Patents as property II: Rethinking SW patents?
A Time to Rethink
Patents as property was also front and center in the thoughts of one judge on the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the main appellate court for patent disputes in the US. Senior Judge S. Jay Plager, speaking at a symposium at George Mason University, called for a “rethinking” of several aspects of patent law by returning to its origins in property law.
According to the BNA, Plager “called for a renewed focus on setting recognizable patent ownership boundaries and on strengthening the notice function that patents are intended to serve. Such a reevaluation might require a reassessment of whether software and business methods are patentable subject matter, Plager said. It might lead to limiting a patent’s scope to what was known at the time of the application filing, and to an abandonment the doctrine of equivalents as a basis for patent infringement liability.”
In addition to rethinking claim construction,
Plager said he regretted the unintended consequences of the decisions in State Street Bank and AT&T. Those rulings led to a flood of applications for software and business method patents, he noted. If we “rethink the breadth of patentable subject matter,” he said, we should ask whether these categories should be excluded from patent protection.
This new thinking is certainly encouraging. Let’s see how it develops.
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July 29, 2008 @ 6:47 am
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Telecom Policy Blog Aggregator » Blog Archive » CAFC Judge Regrets Decisions That Resulted In Software Patents said,
July 29, 2008 @ 8:47 am
[…] push back on software and business model patents, it’s interesting to hear one of CAFC’s judges admit that he was “troubled by the unintended consequences” of the lawsuits (State Street and AT&T) that resulted in software and business model patents […]
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Peter Zura's 271 Patent Blog: Judge Plager: Regrets "Unintended Consequences" of State Street said,
August 4, 2008 @ 8:51 am
[…] Recently, CAFC Senior Judge Jay Plager spoke at a symposium at George Mason University, where he called for a “rethinking” of several aspects of patent law by returning to its origins in property law.According to BNA,[Plager] called for a renewed focus on setting recognizable patent ownership boundaries and on strengthening the notice function that patents are intended to serve. Such a reevaluation might require a reassessment of whether software and business methods are patentable subject matter, Plager said. It might lead to limiting a patent’s scope to what was known at the time of the application filing, and to an abandonment the doctrine of equivalents as a basis for patent infringement liability.Also,Plager said he regretted the unintended consequences of the decisions in State Street Bank and AT&T. Those rulings led to a flood of applications for software and business method patents, he noted. If we “rethink the breadth of patentable subject matter,” he said, we should ask whether these categories should be excluded from patent protection.See post from Technological Innovation and Intellectual Property blog here. […]
Stopsoftwarepatents: Quotes said,
September 9, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
[…] these categories should be excluded from patent protection.” —US. Senior Judge S. Jay Plager, speaking at a symposium at George Mason University help | terms of service | privacy | report a bug | flag as objectionable Hosted […]
Boycott Novell » Patents Roundup: Acacia Extortion, European Lobby, and Failed Systems said,
January 21, 2009 @ 9:23 am
[…] “Plager said he regretted the unintended consequences of the decisions in State Street Bank and AT&T. Those rulings led to a flood of applications for software and business method patents, he noted. If we “rethink the breadth of patentable subject matter,” he said, we should ask whether these categories should be excluded from patent protection.” —US. Senior Judge S. Jay Plager, speaking at a symposium at George Mason University […]