fast food restaurant); U.S. Patent No. 6,329,919 (system for toilet reservations); U.S.
Patent No. 7,255,277 (method of using color-coded bracelets to designate dating status
in order to limit “the embarrassment of rejection”). There has even been a patent issued
on a method for obtaining a patent. See U.S. Patent No. 6,049,811. Not surprisingly,
State Street and its progeny have generated a thundering chorus of criticism. See Leo
J. Raskind, The State Street Bank Decision: The Bad Business of Unlimited Patent
Protection for Methods of Doing Business, 10 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J.
61, 61 (1999) (“The Federal Circuit’s recent endorsement of patent protection for
methods of doing business marks so sweeping a departure from precedent as to invite
a search for its justification.”); Pollack, supra at 119-20 (arguing that State Street was
based upon a misinterpretation of both the legislative history and the language of
section 101 and that “business method patents are problematical both socially and
constitutionally”); Price, supra at 155 (“The fall out from State Street has created a gold-
rush mentality toward patents and litigation in which companies . . . . gobble up patents
on anything and everything . . . . It is a mad rush to get as many dumb patents as
possible.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); Thomas (1999), supra at
1160 (“After State Street, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that if you can name it, you
can claim it.”); Sfekas, supra at 226 (“[T]he U.S. courts have set too broad a standard
for patenting business methods. . . . These business method patents tend to be of
lower quality and are unnecessary to achieve the goal of encouraging innovation in
business.”); William Krause, Sweeping the E-Commerce Patent Minefield: The Need for
a Workable Business Method Exception, 24 Seattle U. L. Rev. 79, 101 (2000) (State
Street “opened up a world of unlimited possession to anyone quick enough to take a
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