Bonum Certa Men Certa

The US Patent and Trademark Office Continues Granting Abstract Software Patents Because of Buzzwords

Those are fake patents, as per SCOTUS, and should never be granted in the first place

Summary: A quick look at some new patent grants and why they appear to be bogus, based on a superficial interpretation of the promotional press releases

THE granting of software patents based on buzzwords is a real problem. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) actively advertises some of these buzzwords, especially in the wake of 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101 when applicants need to disguise algorithms (for fear of the Federal Circuit, district courts, and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes reviews (IPRs)).



Over the past week we've seen press releases about stuff like "advanced data analytics solutions and drone-based data gathering tools and services..."

It sure seems like Jim Loveland misuses the term "AI" to get fake (bogus) patents on abstract things and this isn't the first. "When we founded Loveland Innovations, I saw a tremendous potential for drones and artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize the roof and property inspection world," said Jim Loveland.

Stuff associated with drones is patentable if physical (although widespread adoption of drones didn't happen until a few years ago due to several decades' worth of a notorious patent thicket). As for "AI"? That just means algorithms.

Another new example of that speaks of passing data to a device. Definitely sounds like bogus software patents, but the USPTO is stamping away anyway. Helps bring money to the Office, right? "CleveMed has been issued a new patent (US Patent No. 10,076,269)," it says, "entitled “Devices and methods for sleep disorder diagnosis and treatment.” The patent covers technologies that enable data transfer from home sleep apnea therapy to the cloud through software apps on patient’s cell phones or other personal smart devices such as wearables."

So combining algorithms with some vaguely-described "smart" "devices" makes code patentable? Nope.

On October 31st Jeff O’Neill published an analysis of grant rates at the USPTO; sadly, Watchtroll was the platform for publication (Adriana Burgy, Tom Irving and Stacy Lewis have also chosen it as a platform just because of its reach). So this is what Watchtroll said about the USPTO: "The lack of outcome consistency among patent examiners is a known issue that the USPTO is working on improving, and this article presents visualizations to help diagnose areas for improvement."

That's because some continue to grant fake software patents, whereas others do not. Make examination stricter and consistency as well as certainty will go up. We could go on and on analysing press releases about newly-granted patents, nitpickin any that look obviously abstract. But it's a very time-consuming activity. All we can say is, the USPTO needs to become more strict; stricter rather than more lenient as Iancu wants it to be.

Recent Techrights' Posts

More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Links 29/03/2024: Fentanylware (TikTok) Fines and UK High Court Makes It Seem OK to Assassinate People Wrongly (Falsely) Associated With "Russia"
Links for the day
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries