VirnetX v. Cisco and Apple (Fed. Cir. 2014)
An E.D. Texas jury sided with the patentee VirnetX — finding that the four asserted patents are not-invalid and that Apple’s VPN-On-Demand and FaceTime products infringe. The jury then awarded $350 million in damages. On appeal, Apple presented a number of winning arguments that, in the end, result in only a partial victory because some of the claims remain valid and infringed. After altering claim construction of the term “secure communication link”, the jury will re-determine whether FaceTime infringes and recalculate damages.
Before getting into the merits (in a separate post), we might pause to consider the subject matter eligibility of asserted claim 1 of Patent No. 7,418,504:
1. A system for providing a domain name service for establishing a secure communication link, the system comprising:a domain name service system configuredto be connected to a communication network,to store a plurality of domain names and corresponding network addresses,to receive a query for a network address, andto comprise an indication that the domain name service system supports establishing a secure communication link.
At a high level of abstraction, the invention is designed to implement private communication which, at that generalized level would likely be seen as an abstract idea. The particular implementation steps included in the claim here are themselves written in broad functional language whose implementation were well known and conventional aspects of DNS systems as of the 1998 application date. Now, the court does not sua sponte raise the 101 issue here and so we do not know the answer.
Jess asked:
“I suppose that means there is a new patent on duct tape for the use in treating shingles then…
Or is that ridiculous?”
Devices and methods for multiplexed assays
US 8821810 B2
From the Spec:
“In exemplary embodiments, the disclosed devices may be used to detect the presence or absence of one or more viral antigens, bacterial antigens, fungal antigens, or parasite antigens, cancer antigens.
Exemplary viral antigens may include those derived from, for example, the hepatitis A, B, C, or E virus, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), herpes simplex virus, Ebola virus, varicella zoster virus (virus leading to chicken pox and shingles), avian influenza virus, SARS virus, Epstein Barr virus, rhinoviruses, and coxsackieviruses.”
“Non-limiting examples of a fluid-impermeable layer includes Scotch® double-sided carpet tape, 3M Double Sided Tape, Tapeworks double sided tape, CR Laurence black double sided tape, 3M Scotch Foam Mounting double-sided tape, 3M Scotch double-sided tape (clear), QuickSeam splice tape, double sided seam tape, 3M exterior weather-resistant double-sided tape, CR Laurence CRL clear double-sided PVC tape, Pure Style Girlfriends Stay-Put Double Sided Fashion Tape, Duck Duck Double-sided Duct Tape, and Electriduct Double-Sided Tape. As an alternative to double-sided tape, a heat-activated adhesive can be used to seal the fluid-carrying layers together. Indeed, any fluid-impermeable material that can be shaped and adhered to the pattern hydrophilic layers can be used. In addition, it is also possible to use the same material that is used to pattern the paper layers to join the layers of paper together.”
and claim 1
1. A device for assay of a fluid sample, the device comprising:
at least first and second substantially planar members disposed in the same or parallel planes, wherein the first substantially planar member is a porous, hydrophilic, adsorbent material comprising fluid-impermeable barriers that define boundaries of plural hydrophilic regions and the second substantially planar member defines a test zone for presentation of a sample for assay;
said plural hydrophilic regions and said test zone comprising porous, hydrophilic, adsorbent material for transfer of fluid within the porous, hydrophilic, adsorbent material by capillary action;
said fluid-impermeable barriers penetrating the first planar member to define the boundaries of the plural hydrophilic regions through which fluid flows by capillary action;
said members being moveable relative to each other to permit establishment of fluid flow communication serially between at least two of said hydrophilic regions and the test zone;
a reagent disposed in said device within or in flow communication with one of said hydrophilic regions and in flow communication with said test zone when said one hydrophilic region and test zone are in fluid flow communication.
link to google.com
So, no, not ridiculous.
[…] Yesterday in the news there was a lot of analysis about a VPN software patent. Dennis Crouch asked: […]
“This is excellent news all around. Free software is winning on many fronts. ”
These were the final two sentences of the article you linked. Everything you need to know about anti-software patent folks, like Owen, is on display.
This isn’t about patents or the law to them. To the arstechnica crowd, all software should be free to steal.
You cannot steal what is free.
The entire “gist” of the “software is maths” position is that math belongs to the commons and cannot be appropriated by any type of exclusionary right.
As I have attempted to make clear in conversations, this mindset does not stop at patents, and even copyright protection will be eliminated if a ‘software is maths’ viewpoint is accepted as true.
The logic that is used – much like the sword of “Gist/Abstract” does NOT have the limit that those using the logic seem to want to assume is in place, and the mere hopeful thinking that the logic will not be fully used lacks a basis in reality.
Closing your eyes to the slippery slope will not make that slippery slope go away.
It has nothing to do with “to steal”.
The open source movement just wants to be able to implement math functions.
Nor do they want their implementations artificially restricted and claimed by another.
Can you distinguish between a “coder” and an “aircraft design engineer”?
The coder wants to design a functioning piece of software which will form part of a machine doing certain things. You say the “coder” does not want there to be no restriction on the property rights in the final embodied/tangible configuration/machine…
The aircraft design engineer, wants to be able to design a functioning airplane. It would “be nice” for him if he could do so without having to worry about whether, an aircraft according to his final design, would infringe someone else’s property rights, when made, used, or sold.
Either are free to design to their heart’s content, neither are restricted in the use of purported or actual fundamental tools of scientific and technological work or for that matter math functions. Each may design or write code without worry of infringement.
Manufacturing, creating, or bringing about the actual functioning machine, is something both the “coder” and the “design engineer” knows brings about the question of third party property rights.
Can you fundamentally distinguish (in a principled manner based on reality) these two contexts?
I’m asking jesse re his comment about the “open source movement”
Sure. No problem.
The aircraft engineer is making something out of matter. If the specific part belongs to someone else then the aircraft manufacturer goes and buys the part… thus they avoid the overhead of stocking, manufacturing or having to build manufacturing plants, land…
The programmer is just translating math from one mathematical language to another. Sometimes even having to derive that math first.
No physical items produced.
Just using pre-existing machines for what they were already designed and patented to do – symbolic math manipulations.
I’m specifically referring to the a distinction related to the creative process of design, specifically exercised by the coder – designing software – and the aircraft design engineer – designing an aircraft.
Please note the design engineer is not building anything… what he uses are fundamental design principles, scientific and technological, to put together his overall blueprint of a working machine… exactly the same as what a coder does in the act of creation.
No.
The design engineer is targeting a physical device, a “composition of matter”.
The resulting design doesn’t fly. It doesn’t even compute.
Now simulation software can compute what SHOULD happen IF it were actually built.
But the simulation itself doesn’t fly. The design itself isn’t the airplane. I believe the design is actually copyrighted.
Now if someone took the design and actually BUILT the airplane, then the constructed “composition of matter” (the airplane) could infringe a patent…
But notice the difference – symbols vs reality.
Jesse, you see you don’t understand software.
Software is physical. It is really a special purpose chip. The GPC is less efficient than a special purpose chip and is nothing more than a simulator for the special purpose chip.
So, what the software developer is making is a machine that processes information.
How the software developer makes that machine will depend on how big that machine is, how much energy the machine takes, and how much time the machine will take to process the information.
It is a shame that people like you want to push these false assertions about software. I wish you would take the time to learn something about this.
What you scenario is like Jesse is saying that a circuit designer isn’t really making a circuit because they are using a circuit design tool to design the circuit.
At the end of the day that GPC + software is a new machine.
There is a BIG difference. The result of the circuit is a physical device.
The result of programming is just more math. The math STILL needs interpretation.
The circuit does not.
Nope you are wrong. The result of programming is a specification for a special purpose chip.
That is reality. You just think because a cool little environment for you program has been set up that it doesn’t go back to a circuit, but it does.
Are you sure you have a degree in C.S.? I bet it isn’t a graduate degree.
Well… even a specification isn’t the circuit.
Patent the circuit, not the specification.
Since now you are trying to confuse the use of a circuit design language with programming a general purpose computer.
I see you don’t understand what a CPU is.
It happens to be an interpreter defined in boolean algebra.
All it can interpret are numbers. All it can process is boolean algebra, and math symbols derived from boolean algebra.
All the CPU can do is read numbers from memory, carry out the math function designated by that number, and write numbers back to memory.
Nothing else. It is all abstract symbols.
>>All the CPU can do is
And, that is relevant how? The CPU by doing what it does (by the way it could be analog too) is performing information processing methods like we do.
I do think there is a religious element in the anti-software movement. They don’t seem to like to knowledge that software is doing what they do. J. Stevens was a particularly acute case where he didn’t get that these information processing machines were doing what his brain did like the iron age machine did what his body did.
Bizarre.
Oh, I agree that the CPU symbolic processing is what I do in my brain.
No issue there.
Just that what I do in my brain is not patentable, thus what the CPU can do is also not patentable.
The only programmers I’ve met that think software should be patentable are those that came from a trade school programming environment.
jesse, we who have actually worked in computer hardware, or programmed at the machine level, understand computers very well. All the CPU does is take data in, perform mathematical and logical operations on that data, and restore the data to some storage. The CPU, programmed, does nothing physical except produce heat. Must be connected to the real world in some way in order for the CPU to actually do something.
So when I see arguments that suggest that a programmed computer is a new machine because a programmed computer can drive cars, perform operations, move mountains, and the like suggests that the people who make these arguments don’t understand the fundamentals, or if they do understand the fundamentals, are setting up strawman in order to induce the unformed to make policy decisions that will result in the patenting of programs and algorithms divorced from context, that effectively patent little more than mathematical algorithms or business methods.
That is what I understood the problem to be. It certainly isn’t technical.
But I do recognize snow jobs – especially when it is in my field.
I have to point out that before Judge Green’s decision AT&T digital switches often contained CPUs with no associated ALU. The little math required for switch control would be implemented in data tables.
Nicely stated, jesse.
You can see in this thread what the anti-software people want from the patent system. They imagine a system where the vast majority of programmers work in giant multinationals with strict dress codes, oppressive management, and mediocre wages producing gray dingy software that people buy only because there are no other options.
Then a few inventive types write up new ideas but don’t actually write code. They can’t sell code because of the patent thickets; only the multinationals with licensing divisions can. Instead they write patents and extract a small income from the multinationals through entrepreneurial troll lawyers.
The multinational management, patent prosecutors, patent litigators, and licensing salesmen proliferate and make money. The programmers become cheap drones. The software industry stagnates and customers suffer. But things are orderly and lawyerly justice prevails. Most importantly, the bureaucrats are in charge and creative startups can’t just upend things by creating value for the public.
That is the end and purpose of patents on software and why creative businesses and programmers must oppose them.
The deliberate misrepresentations — ‘software is a physical machine,’ ‘programming a computer creates a new machine,’ ‘software is more than math’ — infuriate actual programmers who read them but we’re not the intended audience. Judges and Congress are easier to bamboozle. Those ideas get repeated here because they work to persuade powers in Washington, not to convince you. And anti-software advocates are sincere in wanting to give us the gray multinational world so they come to believe those things regardless of the facts.
There is no deliberate misrepresentation here.
Computer + no software = brick.
Computer + software can = new and useful functioning device because the computer can do before, what it could not do sans the software.
Traveling down the path of “software is math” is no different than “a planetary gear is nothing more than a random arrangement of sub-atomic particles”.
You may have a misconception of what software is.
I have had and used some computers with no software and many more with minimal software. Computers used to come without even an operating system. We used to key (or switch) in the instructions we wanted to execute.
Software is not a machine component. It is the way we use a machine. Like the act of strumming a guitar or starting a toaster, software is the expression of what a person wants an existing machine to do. The software cannot change the machine or improve its operation or make it do anything it was not originally capable of.
