair for me to be able to make this assertion. So your statements have been reduced to their substance—vapor.

    Your nonsense never ends.

    Ned: your statement above about a computer doing what it was intended to do is nonsense. I see you went to the MM school of reasoning. OK. Let’s apply your reasoning to all machines. No fan may be included in a claim as it is always just doing what it was intended to do. Likewise for every machine every made.

    Additionally, any general purpose computer that is running software can also be made with special purpose hardware to run the method. The general purpose computer is really just convenience that costs a lot in terms of time and space to run the method. But, you know all this, don’t you Ned? You know the Fed. Cir. has held as such, don’t you? You like baiting people and repeating the samme nonsense over and over again. What fun you are to interact with. A mindless, heartless, policy driven intellectually dishonest gollum.

    The fact is that Benson held that a machine that transformed information from one state to another state was not eligible for patentability because it was magic. It capture a natural law and was abstract. Benson, the 1920’s thinking of information. Benson, only God has the right to make a machine that thinks. Let’s face it any rational thinker knows that Benson is worst SCOTUS decision ever in patent law. It should be explicitly overturned as a policy based decision that illustrates all that is bad in humanity.

  160. 134

    But now, startlingly

    What is “startingly” is that you are discussing concepts that were not in the Bilski claims.

    What I was thinking is that the only infringers Bilski is ever likely to be interested in are those using a computer to implement his method.

    Nice, now come back to this reality and understand thae fact that computer implementation was simply not at issue in this case. The only way to interject your nonsense of “also bad for non-enablement and want of written description?” is to interject your fantasy of claim elements never present before because you are thinking.

    The problem is plainly evident: you are thinking.

  161. 133

    So what?

    Seriously?

    Is that the extent of your capacity for legal thinking?

    Anyone (and everyone), can (and should) see that this “toleration” sinks your position.

    So what? So, you are wrong. Oh, OK. Now move on.

  162. 132

    Whether or not Ned is a “shill” for any certain industry, I do not comment upon.

    However, the mindset of Special Interest tampering with the laws (the law applies “equally” to all, but some are more equal than others) is evident throughout the AIA (Special bailout for the well-connected law firm, anyone? Special provisions for the Big Banks, anyone?).

    Isn’t it interesting how Ned’s comment at 5:51 PM on the “Pending Supreme Court” thread picks up on this very subtlely? That comment was:

    When State Street Bank came down, I was asked my opinion. I said that it was not my ox being gored and that we should wait for the banking industry to react. Well it has.

    It has indeed.

    Well, they do say that politics is the second oldest profession…

  163. 131

    Score one for posting with a real name and “accountability.”

    /off sarcasm

  164. 130

    “i.e., how do you deal with claims that effectively prevent practitioners of the prior art from thinking about patent-ineligible facts (i.e, [old transformative step]+ [new mental step])? ”

    By first proving such is even possible. Remember Malcolm, you can’t cite one case were someone was successfully sued for merely thinking about a patent. Let alone successfully prevented from thinking!

    “They can’t be both eligible AND patentable and/or enforceable.”

    Says who?

  165. 129

    “where did the Supreme Court ever suggest that claims which prevented those practicing the prior art from “thinking” new thoughts while they did so were patent eligible?”

    MM when did Supreme Court ever say it was ineligible?

    “The fact that Dierh’s claims were found to be eligible is evidence of nothing except,” …..

    1. Claims must be taken as a whole. No dissection of old, mental, inventive, crappy, or any other kind of steps.

    2. Claims can be known/old and include mental and purely physical steps and STILL be patent eligible for 101

    3. Machines or transformations are not required. See claim 11

    4 Applications of concepts to specific industrial processes controls 101 analysis. See Bilski 14, Then see Research Corp and Ultramercial.

  166. 128

    Mayo seems to be more upset that it has to pay royalties to an inventor than it does that the Prometheus patents are invalid. Their brief spends more time and words attacking the concept of patents than actually attacking the claims. All the terrible things they say will happen to doctors and the medical field will not happen. Medical businesses can simply pay the licensing and royalty fees like everyone else and life goes on for doctors, and patients alike. So please Mayo, spare me the drama about how doctors can’t think or diagnose and patients are gonna die and what not. Doctors, researchers and everyone in between make good money in the medical field and can afford to pay their fare share for research, testing, and other services. Their attacks with the law seem out of place and weak. My first thought is why is this a 101 case???????

    Mayo says: “The Prometheus patents seek to monopolize these metabolite numbers. They advise physicians to think about the need for a dosage adjustment when metabolites reach certain levels, but do not offer any specific change in therapy. Thinking about metab- olite levels is exactly what doctors have long done, without any advice from Prometheus.”

    Okay then why didn’t they argue 102? If what they say is true 102 should be a slam dunk and everyone can go home right? ( continued)

  167. 127

    What I was thinking is that the only infringers Bilski is ever likely to be interested in are those using a computer to implement his method. So, if one were notionally to narrow the claim to a “computer-implemented” method (so it is no longer an abstract idea) that would be no narrowing at all.

    But now, startlingly, you tell me that Bilski did not possess a computer-implemented method. Are you hinting that his patent was also bad for non-enablement and want of written description?

  168. 126

    The word “method” is one that can tolerate the adjective “business” in front of it. So what? The word “arts” is also one that can tolerate adjectives like “useful” or “fine” in front of it. So what?

  169. 125

    Who is “we”?

    You and I do not agree on ANYTHING.

    You have ducked and evaded pertinent questions from me,

    Anon, Um No, Simple Questions, NWPA and more.

    You have lied and played games when confronted with your own fallacies and inconsistencies in your arguments.

    You have no ethics, no accountability and zero respectability in your behavior on this blog.

    Congratulations in surpassing 6 as the most derided person on this blog, and replacing MM as the resident troll.

    I dont know what you are in real life, nor do I care. But here online you are simply a scoundrel.

  170. 124

    So you want to ban all processes for financial products or services?

    Again you have not explained why you have a need to ban these patents. Nor have you demonstrated that you even know exactly what such a ban would scoop in and entail. But first let’s stick with the reason for your motivation.

    Why ban processes for financial products or services?

    Why the crusade??

    How will this save us???

  171. 123

    simple, I have no idea what you are talking about, once again.  I searched through Section 18 for any definition of any other kind of BMP and could not see any.

    Are you suggesting that by declaring that some BMPs are covered by Section 18, that there are others that are not?   If so, I do not agree with that.

    If you are talking about this, (e) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this section shall be
    construed as amending or interpreting categories of patent-eligible
    subject matter set forth under section 101 of title 35, United States
    Code.

    That does permit the courts to independently arrive at a different definition.  However, if you had a better definition, please have at it.  I already gave you mine.

  172. 121

    Ned,

    Did you deliberately leave out the part of that section that talked about busines methods and patent eligible subject matter (as opposed to “covered” business methods – a clear subset)?

    I am trying to give you the benefit of doubt, even though you still find it easy to insult me.

    Or do you think this question too, is some type of game?

    Or do you simply just not answer questions?

  173. 120

    AI, when we begin to narrow our definition of BMP, you and I really do not disagree. 

    Just as, when all was said and done, we do not disagree on Diehr.

    I hope you appreciate this for the future.  We seem to be talking past each other because we are not talking about the same things.

  174. 119

    anon, read the new statute on BMPs.  They are defined.

  175. 118

    Ned:

    IIRC, Bilski’s claim was declared to an abstract idea. I do not see anyone in these threads arguing that abstract ideas should be patent eligible subject matter.

    I also believe the Court further explained the claims as being nothing more than math equations.

    And while I personally concur with NWPA views on math, I certainly accept the current state of the law.

    So Ned, why this flaming crusade for narrowing the Constitution and statute to ban what you define as business methods?

    Why, as you say, ” We are in a world of hurt?”

    Honestly, if you think this thing called “Business Methods” is going to be the death of us all then please tell us why?

  176. 117

    A lot there, Malcolm.  I will think about it and get back to you.

  177. 116

    You are right, simple mind.  However, Congress has now defined BMPs in the new AIA as follows"(d) DEFINITION.—
    (1) IN GENERAL.—For purposes of this section, the term
    ‘‘covered business method patent’’ means a patent that claims
    a method or corresponding apparatus for performing data processing
    or other operations used in the practice,
    administration,
    or management of a financial product or service, except that
    the term does not include patents for technological inventions."

