The Post-Bilski Era Gets Underway

bfwebster writes "A set of pharmaceutical process patents for 'evaluating and improving the safety of immunization schedules' (Classen v. Biogen et al.; see US Patents 6,420,139; 6,638,379; 5,728,385; 5,723,283) were held to be invalid due to unpatentability. The decision was appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but was upheld with a terse citation to In re Bilski (which decision we discussed here). Here's the entire text of the appeals decision: 'In light of our decision in In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc), we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment that these claims are invalid under 35 U.S.C. 101. Dr. Classen's claims are neither "tied to a particular machine or apparatus" nor do they "transform a particular article into a different state or thing." Bilski, 545 F.3d at 954. Therefore we affirm.' It will be interesting to see what happens when these same standards start getting applied to software-related patents."

Re:What about post-9-11 era?

[tomhudson]

Dr. Classen's claims are neither "tied to a particular machine or apparatus" nor do they "transform a particular article into a different state or thing." Bilski, 545 F.3d at 954.

Hey, since that is a transformative act, why not patent it? Then you can prevent anyone else from trying to "punish jews."

While you're at it, why not extend the patent to *ALL* hate crimes? And WAR? Be nice if hate crimes and war were impractical because of potential patent violations.

And you could patent stupidity. We could all use an outbreak of common sense.

Re:The Post-Bikini Era Gets Underway

[Anonymous Coward]

Be careful for what you wish for. The alternative may be far worse.

That sidesteps the issue.

[Jane Q. Public]

Properly, software, as a written work, should be covered by copyright and not patents anyway. This was true in the past, and the changes that allowed software patents to become common are precisely the cause of all the problems everybody is now trying to fix.

If the current Bilski ruling does not change this effectively, then reasonable people will continue to push until it is changed. In other words, our goal (no joke or exaggeration) is to put you out of a job.

Re:Irrelevant.

[he-sk]

The spreadsheet application can only do spreadsheets.

To the contrary, I bet most spreadsheets today are turing-complete, meaning they can conceivably simulate any computer program.

It's not called general purpose computer for nothing, you know.