We can record some software for playback but that doesn’t make it a part of the machine and it is extremely harmful for the government to grant monopolies over our intentions of how to make the usual use of an existing machine.
—
‘Deliberate misrepresentation’ may have been imprecise language. I certainly don’t think anyone here is arguing in bad faith. Some are using metaphors that can mislead naïve people in powerful government positions into unwisely favoring their parochial interests. Those metaphors are not harmful to the technically experienced who understand their uses and limitations.
Owen – Thanks for this comment, I wonder if you go to far with your argument. In particular, we have many many patents that have been issued on new uses of known items. Many of these are formulary patents for drugs. Do you mean to eliminate those patents as well?
Dennis, “[W]e have many many patents that have been issued on new uses of known items. Many of these are formulary patents for drugs. Do you mean to eliminate those patents as well?
I am not familiar with these so-called new use patents with drugs, but the new use of an old machine is patentable as a process.
Can you point me to a case that holds that a drug is re-patentable as such, with the identical structure, upon discovery of a new utility?
Assuming such patents exists, how could they possibly be valid given that a sale of an old product infringes? That doesn’t make any sense.
In truth these product patents to you to which you refer must be method patents because if they are not I have a strong doubt that they are valid.
Regarding a GP digital computer + program patent claimed as apparatus, there is surely there’s something wrong with such a claim because it cannot be infringed by the sale of the computer.
Owen: Even assuming arguendo that there are counter examples (which I think your examples miss the mark), it doesn’t disprove my argument. My laptop, without software, is unusable. With software it performs in ways otherwise it would not without the software.
@Dennis, are you thinking of orphan drug statutes?
I’m not sure those are always a good idea when off-label prescription seems to work so much better, but the key problem there is overbearing regulation, not a set of exceptions to the patent laws. The pharma patent laws are more administered by the FDA than the PTO in practice, anyway.
I’m not familiar with old drug formulary patents in other context.
@Ned That software is a method of using an existing machine and not a machine component is not a conclusive argument against software patents. I agree. It was a key point I was making within a smaller context.
The point about software being a method (in most cases) is not all that important in reality, but it seems important to some folks here who still believe that a programmed computer is per se patentable subject matter because they think that programmed computer is a particular machine within the MOT. If anything, Alice has put a spike to that notion.
In proving infringement of software cases, one actually has to show a use, which is the same thing as proving a method.
Actually also, when the invention is in the method, claiming that subject matter as a CRM introduces nightmares in trying to prove infringement.
“@Dennis, are you thinking of orphan drug statutes?”
No. Patents exist on methods of using an old drug for treating a different disease or condition than the drug was originally designed.
For example, psoriasis treatment that when applied to the scalp cure baldness.
I suppose that means there is a new patent on duct tape for the use in treating shingles then…
Or is that ridiculous?
Or a new patent on asprin to help prevent heart attacks…
BlutoBlutarsky, ““a planetary gear is nothing more than a random arrangement of sub-atomic particles” is false.
The Planetary gear is a carefully arranged mechanism composed of atoms. They are not symbols of atoms, but the actual atoms.
And no, they are not sub-atomic either.
BlutoBlutarsky:
Computer + no software = brick.
They can be quite useful.
I used to work with computers with no software. It was quite handy for debugging hardware interfaces. I could set/clear the status control registers, set data values for it to convert, read values it converted. Even test its ability to perform DMA.
No software involved.
It all depends on how you USE the computer. Software doesn’t have to come into it.
“I used to work with computers with no software.”
That’s super. Go back and read my comments and try again. I don’t dispute that some circuits/computers operate without executing code. My laptop isn’t one of them. Neither is the computer you are using to interact with this website.
It is entirely possible to work with any system without software.
It just depends on the interface into the system.
After all, that is how a new system gets created. The system CPU doesn’t have to be operating, or even involved.
The BIOS is just a convenience.
I’ve been a real software developer and I am infuriated by the ignorance of software developers not realizing how much patents have helped them.