    This comports with the definition I proposed.  A BMP has a

    1) business (financial to be specific) utility; and
    2) is not technological.

    QED

  178. 114

    Dam goog questions!

    And with each refusal to answer each another nail is driven in the coffin of Neds crusade!

  179. 113

    MaxDrei,

    I have provide this direct pincite to Ned previously, but I will provide it again because it is directly on point here – and is from the majority of Bilski and cites to the majority of Diehr

    130 S. Ct. 3218 at 3222 citing Diehr as noted:

    The Court is unaware of any argument that the “ordinary, contemporary, common meaning,” Diehr, supra, at 182, 101 S. Ct. 1048, 67 L. Ed. 2d 155, of “method” excludes business methods.

    Ignoring not one but two majority Supreme Court rulings is no way for you to develop a sound “justification for seeing” anything that can be taken seriously.

  180. 112

    Another question I asked Ned in the other thread and he has simply refused to answer. I don’t know why we need any more than what the Supreme Court has already expressed:

    Which is essentially that business methods or simply another type of method and processes same as any other method and processes and is subject to the same conditions and requirements of U.S.C. title 35 as any other methods and processes.

    So Ned, why do we need any further definition than this???

    Why the crusade???

  181. 111

    But requiring that the claims to pass the MOT

    Ned,

    It would be really nice if you actually answered questions on this topic, or in the meantime not make such an outlandish claim that claims are required to pass MOT.

    (If the claim is not outlandish, I can only presume that you would have actually provided an answer, instead of insults and evasions – it is clearly you playing the games and accusing all who point this out is a rather pathetic attempt at diversion on your end)

  182. 110

    MaxDrei,

    Bilski did not have a computer-implemented method.

  183. 109

    simple,

    That’s just it – the US Legislature has defined “Business Methods.”

    See 35 USC 273(a)(3): the term “method” means a method of doing or conducting business.

    The real questions are

    – why does Ned think that this fact is somehow not of substance?

    – why does Ned think that the discussions in Bilski (at the “rallying cries of Bilski 11 and Bilski 14”) are not of substance?

    – why does he feign ignorance of the 11 and 14 rallying cries, but still does not provide answers when correct pincites are given?

    – why does Ned think that the passage of the AIA, in not eliminating the basis for upholding the patent eligibility of Business Methods, as explicated in the majority opinion of Bilski, and even explicitly noting in a different section that no new effect on the patent eligibility of Business Methods is to be inferred (and further ignoring the legal implication of such a move as has been viewed by the Supreme Court), not of substance?

    – why is Ned avoiding actually addressing these very real, substantive and intelligent points, yet all too eager to dive into character assinations, and other rather obvious gamesmanship like “I don’t understand” and mischaracterizing positions on “Categorically” versus “as a cateogry” that have been clearly and repeatedly stressed?

    Why is it that Ned refuses to answer your direct and straightforward questions, and quickly stoops to insulting you?

    Does anyone doubt that Ned is merely a self-serving, agenda driven, advocate, only to willing to basicly do anything to try to make his position look good (and utterly clueless that his machinations are having the exact opposite effect)?

    These, these are the real questions!

  184. 108

    In the boiled egg example, removing the egg, but at a different
    time.

    I don’t see a mental step in your “claim” Ned.

    If you are claiming “A method of achieving X, comprising [practicing old step for a new specified length time]”, then I think you don’t have a 101 issue. 102/103 issues? Yes, most likely very serious ones. Those issues are also likely present if rather than specifying a time, you specify the algorithm, because such algorithms typically accept broad ranges of input and spit out broad ranges of output (including “null” results).

    Look at Prometheus’ claims. The “invention” is claimed as determining the relationship (greater or less than) of an old result (level of a certain metabolite in blood) to a single, specified number. As written, the claims cover a method of administering “more” drug if there is no metabolite present (something completely obvious to everyone in the field) and not administering “more” drug if the patient has deadly amounts of metabolite in the drug (something completely obvious to everyone in the field). But here’s the deal: Prometheus will argue that such acts don’t invalidate the claim because those people in the prior art weren’t thinking about that magical number that Prometheus “discovered” and disclosed to the public in their specification.

    And now we’re right back in 101 land again, with the patentee trying to have its cake (you can’t find a patent ineligible under 101 merely because the only novel feature is a mental step) and eat it, too (you can’t ignore the novel mental step when determining invalidity under 102/103).

    This boiling egg business is a sideshow, Ned. It is tangentially related to the issues we’ve been discussing but it does not represent a “flaw” in my approach to the claims at issue in Prometheus. Your concern seems to be that someone might come up with a clever defense that tries to “read in” a mental step in a claim where there is none. Guess what? Defendants can do this now, under the current law, to their hearts content, and shrewd ones will make the argument I’ve been making. Either the defendant is infringing a well-claimed novel, non-obvious method by practicing a series of well-claimed, non-obvious transformative steps or he/she isn’t. If the latter, then the real problem may be that the patentee is trying to effectively prevent the defendant from thinking certain thoughts while praciticing the prior art.

  185. 107

    If the US Supreme Court refuses to define “Business Methods” and the US Legislature refuses to define “Business Methods”, how in the world is it of any import whatsoever for anyone on a patent blog to define “Business Methods”?

  186. 106

    I would like to close with a quote from In re Taner for your comment.

    My comment is that I’m not at all interested in cases that do not address the issues I have raised squarely. Jurisprudence on the issue of claims reciting mental steps has been relentlessly shallow and confused for many, many years.

    The holding you quoted says absolutely nothing that is reasonable, intelligent or compelling becaus it fails to consider the obvious ramifications of its holding. This was equally true of nearly all of the product-by-process case law prior to Sandoz v. Abbott. It was vapid, self-serving, and shockingly short-sighted.

    It sounds very easy and high-minded to say that “a claim … when considered as a whole, is performing a function which the patent laws were designed to protect (e.g., transforming or reducing an article to a different state or thing), then the claim satisfies the requirements of § 101.” How wonderful and clear and straighftforward! But somehow the court fails to address the obvious ramifications of the decision, i.e., how do you deal with claims that effectively prevent practitioners of the prior art from thinking about patent-ineligible facts (i.e, [old transformative step]+ [new mental step])? They can’t be both eligible AND patentable and/or enforceable.

    Some will say that the “question wasn’t before the court”. You know what? That’s utter horsexxxt. The obvious ramifications of a court’s decision are ALWAYS before it. In nearly every other area of the law, these ramifications are discussed ad nauseum. But somehow when it comes to patents, it’s strictly verboten to consider the obvious ramifications of a holding. Either that, or it’s just way too hard for these brilliant minds to deal with. Or they simply don’t want to deal with reality because it feels so good to recite some vague haughty pronouncement that reflects the “broad inclusive” nature of our awesome patent system but has the practical effect of completely fxxxing it up and turning it into a joke.

  187. 105

    Malcolm, you never cease to amaze.  Big smiley here.

    Spoon bending, indeed.

    No, my remarks are limited to the use of the mental step to modify a physical act.

    In the boiled egg example, removing the egg, but at a different time.

  188. 104

    Malcolm, you never cease to amaze.  Big smiley here.

    Spoon bending, indeed.

    No, my remarks are limited to the use of the mental step to modify a physical act.

    In the boiled egg example, removing the egg, but at a different
    time.

  189. 103

    Agreed.

    In my discussions with AI, I think I hit upon the reason that the Kennedy court did not agree with Stevens minority to simply ban business methods. The Kennedy majority did not have a well accepted definition of business methods. Without such a well accepted definition, there was no way to categorically exclude them.

    But requiring that the claims to pass the MOT, or that they in some way be tied, as a matter of necessity, to machines, articles of manufacture or compositions of matter, or to methods of making and using such, the Supreme Court did not have to do categorically exclude business methods.

  190. 102

    Stop it you annoying pest. Stop playing word games. Tell us what you consider to be Business Method Patents. Until then you your status here is nothing more that that of an annoying fly.

  191. 101

    Let us be clear: Bilski fell at the 101 hurdle but his computer-implemented method has “technical character”, more than enough for patent-eligibility at the EPO.

  192. 100

    Another, Anon, or whomever you are, said “Useful arts” …includes …business methods …as such.

    You really, really have to be kidding yourself to the extent that you would define BMPs to include the very kind of claim that the Supremes held patent ineligible in Bilski.

    Define BMPs, or tell me whether you agree or disagree with this definition:

    A business method is a method that has business utility and which does not otherwise pass the MOT test.

    When the likes of MaxDrei and myself speak about BMPs, this is what we mean. I think you mean that as well, but it is not clear since you will never actually say what it is that you mean. You will instead play word games and engage in sophistry and semantics endlessly.

  193. 99

    when one modifies a physical act with the results of a mental step

    When you put it that way, it sounds like spoon-bending.

    Are you talking about claims in the form:

    1. A method of achieving a useful result, comprising [new mental step], wherein if new mental step = X then [old transformative step] and wherein if new step = Y then [different old transformative step].

    I can tell you how such claims must be analyzed in order to prevent the effective patenting of a mental step, but you won’t like it. For a preview, I can assure that there is no “modification of a transformative step” by the “result” of a mental step in such a method. Instead, there are merely two old, unpatentable transformative steps, claimed in the alternative, each preceeded by the same ineligible mental step.

    If there is, in fact, a novel transformative method buried somewhere in the claim, then it should be claimed as such. Otherwise, gosh, I’m really sorry but you’re effectively claiming a mental step. Find a better patent attorney next time?

  194. 97

    AI, I think the “clarity” of your kind thinking is what gave Kennedy pause in declaring BMPs unpatentable. There really was no clear understanding of where a BMP began and where it ended.

    AI, I thank you for waking me up to this fact.

  195. 96

    Malcolm, "My approach is to ask the question: does the claim effectively turn a practitioner of the prior art into an infringer merely because the practitioner is thinking an allegedly "new" thought? If the answer is yes, the claim is invalid under 101."

    Assume for the moment the Prometheus claim and assume further I will you and you and you and you and you and you is a you is what is further is a you yeah probably had I seen alone I will you and you is a you is that the spring, is is is is is and you is a you will you there is a you and you is the lot is a you will is a is and you and you and I and you and you will you will you will you and you is a is and you will you we are as real as is is and you and you and you and you and you all isthat the process elements are new.  Is it your position that one can prove
    infringement of this claim without proving that the reader of the results thinks anything?  I think your answer is yes, but I'm not sure.

    But assume your answer is yes, and I believe your answer is yes because the report simply states levels of metabolites and what they mean is self-evident.  Why is it your position, then, that one has to prove what one thinks if the process elements are  old?  The elements of proof of infringement should not change
    depending on whether some elements are new and some elements are old.

    However, if your answer is yes, that regardless of whether the process claims or new or old that one still must prove what one thinks about the results to prove infringement, the vice of the claim still remains.  One must still prove what one thinks as an element of proof.  

    Agreed?

  196. 95

    Malcolm, with your implicit definition of "append," you are of course right.  There is no functional relationship claimed between any step and the mental gymnastics.  

    However, when one modifies a physical act with the results of a mental step, the answer is not so clear whether the mental step can be ignored for either 101 or 102/103 purposes.

    I do see the problem of proving infringement.  But, when abstract elements modify physical steps, the claims "as a whole" are clearly directed to patentable subject matter under any of 101, 102/103.

    On the contrary, if the mental element merely sits there, not modifying a physical step, the answer is quite
    different.  With this understanding of "append" we are in agreement.  

    Thus, when the final elements of a method are abstract, they modify nothing.  They do not create a patentable process.  They do not define anything new under 102/103 if one discounts the non functional abstraction.  In this sense of the term, I completely agree with the US position.

    In fact, this analysis used to be the pith and essence of the Freeman-Walter-Abele test, IIRC.  

    I would like to close with a quote from In re Taner for your comment.  http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8076128360630262165&q=application+of+taner&hl=en&as_sdt=2,5

    Much has transpired in the development of the law in this area since our decision in Christensen. Most recently in Diehr, the Supreme Court made clear that Benson stands for no more than the long-established principle that laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are excluded from patent protection, 450 U.S. at 185, 101 S.Ct. at 1055, and that "a claim drawn to subject matter otherwise statutory does not become nonstatutory because it uses a mathematical formula, computer program, or digital computer." 450 U.S. at 187, 101 S.Ct. at 1056. The Court in Diehr rejected the "point of novelty" analysis saying "[t]he `novelty' of any element or steps in a process … is of no relevance in determining whether the subject matter of a claim falls within the § 101 categories of possibly patentable subject matter," 450 U.S. at 189, 101 S.Ct. at 1057, and went on to explain that "when a claim containing a mathematical formula implements or applies that formula in a structure or process, which, when considered as a whole, is performing a function which the patent laws were designed to protect (e.g., transforming or reducing an article to a different state or thing), then the claim satisfies the requirements of § 101." 450 U.S. at 192, 101 S.Ct. at 1059, 209 U.S.P.Q. at 10. Accordingly, to the extent that it conflicts with what we say here, Christensen is overruled."

  197. 94

    AI, you are lost in the same weeds as the Kennedy majority on this issue.  Lack of clear thinking predominates your remarks.

    If a BMP is a method that method that has business utility and which is not technological, then there is nothing in Bilski which would suggest that such claims are patent eligible.  The very claim they had before them in that case met this definition and was
    held not to be patent eligible.

    I think the best take away from Bilski was that the majority was reluctant to give any definition to "business method."  Without such a well accepted definition, they were unwilling to categorically exclude them from patent eligibility.

  198. 93

    “Append” has to be understood to be the final steps, with the transformative steps being mere data gathering.

    I’m not sure why that’s the case.

    Consider:

    1. A method of achieving something useful comprising, thinking about a “new fact” and performing an old transformative act.

    Why is it appropriate for the “new” thought to render this claim patentable under 102/103? How is such a claim not an effective patent on the “new thought”, at least as far as practitioners of the prior art concerned?

    Rhetorical questions. It doesn’t matter if the new thought comes first or second or is simultaneous with the otherwise unpatentable subject matter. The claim in the form I’ve proposed (i.e., without additional novel limitations not carried out mentally) can not be found valid.

    Is there a way to claim certain inventions of this type in a form so that they are both patentable and eligible under 102/103? Sure. For example, if you discover that dancing a waltz for three seconds on a cat’s grave at the exact moment of the summer equinox in a leap year while whittling a baseball bat from a blue spruce causes the bat to be ten times smoother than at any other time, you can probably draft a patentable claim that avoids the mental step of thinking about when to do it.

  199. 92

    simple, if you want to discuss something with me, why don't you simply state what it is your position is.  I do not intend to play words games with you.

  200. 91

    Malcolm, "My approach is to ask the question: does the claim effectively turn a practitioner of the prior art into an infringer merely because the practitioner is thinking an allegedly "new" thought? If the answer is yes, the claim is invalid under 101."

    Assume for the moment the Prometheus claim and assume further I will you and you and you and you and you and you is a you is what is further is a you yeah probably had I
    seen alone I will you and you is a you is that the spring, is is is is is and you is a you will you there is a you and you is the lot is a you will is a is and you and you and I and you and you will you will you will you and you is a is and you will you we are as real as is is and you and you and you and you and you all isthat the process elements are new.  Is it your position that one can prove infringement of this claim without proving that the reader of the results thinks anything?  I think your answer is yes, but I'm not sure.

    But assume your answer is yes, and I believe your answer is yes because the report simply states levels of metabolites and what they mean is
    self-evident.  Why is it your position, then, that one has to prove what one thinks if the process elements are  old?  The elements of proof of infringement should not change depending on whether some elements are new and some elements are old.

    However, if your answer is yes, that regardless of whether the process claims or new or old that one still must prove what one thinks about the results to prove infringement, the vice of the claim still remains.  One must still prove what one thinks as an element of proof.  

    Agreed?

  201. 90

    I have not personally verified this but have heard that Ned Heller is an important and powerful patent celebrity and that can do whatever the heck he wants.

    Apparently zero accountability = absolute power. That’s some Ned!

  202. 89

    “Until I see some more caselaw, I think I’m justified in seeing useful arts and “technical” as different terminology for pretty much the same concept, the one the founding fathers had in mind in the days when the Constitution was written, a time of huge innovation in ways of doing business.”

    I know where you are coming from, Max. We haven’t gotten there yet. We’re headed there, I suspect, but it will take a few more Supreme Court cases, at least, and probably some Congressional action as well. There is quite a lot to be gained, I think, by requiring patent-eligible solutions to be technical in nature.

