Summary: Miscellaneous news picks about soft patents

THE patent culture is growing unpopular among the public, but those who make money from this wasteful culture continue to promote it.

According to this new bit, algorithms that can reduce energy usage get patented now:

Its patent-pending modlet® (for “modern outlet”) features intelligent engineering and algorithms to provide a simple, low-cost and easy-to-use solution for saving money and energy on electronic appliances.

Here is another patent on software that we found in a press release:

TRA Inc., a leading media marketing and analytics software company and Experian Automotive, a leader in providing information services and market intelligence to the automotive industry, today announced the launch of TRA's "Media TRAnalytics(R) TV Auto Ratings", a patented software solution enabling advertisers to accurately target the networks and programs that best reach desired consumers by automatically matching automotive registration data with television tuning data at the household level.

Why should such abstract ideas be granted a monopoly on them? Over in the Thai press, patents on business methods are now being discussed:

Patents: With recent developments in the US and the UK on business method patents, protection could possibly be extended to a range of financial services in many jurisdictions such as the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and China, to name a few. These include hardware, software, data manipulation and output processes for credit risk and credit management, fraud prevention, identity and personal data security technologies, and of course mobile and online banking. Financial transactions are increasingly electronic and global in nature, so industry players are looking to those jurisdictions where patents might be available in order to exploit their inventions in those countries _ or to avoid countries where they might infringe or be subject to an injunction order.

For business methods, the argument against patentability is that the method itself does not produce any protectable product nor any process that results in such. It is therefore little more than a theory or an abstract idea, neither of which is actually patentable. Computer programs are also protectable under copyright law, and so if the program is nothing more than a source code, there is an argument against patentability. A recent US judgement popularly referred to as the Bilski case states that, while it is not the only test, to be patentable business methods should transform an article to a different state or thing and have a useful, tangible and concrete result.

The Bilski case did not help revolutionise (e.g. eliminate) the process of evaluating software patents although it aided the destruction of a few. ⬆