Your dystopia comes from not having patents where everything becomes a secret and employment contracts force software engineers to agree to draconian non-compete non-disclosure agreements. I signed such an agreement in 1985.
“..software engineers to agree to draconian non-compete non-disclosure agreements. I signed such an agreement in 1985.”
Such non-compete agreements are noxious and should be unenforceable. CA has gained the upper hand in software partly by its hostility to ‘contracts’ of that sort.
So what.
I’ve signed them as well.
What was I paid to do?
Maintain open source applications for the DoD.
Administer non-patented operating systems for Supercomputers (at the time they were all UNIX – no patents around, Current supercomputers are all Linux based – no patents around).
What were the NDAs for? Proprietary software – guess what, still no patents.
My first industrial job? Writing, maintaining navigation systems. No patents whatsoever, except those on hardware.
So you have no idea what is actually done in the industry.
Jesse. Everything tangible is comprised of sub-atomic particles. You seriously can’t be this obtuse.
I know this may come as a shock to you but atoms are comprised of sub atomic particles. Also just in: sky is blue and water is wet…
You may be surprised, but you can’t build with subatomic particles. They fly apart…
You start with atoms.
No one is arguing about whether you can build with something or not. That is not the test for patentability.
The point of the discussion is that everything on one level or another is abstract if pushed to the point of absurdity.
Drawing arbitrary lines in an effort to define an “abstract concept” is an absurd process that is practically, logically, and philosophically unworkable.
Do try to remember the actual topic of this website and the thread.
neither atoms or subatomic particles are abstract.
They exist.
So do planetary gears.
Jesse. There is a forest, and you’re missing it for the trees. Best of luck with your atoms.
I submit that the open source movement’s wanting to “be able to implement math functions” is no more an argument for or against patentability of machines functioning with use of software and hardware than
an “open aviation design engineering” movement’s desire to be able to design aircraft without worrying about eventual infringement is an argument for or against patentability of actual airplanes.
Both are simply irrelevant.
I will admit one distinction between a “coder” and an “aviation design engineer”…
although both may be hired by multi-billion dollar corporations only one of them is not drowning in Kool-Aid.
No.
One is building an actual mechanism that exists with physical reality…
The other is just manipulating symbols.
When you confuse symbol manipulation with reality, it is called “magic”.
Functioning computers (as well as aircraft) exist and function/act in physical reality. To assert that anything of either of them somehow “exists” in something other than physical reality is errant Mysticism.
When you confuse the symbol manipulation used specifically in the process of **designing** both physical systems with the physical systems themselves, you confuse cause and effect: the actions which contribute to creating the thing is not the thing itself.
A confusion of this kind is called a “logical fallacy”.
I would have been interested in your thoughts if you were interested in thinking.
Really, jesse, I would have at appreciated the discussion if I knew you were at least honest in the attempt, but now I unfortunately suspect otherwise.
Symbol manipulation does nothing in reality.
It requires an interface to translate the symbols…
Whether that be a pen, or a printer.
Symbol manipulation cannot do anything – even from inside the computer.
And confusing that with reality is still called “magic”.
“Symbol manipulation does nothing in reality.”
So the question for you then is does the computer controlling a human unflyable F117 fighter aircraft perform symbol manipulation or does it fly an airplane in reality?
Do you claim that the computer implemented algorithms which actually do fly an airplane are nonexistent? Or that they are ineffectual and it is the “belief” of the pilot that keeps the plane in the air? What is flying the plane… and how it that NOT part of reality?
You are incomprehensible sir. Your logical fallacies multiply….
The autopilot is specifically made to control the aircraft. The software is still symbolic processing.
What makes the difference between the computer and the autopilot is the translation to/from the symbols used. That part is what makes the autopilot…
BTW, the software is only doing 3D trigonometry (could be called 4D, as it includes computations with measures for time).
Otherise it is just called a flight simulator, like those used in games.
BTW, I wrote navigators… Mine were for controlling seismic survey vessels. But occasionally, they were used in aircraft.
So how did we do it? We worked on general purpose computers (PDP-11s at the time).
How were they converted for use as an autopilot? – slid the unit into a rack. Then we plugged the ships control cable into our interface.
Change to the general purpose computer? added a couple of special purpose interfaces. – GPS (serial line, standard interface), microwave ranging interface (our patented sauce, connected via a 4 unit parallel interface), and a parallel interface (a standard part).
Was it still a general purpose computer – yes. We had to make no changes for that.
“Do you claim that the computer implemented algorithms which actually do fly an airplane are nonexistent?”
The algorithms don’t fly the plane. They can’t.
What does fly the plane is the interface doing the translation from numbers to the control signals sent to the control surfaces.
The algorithms work just as well without the interface… The airplane can fly without the algorithms (the pilot will be performing the algorithm).
Read the law sometime. “Nor do they want their implementation artificially restricted and claimed by another.”
That’s against the law and has never happened. It would make a nice story if it had happened, but fortunately, it’s an outright lie.
Yes, it is against the law. But it has happened.
That is why the busybox authors took them to court.
Dennis, the obvious problem here is that the claim is functional at the point of novelty: it presents the idea of a DNS providing some indication that it can provide a secure communications link without any other details of what that it is, or how it is accomplished. Thus, any security at all (including anonymity according to the construction revised by the Federal Circuit) is covered even though the specification may have taught only one specific type of secure, anonymous, communication.
Regardless of legal theory, whether 101 or 112, this claim has to be declared unpatentable due to its scope.
Given the Supreme Court’s repeated citation to Rubber-Tip Pencil, an idea without any detail presents a 101 problem. However, I would prefer that the problem be treated under section 112, per Morse and the cases that follow it through Wabash Appliance, and Halliburton.
However given the current attitude by many that a simplified procedure be accorded defendants to defend against overbroad patents, it is perhaps better to address these things under section 101 in a motion to dismiss on the pleadings.
> functional at the point of novelty
There is nothing wrong with this as long as it is enabled. But, I think your post is the best post I’ve ever read of yours.
Night, it looks like we have some common ground.
Reading the IPR proceedings, PTAB was distinctly confident that every claim from every patent in suit was invalid under §102 and occasionally §103. I don’t think they see §101 and §112 as necessary at all in this case.
Apple was hoping to get a small enough damages amount that they could finish up without waiting for the appeals of the IPR, but they’re going to win the IPR eventually. That should be a happy outcome for Apple and the patent system.
Dennis: I agree with you that it seems like 101 should be timeless, i.e., the types of things that are ineligible now should have also been considered ineligible 50 years ago and will still be considered ineligible 50 years from now.
That’s an easy trap to fall into. Unfortunately, it ignores the practicalities of applying any workable subject matter eligibility test to the sorts of claims that attorneys will write.
the reality is that, under the SCT cases, eligibility is not timeless. Rather, we’re looking for inventive concepts as part of the analysis.
As it must be. There are no “magic words.” There are no “types of things” that are eligible just because a word describing that “type of thing” appears in the claim.
A simple example should suffice to explain why this is the case (I’m happy to provide more — just ask!).
Consider a typical book. At one point long, long, long ago that book could have been claimed as a new apparatus, in objective structural terms to distinguish it from apparati in the prior art. It seems highly unlikely that a serious challenge to that claim’s eligibility could be raised. Likewise with any new information-storage apparatus described in objective structural terms that distinguish it from the prior art.
But once that “book technology” is disclosed, neither the patentee nor anyone else can “evergreen” the technology by reciting otherwise ineligible subject matter that “improve” the “book technology” by making it more useful (e.g., printing new and incredibly useful cancer-curing information onto the pages of the book). Such a practice would effectively afford patent protection to the information itself.
The same analysis applies to the similarly old “technology” of a ball-point pen, which was certainly patent-eligible at one point and was, in fact, patented following a disclosure of its new, distinct objective physical structure. Once the pend is in the public domain, you can’t get a claim to a method of using that pen to communicate some particular new non-obvious information. It doesn’t matter that you’ve recited a “type” of machine that is ineligible. More accurately: it must and can not matter unless you wish to completely nullfiy the subject matter eligibility requirement.