  203. 88

    “And please, do not try to feed me the line that you thought I was someone else”

    Bb b but you are AI, Ping, NAL, Anon, anon, sockie, sock puppet, Um No, Ghost of Giles Rich, and/or any number of imaginary villains that are simply the same person stalking Ned on this blog 24/7!

    After all how could there be more than one person that has a different view than Ned Heller and ask simple, relevant questions that require an honest answer?

    Thus expect the usual irrelevant evasive remark as is his trademark. Or he will simply ignore as he does when he loses a debate based on the merits.

  204. 87

    mocking Ned’s proposed rule by asking whether a dependent claim which recites an additional, final mental step (relative to a patent-eligible independent method claim which does not end in a mental step) is patent-eligible deserves to be at least slightly mocked itself.

    No, it doesn’t. It illustrates a fundamental problem with Ned’s “rule”. The other problem, as I noted, is that the justification for this strict (but arbitrary) rule is opaque, to say the least.

    The problem with that rule as applied to a lot of these diagnostic method claims is that they frequently don’t end in a mental step

    That’s yet another problem with Ned’s rule.

  205. 86

    Ned,

    Bilski’s claims never issued as a patent. Therefore they could not be business method patents. You should stop repeating this obvious mistake on your part.

    As far as my view on Bilski’s claims and business methods I originally stated, and have always said that Bilski “UPHELD” Business Methods as statutory subject matter. The word “UPHELD” is of particular importance here.

    Upheld is defined in the dictionary as:

    confirm or support (something that has been questioned) : the court upheld his claim for damages.
    • maintain (a custom or practice)

    This is relevant to my position that business methods have always been statutory so there is no reason to argue that they are statutory.

    The Court agreed in Bilski by saying business methods are processes and methods same as any process and method, and subject to the same requirements as any other process and method.

    The opposition, of which you are a part tried to get the Court to narrow the Constitution and the Statute to exclude so called business methods.

    The opposition failed to do so, and thus the Court “upheld” business methods as statutory subject matter.

    Now feel free to post an irrelevant evasive remark as is your trademark. Or simply ignore as you do when you lose a debate based on the merits.

  206. 85

    Here’s the point: mocking Ned’s proposed rule by asking whether a dependent claim which recites an additional, final mental step (relative to a patent-eligible independent method claim which does not end in a mental step) is patent-eligible deserves to be at least slightly mocked itself. I’m not saying I agree with Ned’s rule, but it’s not bad. The problem with that rule as applied to a lot of these diagnostic method claims is that they frequently don’t end in a mental step. Here’s an example:

    A method for detecting the presence of a mutation in [insert gene] which causes [insert disease], wherein said method comprises obtaining a sample from a human subject and detecting said mutation in said sample by means which identify the presence of said mutation.

    Clearly ineligible, but would appear to pass Ned’s test.

  207. 84

    does not prove that every single business method that could ever be claimed lies within the scope of “useful arts”.

    This lies along the “categorically” versus “as a category” trap. Put bluntly, there is no single category of patent eligible subject matter that will pass the “categorically” doctrine. NONE. Nor will there ever be. You do understand this, do you not? One can take any category of patent eligible subject matter and draft a claim that is not patent eligible. This simply means that the logic of trying to reach the general state from a particular example is FALSE.

    and we do not yet know how many other business method claims it might bin, as failing to make the useful arts 101 test.

    Just as if Prometheus bites the dust on 101, we too shall not know how many other medical method claims it might bin. Just as if any case bites the dust on 101, we too shall not know how many other method claims of the same category it might bin, as failing to make the useful arts 101 test” (and by the way, you do know that Bilski did not fail because of the “Useful Arts” test, do you not?)

    There is NO logical difference between the application of the logic between these two categories of (or ANY two categories of) patent eligible subject matter. You do realize that it comes down to the actual particular claim, do you not?

    Until I see some more caselaw, I think I’m justified in seeing useful arts and “technical” as different terminology for pretty much the same concept, the one the founding fathers had in mind in the days when the Constitution was written, a time of huge innovation in ways of doing business.

    And you would be wrong. There is sufficient Supreme Court caselaw in both the majority opinions of Bilski and Diehr that guide the determination of what “Useful Arts” are. That determination has been legally made and it is clear legal error to apply your “self-justified” (non)sight. In truth, your (non)sight is just nonsense. It is indeed a good thing that the legal meaning simply is not up to you seeing more caselaw, you do understand that, do you not?

  208. 83

    simple, your question implied something I did not say.

    What do you think my question implied?

    What do you think I am suggesting?

    My questions are very straightforward and are directly tied to your statements.

    Are you saying that your statements have a tightly constrained meaning not evident on their face? If so, then you could easily have treated my questions as asking for what is obviously a needed explanation from you.

    Since you actually did not answer my questions, it is a bit difficult to tell why you feel the way you do, let alone to even begin to understand why you feel the need to insult me.

    And please, do not try to feed me the line that you thought I was someone else – my questions stand on their own, and it is a reach to try to associate the questions themselves with any type of messenger. In other words, why don’t you just answer the questions?

  209. 82

    But there’s this thing about the “undistributed middle” isn’t there. That a SCOTUS majority declines to rule that business methods as such are outside the ambit of “useful arts” does not prove that every single business method that could ever be claimed lies within the scope of “useful arts”.

    As you say, the EPC bans methods for doing business but only to the extent that the subject matter of the claim is a business method as such. All the others get through. Now SCOTUS binned the process Bilski claimed, using its 101 shovel, and we do not yet know how many other business method claims it might bin, as failing to make the useful arts 101 test.

    Until I see some more caselaw, I think I’m justified in seeing useful arts and “technical” as different terminology for pretty much the same concept, the one the founding fathers had in mind in the days when the Constitution was written, a time of huge innovation in ways of doing business.

  210. 81

    Ned

    Night, the problem I have with the Malcolm and US government approach to this issue is that they seem to adopt the Steven’s approach to simply treat the mental step as part of the prior art and to determine whether the balance of the claim is new.

    First, that’s not my approach, Ned. How many times do I need to repeat it? One hundred? One thousand? My approach is to ask the question: does the claim effectively turn a practitioner of the prior art into an infringer merely because the practitioner is thinking an allegedly “new” thought? If the answer is yes, the claim is invalid under 101. It’s true that this approach will render all claims where the novelty lies only in the mental step ineligible. The fact that you don’t like this conclusion does not mean that the approach is invalid. No Supreme Court case has ever stated that the practical effects of a claim on the public’s ability to think freely can not be considered when determining patent eligibility. Do you understand, Ned?

    Thanks. Now stop playing dxxb and misrepresenting my views which I’ve set forth in crystal clear fashion for you a hundred times over the past several years, at least.

    As for the Solicitor, the Solicitor is simply adopting the default position which I’ve also iterated countless times: if you don’t render the claim ineligible under 101 according to my analysis, then you MUST either find it invalid under 102/103 (by ignoring the mental step when determining novelty) or find the claim unenforceable or, if you really want to reach, unconstitutional (if you want to drag the First Amendment into it). Again, this is because the practical effect of such claims is not acceptable in our patent system.

  211. 80

    NWPA Diagnositc methods will be harmed. Plan and simple.

    You have absolutely no evidence for this proposition. You are engaging in pure pxtxnt txxbxggery.

    in this case the diagnostic method is so simple as to be laughable. But, what of more complicated diagnostic methods? One where it is probably too complex for a doctor to even keep in his/her head where they are in the method. What of them?

    Gosh, I guess the claims will need to recite a computer, then.

  212. 79

    Hans Malcolm, are you aware of a single published decision where a district court or the CAFC held invalid a dependent claim but held valid its independent claim?

    Off the top of my head, no, but I can think of circumstances where a court might reasonably reach such a conclusion. To be “valid,” a claim must meet numerous criteria …

    Consider the following claims, wherein claim 1 is patent-eligible.

    1. A bike.

    2. The bike of claim 1, further comprising a feeling about God.

    3. The bike of claim 1, further comprising a perpetual motion machine.

    I humbly suggest that in certain circumstances, it might matter what’s in the dependent claims.

    Also, please be aware that we are discussing issues that are right now before the Supreme Court or soon will be. The non-existence of cases on point is not terribly relevant. Patent law is changing. Have you noticed?

    Lastly, the proposition that ANY claim with a final mental step is patent ineligible as a matter of law is Ned’s proposition, not mine. I merely pointed out to Ned that such a rule is easily rendered meaningless (and frankly I find the justification for the strict rule to be lacking; I don’t believe such a blanket rule will be considered seriously by anyone).

  213. 78

    Night, the problem I have with the Malcolm and US government approach to this issue is that they seem to adopt the Steven’s approach to simply treat the mental step as part of the prior art and to determine whether the balance of the claim is new. I think this approach has been rejected by the Supreme Court.

  214. 77

    Night, The new use of unknown machine is patentable as a process. With the computer, there is a suggestion that a programmed machine is a new machine. But really, the machine is not a new machine when the machine is being used for its intended purpose.

    For some reason, the Federal Circuit has not squarely addressed the issue of whether one should be able the patent software as a machine. But for patentability purposes, they will treat program machines as processes. I think this is right.

  215. 76

    MaxDrei, will there then!  It looks like the US PTO is looking a lot like the EPO on this issue.

  216. 75

    AI, since we do not agree that the claims at issue in Bilski were BMPs, why should we continue this discussion?  We are not talking about same thing.

  217. 74

    simple, your question implied something I did not say.  I do not accept the suggestion that my statement can be read the way you suggested.  Period.

  218. 73

    Sorry about the inadvertent sockpuppetry NWPA. I had used the name newfags when I posted a little piece about newfags not being able to triforce in a thread a long time ago intending to try to get some fools to rerase their system32 folder. I couldn’t have them knowing it was 6 about to fool them or they wouldn’t do it. For some reason my machine decided to keep newfags as the default posting name even after I got done with that gag and posted back on 6 several times. Observant posters can tell if I’m using a different name for a little gag or such because I always use the http://www.hello.com (you can hover over the name and see it) and examiner6k@yahoo.com.

    In any case, I asked the question up thread.

    I’m glad to know you think Siri ineligible and thus not a slave. At least until you get your way and she, and all of “her offspring” are one.

    I’m curious what you think the probability that they’ve filed no fewer than 50 patents for Siri is?

    I appreciate your having finally understood that the reason such claims are rejected is because attorneytards try to define the machine in terms of “magic” instead of by its structure. I believe this is a breakthrough for you.

  219. 72

    There is nothing wrong with Sockpuppets.

  220. 71

    What I can (and what has been, and yet even though you ask how you can forget and yet you do) tell you is that “useful arts” is a larger set than “technical arts” and includes at least business methods (which you have a “as such” prohibition against and the US does not).

    This should be a very clear indicator that your continued use and reference back to “technical arts” should be stopped any time you are discussing US law (which in other words, is the same as saying you need to be specific that anytimne you say “technical arts,” you are not talking about US law.

    Is this really too hard for you to do? What reason do you have for not doing this already?

  221. 70

    When did you ask the question the first time?

    Siri is a machine that is running an information processing method. Under Benson it is likely not eligible for patentability as the information processing methods appear to resemble a law of nature and it is too abstract to be eligible for patentability aoccoding to the pschotic holdings in Benson. Magical machines according to Benson.

    And, MM, please no more sock puppets. Be proud to be you.

  222. 69

    Clever sock puppet for MM. It is unfortunate that the USPTO has spent untold billions with 101 rather than digging in and learning how to use 102 and 103.

    It is unfortunate that untold tens of thousands of companies and people do not understand what is eligible for patentability and what is not for fear of building a machine that captures a law of nature or is abstract. Yes, a machine that is running and performing the method as claimed can be abstract according to the SCOTUS, and capture a law of nature. Magical machines.

  223. 68

    How can I forget? Why don’t you tell me what “useful arts” encompasses? Social skills, perhaps?

  224. 67

    The patent system is to reward innovation in all fields of useful arts.”

    Corrected. (yet again).

    C’mon MaxDrei – please please please please please try to remember the difference in US law.

  225. 66

    “This 101 business has done nothing but cause billions and billions of dollars of needless waste”

    I agree, a lot of people filed claims that were invalid over 101 because of unfortunate wordings in some few cases leading them to believe they had a 101 eligible claim. :( But, that’s how the legal system goes.

  226. 65

    Then I will repeat my question for you bro. Is Siri a slave?

  227. 64

    Yes but inventive activity comes in many forms besides that which justifies a twenty year monopoly. Why should being financially ingenious, mathematically creative or musically inventive, for example, be enough. The patent system is to reward innovation in all fields of technology, not finance or math.

    Yet if the 101 filter is abandoned, what stands in the way of twenty year monopolies, for the asking, on enabled contributions to the fields of pure math, sports and games, haggling in the market, methods of lying convincingly, or any other ordinary human social activity? Do you have a 103 filter that can cope with a full flow through a non-functional 101 filter?

  228. 63

    Excellent preview, professor. Thank you for preview that.

  229. 62

    All of this 101 business is the hope of a free lunch. If only we could just do all this patent business without having to do any work. Sorry boys and girls if you want a real patent system, you need 102, 103, and 112.

    This 101 business has done nothing but cause billions and billions of dollars of needless waste. Benson is probably the most expensive patent case ever litigated in the destruction it has caused to the patent system. Shame on you policy boys and girls and the Cybersource three.

  230. 61

    A machine–a machine mind you—that transforms information by converting a number from one representation to another–is held inelgible for patentability because the SCOTUS determines that the method the machine is using–and mind you that mehtod is hard coded with transistors and resisters–can be represented in a human head with symbols and numbers that somehow are a law of nature.

    That is policy based medieval thinking.

    Information takes time, energy, and space to transform. Physic recognizes information as a fundamental property of nature that is conserved.

  231. 60

    My opinion:

    1) nonsense that it is more efficient to police patents with 101 than 102, and 103. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that getting around 101 is possible with money and time and cleverness, but that 102 and 103 are real. The focus should be on 102, 103, and 112. 101 is not real. It is a vanity of those that believe they know better than others. Rader has it right. Dump all these 101 arguments and focus on 102, 103, and 112.

    2) This business of breaking things up into known and unknown components is nonsense. Horrible methodology as claims elements are intertwined. If we get into this chipping away business, we patent attorneys are going to be spending a lot ot time getting clever to write elements that you cannot say are known. What a terrible thing to do.

    3) Diagnositc methods will be harmed. Plan and simple. And, in this case the diagnostic method is so simple as to be laughable. But, what of more complicated diagnostic methods? One where it is probably too complex for a doctor to even keep in his/her head where they are in the method. What of them?

    In the end, this 101 business by the courts and the “friends” of the court are nothing more than an alternative route to legislation. Go to Congress and away from the SCOTUS.

    lastly) Congress just passed the AIA and thought about these issues and didn’t pass legislation narrowing 101. So, why should the SCOTUS be doing this? This is legislation from the SCOTUS. Face boys and girls your motives are bad. Your intent policy and your means violence against the law.

  232. 59

    Does anyone think that these diagnostic methods — if left alone by the SCOTUS to continue to receive promotion — will evolve over time to very complex methods that perhaps fill a wall with how complicated it is to follow the method to diagnose a person?

  233. 58

    Prediction:

    Ned won’t (because Ned can’t).

  234. 57

    Great hypo Ned. I asked myself how the EPO would deal with it.

    Methods of boiling eggs have technical character. 101 OK. The claim would fail 102/103 though, because in the claim there is no “technical feature” that gives the claim novelty over the state of the egg-boiling art. Mental acts are not part of technology.

    As to method claims, included in a patent that is directed to an altitude-compensated egg-boiling machine, how wide can we go? Interesting thought.

  235. 56

    Oh this has got to be good.

    I have asked Ned this question a hundred times and never got a straight answer.

    Let’s see what kind of dishonest verbiage he comes up with this time.

  236. 55

    Right, you are the one that proposed Business Methods were NOT patent eligible subject matter.

    The burden has and always will be on you to prove otherwise and you have failed to do so quite spectacularly.

  237. 54

    Ned, It’s your statement.

    Are you asking what I mean by my question?

    If so, you really shouldn’t be calling me simpleminded.

    If not, why don’t you just answer the question?

  238. 53

    simpleminded, what does your question have to do with the statement?

  239. 52

    Having giving it further consideration, I think the answer is this:

    Referencing the boiled egg claim where the novel element is a calculation based upon altitude, where the calculation is performed by human:

    The claim is patent eligible because, considered as a whole, it claims a process which transforms matter from one state to another.  However, because the novel subject matter lies in a mental step, and because that mental step cannot distinguish over the prior
    art, the claim is nevertheless unpatentable under 102/103.

    To make the claim patentable, either the process as a whole has to be new, or the calculation step must be performed by a machine.

  240. 51

    Thanks, Malcolm.  Again, you make a good case.  I will think about it.

  241. 50

    There is no way that the Prometheus claim(s) should have passed the MOT

    Where is this passing the MOT a requirement? I cannot seem to find this in either the legislative law or in valid case law. Can you help me out?

  242. 49

    1. eligible
    2. doesn’t matter because 1 is eligible
    3. doesn’t matter because 1 is eligible

    Malcolm, are you aware of a single published decision where a district court or the CAFC held invalid a dependent claim but held valid its independent claim? How about the reverse? I seem to recall Allison and Lemley publishing the results of a study they did of all final, published validity decisions by either district courts or the CAFC from the 90’s and found only one instance where there was a final holding of validity of a dependent claim but invalidity of its independent claim. Allison and Lemley concluded that dependent claims are basically pointless. I’m not saying I agree with their conclusions or anything, but something tells me that the one instance of valid dependent claim/invalid independent claim was a district court decision where the judge was either intoxicated or senile or both.

  243. 48

    Ned

    So I boil an egg and call for the time to be adjusted according to information from a measurement of altitude according to a formula. Is the adjustment an act? It sure is in my book.

    I knew this was coming. ;)

    All I can say, Ned, is that if you are going to discuss hypothetical methods, you need to be crystal clear about what’s being claimed. Frankly, it’s impossible to tell what you mean by “calling for the time to be adjusted.” You say that “is an act” in “your book.” Uh … okay. Still incredibly unclear what you are talking about.

    Let’s assume this is the claim you are referring to:

    1. A method of boiling an egg, comprising placing an egg in boiling water until [novel formula converting altitude to time for egg boiling], then removing the egg from the water.

    Respectfully, the real problem with this claim is that it covers all practical uses of the novel idea (the formula). I would have no problem finding the claim (and all similar claims) ineligible based on that principle.

    Obviously there is a transformation, however. So let’s just pretend for the moment that the claim is eligible, unless we find a reason to doubt that conclusion.

    How do we examine such a claim in view of the prior art which clearly teaches egg boiling? Well, obviously if any possible altitude input into the formula yields a time that was previously used to boil an egg in the prior art (or even a similar time), then the claim is invalid as novel or obvious. And that is surely going to be the result.

    So it’s a dxxb hypothetical. But let’s ignore that fact as well.

    Let’s say that your patent is granted and you see me at a certain altitude boiling an egg and you see me remove the egg from the water at the same time that your formula would suggest. Then you sue me. And in court the judge asks me what I was doing.

    I say, “I was boiling an egg for [x seconds].”

    The judge says “Why?”

    I say, “Because the yolks are perfect that way.”

    The judge says “I like em that way, too. Am I infringing when I boil my eggs for that time? I live at the same altitude.”

    And you say to the judge “Only if you think about the algorithm.”

    And now we have a bona fide 101 issue, thanks to your greed. Sure, the judge can construe the claim to require a machine, I suppose, to save your sad claim for some future action. But your own actions and statements (not to mention the broad claim) are responsible for putting the issue front and center.

    Same with Prometheus. Same with Classen. Same with Metabolite Labs. What were they thinking? Hint: begins with an ‘m’ and rhymes with “honey.”

  244. 47

    Not only did the Supreme Court find the claim patent eligible, I think they would have has no trouble at all in finding the claim patentable under 102/103 even if the only new elements were the mental steps.

    Really? Even if they understood that the claim effectively prevented those practicing the prior art from “thinking” new thoughts while they did so? I’m curious, Ned: where did the Supreme Court ever suggest that claims which prevented those practicing the prior art from “thinking” new thoughts while they did so were patent eligible?

    The issue has never been addressed. Breyer came closest in his LabCorp. dissent. The fact that Dierh’s claims were found to be eligible is evidence of nothing except, perhaps, for the Supreme Court’s historically sloppy reasoning and fondness for, shall we say, gobbledygook in this area.

  245. 46

    Even the government has now agreed that a process step requires an act in the real world. Merely thinking about something is not an act and not a process step.

    So I boil an egg and call for the time to be adjusted according to information from a measurement of altitude according to a formula. Is the adjustment an act? It sure is in my book. Can the adjustment serve to distinguish over the prior art? I do not see why not.

    Therefore, I conclude that adjusting a dosage in response to a correlation is an act, but that thinking about adjusting the dosage is not.

    I think the gov’t brief is close, but not quite there. A mental “step” in a process can limit and qualify another step that is real. But it cannot be a step by itself.

  246. 45

    Gov’t brief:

    “A patent applicant cannot, however, avoid a rejection
    under Section 102 or 103 merely by appending a purely
    mental step or inference to a process that is otherwise
    known in (or obvious in light of ) the prior art. A “process” is a series of steps for achieving a useful result in the physical world. See, e.g., Cochrane, 94 U.S. at 788.”

    The case they cite, and the legal rational, sounds entirely in 101 however. Entirely.

    Also, I do not the government’s use of “append.” Do they mean, final steps only?

    Recall that Diehr’s claim 11 had mental steps in an admittedly old process. Not only did the Supreme Court find the claim patent eligible, I think they would have has no trouble at all in finding the claim patentable under 102/103 even if the only new elements were the mental steps.

    “Append” has to be understood to be the final steps, with the transformative steps being mere data gathering. With this limitation in mind, even the gov’t argues the Prometheus claims are not patentable subject matter, but under 102/103. However, this is a distinction without a difference.

  247. 44

    You are conflating again. My position on the the Supreme Court “upholding ” business methods as statutory subject matter in Bilski is clear from start to finish. I reiterated my position in this thread at Oct 19, 2011 at 08:34 PM.

    My position that Coffin Making is within the useful Arts of 1789 and 2011 and in fact was a business method in 1789 is also clear. See my post at Oct 19, 2011 at 08:10 PM

    The fact is you have failed to put forth a cogent response in rebuttal to either position.

    And no, conflating is not a valid rebuttal although it may be telling of the advance of your friendship with Mooney.

  248. 43

    ROCHE & ABBOTT (Seth Waxman, WilmerHale): Patents are crucial for innovation in personalized medicine and more particularly for the continued development diagnostic tests that can enable such medicine’s practice. Arguments “that patents on diagnostic tests stifle innovation and basic scientific research” are “largely based on speculation, rather than sound evidence.”

    On the other hand, arguments that patents like Prometheus’ effectively prevent practitioners of the prior art from thinking about patent-ineligible, publically disclsoed facts are based on irrefutable logic. Which is why Roche and Abbott would rather attack a strawman than address those arguments.

    There is absolutely no evidence that the pace of research into diagnostic correlations that are useful for treating patients will be affected by refusing to grant claims in the form [old transformative step + mental step] or [mental step + old transformative step]. None at all.

    The increased identification of “correlations” based on such information is 100% due to faster computers, faster machines for obtaining genetic information, and the desire of pharma/insurance companies to identify patients who can be targeted for “personalized medicine.”

  249. 42

    NED: “AI, this whole topic began when you or a sockpuppet stated that Bilski held that BMPs were patent eligible.”

    I originally stated, and have always said that Bilski “UPHELD” Business Methods as statutory subject matter. The word “UPHELD” is of particular importance here.

    Upheld is defined in the dictionary as:

    confirm or support (something that has been questioned) : the court upheld his claim for damages.
    • maintain (a custom or practice)

    This is relevant to my position that business methods have always been statutory so there is no reason to argue that they are statutory.

    The Court agreed in Bilski by saying business methods are processes and methods same as any process and method, and subject to the same requirements as any other process and method.

    The opposition, of which you are a part tried to get the Court to narrow the Constitution and the Statute to exclude so called business methods.

    The opposition failed to do so, and thus the Court “upheld” business methods as statutory subject matter.

    Not even Stern himself can save you now.

    ::chuckles::

  250. 41

    Malcolm, the whole point of dependent claims is to tag on further features just in case the broad claim falls. There are good reasons for doing this.

    I agree, Ned, for the general case but not where the dependent claim recites only a mental step.

    “Yes, your honor, we acknowledge that the independent claim in the prior art and to the extent the defendant is only practicing the prior art, he can not infringe the patent. But in addition, the defendant has admitted to THINKING about a fact that we published and which, by itself, is ineligible for patenting. Because he is THINKING while he practices the prior art, he therefore infringes the dependendant claim.”