Plainly, the recitation of a similarly old invention of an electronic programmable computer does not and can not automatically confer eligibility to a claim for the identical reasons set forth above.
Note that these “hypotheticals” are not unrealistic. On the contrary, applicants and patentees have tried to protect information by reciting “old technology” (this term is something of an oxymoron in the patent context; is there a better one?). Most recently and infamously, a patentee accused a competitor who used old technology of infringing their claim because the competitor thought about the data obtained using that old technology. That case, of course, was Prometheus v. Mayo and the unanimous 9-0 decision was predicted, sought for many years, and welcomed by many.
Wish I was that eloquent.
And I wish O’Bama would seek MM out an make him Director.
Here is where your old book and new printed material example falls flat on its face. How does the new printed material (static information) cause or configure the book (another static object) to: automatically open when the reader approaches, highlight words on a page, annotate the document, translate the document into another language, and so forth?
Bluto, how does configuring a GP digital computer cause it to open when approached?
Your examples have nothing to do with programmed GP digital computers. They are all examples of larger machines enabled by a computer.
As such, you are giving us strawmen arguments to support using a computer to calculate numbers as patentable subject matter.
MM
You refer often to “objective physical structure” in the claims. What do you think of “means plus function” claims for tangible “industrial” machines (say from the industrial revolution era)? Are those claims valid or do they recite “functionalities” devoid of objective physical structure?
If so or if not, why?
I am genuinely curious as to the principles you are applying when you refer to your concept/test: “objective physical structure”.
Dennis. Can you release my comment to this thread from moderation?
I will try this again to get through the filter.
Your book example is not relevant. Does the printed matter on the book cause (or configure) the book to open its cover automatically when a reader is present, or translate the printed matter from one language to another, highlight or tag words with metadata, and so forth?
These features may be anticipated or obvious, but that is another matter.
So all this has to do with collapsing 102, 103, 112 all into 101 with no evidence and a judge that couldn’t tell you Newton’s laws of physics if his/her life depended on it, how?
Apparatus not apparati is the plural of apparatus in Latin (or apparatuses in English). This is because apparatus is fourth declension.
Dennis asks whether VPN Software may be patent eligible under section 101. YES. As many of the other commenters pointed out, concerns of other applicable sections may be relevant here, but section 101 is not one of them. We can thank SCOTUS for yet another anti-technology onslaught (Alice) that solves nothing and is virtually impossible to navigate. Now every software claim has a cloud hanging over it about whether it crosses the boundary of abstract into “something more.” Could not be more disappointed in SCOTUS’ baseless and dangerously hostile holding in Alice.
Now every software claim has a cloud hanging over it about whether it crosses the boundary of abstract into “something more.”
“Even software”?
Claims reciting non-technical information-processing “functionalities” devoid of new objective physical structure are just about as “abstract” as you can get.
“objective physical structure” ???? What is that?
So, again, what exists without physical form and structure? Apparently according to the antis software. It exists only in the ether and spiritual world of thought. You see medieval thinking.
Now, once they admit it exists from being shamed then they deny the structure and/or functional relationship to the GPS and/or the equivalence of hardware/software/firmware.
“objective physical structure” ???? What is that?
Physical structure described in terms that are objectively understood (in physical terms) by people skilled in the art. There is nothing at all radical or controversial about such a requirement. Applicants have been claiming their inventions using such terms since, well, forever.
Such a requirement “confuses” proponent of software patents because proponents of software because — thanks to some misguided court decisions and a PTO desperate to coddle its “clients” — they believe they are entitled to claim their “manufactures” by reciting only the functionality conferred by the software, in the complete absence of any novel objective structure.
what exists without physical form and structure
Abstractions.
We’re talking about patent claims and what the claims protect, by the way. We’re not debating whether a CD is “a physical object.” It’s an important distinction that you need to remember if you want to have the conversation.
^^^ except it is not a requirement, you mean, right?