    You really have to be incredibly clxxlxss to believe that such a claim is going to get you anywhere.

    We’ve reached the end of the road. I guess we should thank Prometheus and Classen for their uncontrollable greed.

  251. 40

    I just scanned In re Gleave and do not understand how it is relevant to the issue of patentable subject matter.

    Sorry, Ned. I meant In re Grams.

  252. 39

    Ned, does it bother you at all that claim 3 renders your rule meaningless?

  253. 38

    Well, since you want to go there let’s analyze it.

    In 1789 Coffin Making was a business plain and simple.

    People paid for the making of pine boxes.

    There were numerous processes and methods for the making, distribution, and delivery of the pine box.

    Money changed hands as part of this process and trade and advertising , even if only word of mouth, occurred in order to make the entire process work.

    No one was making Coffins for sport or games, art or pleasure, or communication, the mere liberal arts, your daddy Stern speaks of.

    If not for the exchange of money and/or trade, including the advertising needed, there most likely would not be anyone in the Coffin Making business.

    So clearly we have a process that involves commerce and is not merely a liberal art process. That logically makes it a business method/process same as any other process and part of the useful arts of 1789 as well as 2011.

    You are the one that “can’t handle the truth!” since it is you Ned Heller that can’t accept the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that business methods are processes and methods like any other process and method and therefore must be treated accordingly.

    And since no Court or Congress has accepted your unconstitutional definition of business methods, the joke is on you.

  254. 37

    AI, this whole topic began when you or a sockpuppet stated that Bilski held that BMPs were patent eligible.

    That is the topic I am discussing regardless of your denying that this is the topic.

    I assumed, but I should not have, that we all understood that Bilski’s claims were BMPs. I was shocked to find that you did not believe this, but rather believed that they were not BMPs.

    Your discussion on whether method claims generally must do this or do that is irrelevant. The question on the table is your statement or contention that BMPs are patent eligible. Stop trying to move the goalposts.

  255. 36

    AI, you are truly delusional. This topic began with your or some other sock puppet’s assertion that BMPs are patent eligible. When pressed, it became clear that you did not consider Bilski’s claims to be BMPs, but that coffin making claims were.

    I have no idea how you can believe this. But, truly AI, you have a screw loose.

  256. 35

    Hush Mooney, the grown ups are talking.

  257. 34

    new fags, you do like to exist in a bubble of reality of your own creation.

  258. 33

    Ned:

    The GLARING fallacy in your argument is that there is a need to argue and prove that so called BMP’s are patent eligible.

    But the fact is the Supreme Court has ruled that BMPs are processes and methods same as any process and method and therefore are to be treated the same as any process and method.

    Therefore all your posturing about what is and is not a business method and why it’s not patent eligible or in the useful arts is all straw.

    NED: The Supreme Court was clear that the MOT was a primary test.

    AI: Not true. Cite the exact quote. You can’t!

    NED: Breyer and Scalia stated their views that anything that failed
    the MOT was highly unlikely to be patent eligible.

    AI: I would like to see the exact quote on that too. And even if you can provide, Breyer and Scalia make a majority on what ???????

    NED: What I suggest to you AI, is that since BMPs will always fail the MOT by definition, they are highly unlikely ever to be patent eligible.

    AI: Yes, in your world and by your definition. But not by the US Constitution, US Supreme Court, and the US Congress. Business Methods are merely processes and methods therefore not only statutory, they are within the useful arts and the law of the land!

  259. 32

    I just scanned In re Gleave and do not understand how it is relevant to the issue of patentable subject matter.

    Claim 1: patent eligible.

    Claim 2. Not

    Claim 3. Patent eligible.

    Recall, that the depended claims are legally treated as independent claims for the purposes of patentability.

    Assume that claim 1 is fully supported in a priority application, but claim 2 is new matter added upon filing the present application. Just because claim 1 is patentable does not render claim 2 patentable because claim 2 is not entitled to the priority date of the priority application.

    Each claim has to be individually assessed.

  260. 31

    Excellent preview, professor. Thank you for taking the time to write that.

  261. 30

    AI, in the words of Jack Nicholson, "You can't handle the truth!"  

    Coffin making in 1789 being a form of business method from that era?  

    What a joke.  

    Bilksi's claims to a hedging method are classic BMPs.  They do not pass the MOT and have a business utility.  Coffin Making passes the MOT.  Truly it does.

  262. 29

    AI, I suggest that the holding in Bilski is inconsistent with dicta that BMPs could be patent eligible.  I will repeat:

    Bilski:  BMPs are NOT categorically EXCLUDED.  

    The double negative implies a positive:  that BMPs are patent eligible.  

    That is what you and other sockpuppets actually said, and repeatedly so.  BMPs are patent eligible.

    But if BMPs are patent eligible, then Bilski's BMPs should have been patent eligible.  But they were not, indicating that there is something wrong in the Supreme Court statement.

    The Supreme Court was clear that the MOT was a primary test.  Breyer and Scalia stated their views that anything that failed
    the MOT was highly unlikely to be patent eligible.  What I suggest to you AI, is that since BMPs will always fail the MOT by definition, they are highly unlikely ever to be patent eligible.

    That is the real takeaway from Bilski.

  263. 28

    Ned, please don’t feed the troll.

  264. 27

    But Malcolm, the whole point of dependent claims is to tag on further features just in case the broad claim falls.  There are good reasons for doing this.

    But the US position seems to be consistent with your position in that it would find claims that ended in mental steps patentable if the transformative steps were new.

  265. 26

    “What do you do with the following claims:”

    Don’t even try to talk to Ned about his “claims ending in a mental step aren’t patentable” nonsense. Your example literally blows his mind up. He doesn’t understand that whether the claim begins, ends or contains as an intermediate step a mental step then it has to be the same analysis.

  266. 25

    simple, "my?" theory?  It is not me that proposed that BMPs are patentable subject matter.

  267. 24

    Ned, you are a conflating S0S. I just brought up the example this morning of Coffin Making as a business method that was within the useful arts in 1789, along with candle making, barn building, and any other wood and iron process from that era.

    This had nothing to do with you declaring all business methods are patent ineligible because Bilski’s particular type of business method was ruled patent ineligible.

    Something you did over a month ago and have continued to do across multiple threads including this one.

    If you want to debate useful arts and what is and it not included then I invite you to you come and get your intellectual b slapping anytime, in the other thread where it started, or this one. It does not matter to me.

  268. 23

    I has a question for NWPA if he’s around.

    NWPA, is Siri a slave?

  269. 22

    Ned:

    You are the one being completely disingenuous and accusing others of what you are doing. That’s your MO and favorite fallacy in the dirty tricks argument hand book.

    The fact is you initially made the blanket argument that since Bilski’s business method was patent ineligible all business methods are patent ineligible, with out even having a definition for business methods!

    And when you were called on it by Um No, and others you played dumb, rather than admit your flaw.

    When you were backed into a corner with the medical methods question, you said duh??? whats a medical method???? Again playing dumb just to stick to your dishonest game.

    Now, just today you come up with your own personal definition of business method and act like this was you position for the last month.

    But even that won’t save you now because no one living in the 21st century would accept such a backward definition as representative of business methods. And surely the Court has not and never will back such a narrowing and limiting definition that unconstitutionally impedes the progress of the useful arts.

  270. 21

    “and will only serve to take your “good name” through the mud.”

    That wagon done already left town.

    However I missed the good name thread that keeps popping up in relation to Ned. What, is this his real name or something? And what difference does it make? I dont know Ned from Malcolm and don’t care actually.

    But I do know when people are honest and when they lie. Ned, who/whatever he/she is, on this board is dishonest and reprehensible when it comes to patent law.

  271. 20

    “By careful everyone, according to Ned’s logic, if this medical method is found not to be patent eligible, then ALL medical methods are not patent eligible.”

    This is correct. Ned said because Bilski’ business method was found not patent eligible, then ALL business methods are not patent eligible.

    But if I recall correctly someone asked Ned if this applies to medical methods, and he said ( punted actually) he did not know what a medical method was. Thus he avoided having to face the false conclusion of his own illogical argument.

  272. 19

    Prometheus is consistent with Taner, but inconsistent with Walker and Christensen.

    More importantly, inconsistent with In re Gleave which was a Federal Circuit case directly on point.

    If a process claim ends in a mental step or steps, it is not directed to eligible subject matter regardless of whether the data gathering steps are transformative.

    What do you do with the following claims:

    1. Method comprising a new transformative step
    2. Method of claim 1, wherein after said transformative step, a mental step.
    3. Method of claim 2, further comprising an old transformative step after said mental step, wherein said old tansformative step is insubstantial and was clearly added merely to avoid the rule.

  273. 18

    It would allow the claims even if they ended in mental steps if the data gathering steps were new.

    Indeed. I don’t see any reason not to allow such claims. A better question, of course, is why would anyone WANT such claims? ;) If you’ve got an eligible, patentable invention, just claim it. What’s the point of adding a mental step, unless you are a masochist who enjoys making infringement of your own patent as difficult as possible?

  274. 17

    Malcolm, the US brief is very close to your position. It would allow the claims even if they ended in mental steps if the data gathering steps were new.

    I will read this brief with interest.

    The CATO brief is my position.

  275. 16

    Ned, isn’t it a bit odd to refer to discussing your own theory as “polluting” ?

  276. 15

    anon, I don’t know where you get “as a category.” The original post(s) I questioned had nothing to do with “as a category.” It simply was a statement that BMPs were patent eligible.

    That is what I am talking about and have always been talking about.

    I know you keep raising “category.” But for the life of me, I have no idea what you are talking about as you never actually tell me what you are taking about.

  277. 14

    anon, as always, you are being completely disingenous.

    The logical discussion is this: Sockpuppet Premise: BMPs are patent eligible.

    I questioned the premise as Bilski’s claims were BMPs. If BMPs were patent eligible, Bilski’s claims should have been patent eligible.

    But since the result in Bilski is the opposite, I suggested to you and to your fellow sockpuppets that your premise is faulty.

    Just for clarity sake, I have proposed a definition of BMP. It is a method that has business utility but does not otherwise pass the MOT. The Bilski claims meet this definition.

    To date, sockpuppets refuse to agree that the Bilski claims were directed to a BMP. They rather contend that coffin making, as an example, is a BMP.

    The sockpuppuets are having a problem defending their premise.

  278. 13

    The CATO brief represents my position.

    However, the takeaway from the sheer number of different points of view is that the whole topic of patentable subject matter is in a massive state of confusion. I place the blame here largely on Rader. There is no way that the Prometheus claim(s) should have passed the MOT as the claim as a whole has to be directed to a transformation, not just data gathering steps. The CATO brief gets it.

    After Benson, In re Christensen held that claims that ended in an abstraction (using measured data in a mathematical algorithm), albeit having transformative data gathering steps, were directed to an abstraction. This is consistent with the 9th Circuit case of Halliburton v. Walker to the same effect.

    link to scholar.google.com

    However, Christensen was overruled in a case, In re Taner, that gave significance to the data gathering steps.

    Prometheus is consistent with Taner, but inconsistent with Walker and Christensen.

    The case is simple and should be simply judged. If a process claim ends in a mental step or steps, it is not directed to patentable subject matter regardless of whether the data gathering steps are transformative.

    There is no need to judge beyond these facts and speak of hypothetical cases, or to bring in irrelevancies such as the 287(e) exclusion. Keep it simple, Supreme Court.

  279. 12

    …and you need to correctly portray my views: you left out “as a category.” (so your “without limitation’ quip is patently false).

    This is a critical distinction and one that you continuously either run from or (as evident now) misrepresent.

    Don’t play the “misrepresent the other side’s view” game – not only is it exceptionally trite, but also exceptionally dishonest, and will only serve to take your “good name” through the mud.

  280. 11

    Hey Ned,

    I only brought up the actual name of Bilski to set poor MM straight (you know he has a habit of hyperventilating and conflating himself into a state of oblivion).

    After all, it is your brainchild logic I am applying to Prometheus. If you want to talk about Prometheus and use the exact same logic you have pasted all over the various threads, go for it! I only warned the people here about your logic (and I am pretty sure that I have been faithful in presenting it here in context of Prometheus).

  281. 10

    I already closed the brief mm and i’m not keen to reopen it and waste that amount of time atm. But on the whole, they acknowledged that the claim is effectively a claim to the natural phenomena and then they emphasized the whole “it effectively stops people from thinking” angle as you’ve been stating for awhile now.

    I wonder if Prom filed yet.

  282. 9

    socketpuppet declared, without limitation,

    “Bilski held that BMPs are patent eligible.”

    I questioned the declaration, noting that the Bilski claims were BMPs and were held to be not patent eligible.

    Result: an interminable discussion where sockpuppet steadfastly refused to agree that the Bilski claims were directed to BMPs, declaring at one point that coffin making was a BMP.

    sockpuppet, let’s not pollute this thread with that discussion. Let’s rather discuss Prometheus.

  283. 8

    I didn’t get that sense when I read Mayo’s brief. What passages are you referring to, 6?

    Of course, this sounds vaguely familiar:

    NINE LAW PROFESSORS (Joshua Sarnoff, DePaul College of Law): … “Allowing patents for uncreative applications would effectively provide exclusive rights in and impermissibly reward the ineligible discovery itself.”

    I must say that I haven’t felt more comfortable about the outcome of a case since Abbott Labs v. Sandoz decided that product-by-process claims were, effectively, method claims.

    The Federal Circuit’s decision in Prometheus is so short-sighted and its reasoning so sloppy and so childishly simple-minded that it practically begs to be overturned. It’s quite literally a cry for help. And now they’re going to get that help.

    The most unfortunate aspect of the case is that the question presented in the petition for cert was poorly worded and misses the point. The case about whether one can turn ineligible discoveries into eligible claims by reciting an ineligible step of thinking about the discovery (i.e., thinking about a new fact or a new correlation) and tacking on a patent-eligible, but old, transformative step. If the answer to that question is “yes you can”, then such eligible claims must be found unpatentable per se, as suggested by the Solicitor General.

    As for Microsoft’s assertion: Subject-matter eligibility tests should not involve “pars[ing] the claimed invention into the ‘underlying invention’ and those aspects that are ‘conventional’ or ‘obvious’ or insignificant ‘extra- or post-solution activity.'” Such parsing lacks any guiding principle that can make its application predictable.

    This is false. The “guiding principle” is claims can not prevent otherwise non-infringing actors who are practicing the prior art from thinking about what they are doing, what they are going to do, or about the results of what they just did. When the effective preclusion of mental thoughts is considered, there is nothing “unpredictable” about the analysis.

  284. 7

    No confusion at all. The post above merely unviels the fallacy of Ned’s long running Bilski particular-to-general warped logic.

    Try not to confuse yourself and please try to keep up.

  285. 6

    By careful everyone, according to Ned’s logic, if this medical method is found not to be patent eligible, then ALL medical methods are not patent eligible.

    B-b-b-ut they are already all ineligible because they’re d-d-directed to h-hu-humans!!!

    Sockie’s confusion runs deep.

  286. 5

    Thanks for this nice short summary of the amicus arguments in this case, which has been overshadowed by the AIA, and is of only peripheral interest to many of us.
    The Fed. Cir. has been surprisingly lucky at the Sup. Ct. just recently, with affirmances or waffles, but one wonders if they are in for a return to another judical trouncing here? As Mr. Dooley famously said, even Supreme Court judges read the newspapers. They must be aware of what high medical costs are doing to government budgets, and that this subject is a lot more nationally important than whether or not business methods [other than Mr. Bilski’s] are patentable.

  287. 4

    By careful everyone, according to Ned’s logic, if this medical method is found not to be patent eligible, then ALL medical methods are not patent eligible.

  288. 3

    Is MM counsel for mayo? Looking at their brief it appears to closely follow MM’s line of reasoning.

  289. 2

    “Preemption analysis “must incorporate a critical assessment of whether the claim at issue actually claims a fundamental principle as a fundamental principle in contrast to an application of that principle.” ”

    I agree, but after you have determined that it is an application that does not end the inquiry. One must futher inquire whether a claim that broadly claims “an application” of the fundamental principle is in fact effectively claiming “all applications”. Indeed, that is good law. And it is further good law to take into account the principles announced in Flook.

  290. 1

    I think they meant to say:

    “But the Federal Circuit has WISELY “extended th[is] principle to apply to machines or manufactures that replicate mental steps.” ”

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