Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Greedy USPTO Leaves Loopholes, “Per Se”, for Patenting of Software in the United States Despite the Alice Case

No loopholes "as such", just loopholes "per se"

USPTO subject matter



Summary: The US patent office, USPTO, is still trying to sidestep rulings from the law setters in the United States, probably because of greed and no quality control motivations

THE United States' Supreme Court was pretty clear about abstract patents and the USPTO very begrudgingly took this into account, only after courts have time after time thrown in the wastebasket patents granted by the USPTO, where quality control is worse than black comedy (is any examination being done at all or just stamping for a fee?).



"Unsurprisingly, in this extremely unregulated system, the patent office does the very minimum to realign as per court rulings and it leaves many loopholes for patenting of abstract software ideas."Based on this page about "Patent Subject Matter Eligibility", the USPTO does not want to actually obey the law as interpreted by the Supreme Court. Unsurprisingly, in this extremely unregulated system, the patent office does the very minimum to realign as per court rulings and it leaves many loopholes for patenting of abstract software ideas. The term "per se" is mentioned at least 5 times in this page and Benjamin Henrion (FFII) rightly said that the "USPTO is abusing the "per se", as the EPO has abused "as such" to render software patentable at the end" (these words are like vague exceptions to each rule).

"Patents," wrote a patents-centric person, "New entrant in €§ 101 (subject matter eligibility) tome. When do they update MPEP?"

Henrion, who will speak about similar issues pertaining to software patents in Europe tomorrow in Brussels, responded to the above by saying "that's written by legalese guys that want to exploit loopholes."

“USPTO is abusing the "per se", as the EPO has abused "as such" to render software patentable at the end”
      --Benjamin Henrion
Another person who opposes software patents wrote: "Interpreting the Law to serve themselves? In order to obtain fees?"

Henrion later called it "EPO style power money grab" (recall how the EPO does this).

They are rendering software patents "acceptable" (or implicitly allowed) so as to grab more power and money at at the expense of citizens. This is just wrong. It shouldn't be done. These organisations have .org and .gov domains, but they operate like greedy corporations and serve the greediest corporations, not citizens.

Writing about the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), this pro-software patents site (of patent lawyers) wrote yesterday that CAFC "Did Not Abuse Its Discretion To Allow Defendant’s €§ 101 Defense After Alice; Claims for “Anonymous Load Shopping” Using Generic Computer Technology Are Abstract And Unpatentable."

It also said that "the plaintiff moved to strike the re-asserted invalidity defense under €§101 as not made with good cause and as unfairly prejudicial. The defendant argued that the change was made in view of the Supreme Court’s €§101 decision in Alice v. CLS Bank, which was decided two months before the final invalidity contentions were served. The district court agreed that the Alice decision was sufficient cause to re-assert the €§101 defense in the final invalidity contentions. The district court later granted summary judgment of invalidity under €§101. The plaintiff appealed."

As can be seen here, the USPTO grants patents on software, but as per Supreme Court rulings, these patents are ruled invalid. This means that the USPTO no longer does what's lawful and the wordings above ("per se") help show that it's not even interested in obeying the law. It just wants to exponentially grow the number of granted patents (the number doubled in a matter of a few years!).

This extreme greed means that a patent bubble is being created (leading to incorrect valuations of some companies) and it will inevitably explode/burst, causing a lot of damage to the US economy. It wouldn't be so bad for patent lawyers when it finally happened.

Australian patent lawyers, in the meantime, try to figure out how to patent software in the US and in Australia. Lawyers' media has just published "Business Method and Software Patent Eligibility: Australian and U.S. Standards" and it says:

RPL held that “[i]t is not a patentable invention simply to ‘put’ a business method ‘into’ a computer to implement the business method using the computer for its well-known and understood functions.” Stated another way, the computer cannot be “a mere tool in which the invention is performed,” but rather “must involve the creation of an artificial state of affairs where the computer is integral to the invention . . . .” The inventive aspect (“ingenuity” as termed by the Australian court) must be “in the way in which the computer is utilised,” not in the scheme, plan, or process that is being implemented.

At first blush, this sounds similar to the guide posts present in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l. The Supreme Court held that “a mere instruction to ‘implement’ an abstract idea ‘on a computer’ . . . cannot impart patent eligibility.” Instead, citing prior cases, Alice held that the invention may be patent eligible where it “improve[s] the functioning of the computer itself,” or “effect[s] an improvement in any other technology or technical field.”


More and more places around the world, including Europe, rule/deem software patents invalid, at least when they reach the courts. It's time for the public to pressure patent offices and patent lawyers whom they interact with (all for the accumulation of money), demanding that they stop ignoring the law. They shouldn't be pursuing software patents. They are a big part of plenty of today's problems. If patents are being compared to "products" and maximisation of "sales" (to clients/customers, not applicants) is the goal, no wonder we ended up in an increasingly horrible, sordid mess.

“[The EPO] can’t distinguish between hardware and software so the patents get issued anyway."

--Marshall Phelps, Microsoft

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Media Helps Microsoft, Amazon and Others (GAFAM and Beyond) Lie About Mass Layoffs Amid Valuation Bubble
The media, instead of saying that there's an "AI bubble" crashing the economy might instead choose the narrative of "jobs replaced by AI"
Bad Tempered? You Might Have Just Given Away That You're Losing the Argument
Brett Wilson LLP is fully aware that it is being investigated
 
Security is Desirable, But Not When the Term Security is Misused to Imply Centralisation of "Trust" (Whose?)
'Security' is not an excuse for vendor lock-in
Links 17/10/2025: Fentanylware (CheeTok) Causing Problems, Japanese Government Blasts Slop
Links for the day
The Linux Foundation Seems to Have Turned Linux.com Not Only Into a Spamfarm But Also LLM Slopfarm
it's polluting the Web, even important domains like Linux.com, with spam and LLM slop
Links 17/10/2025: UK’s Largest Breach Penalty and Windows TCO Examples
Links for the day
Go Watch Video About Librephone, Get Microsoft Ads
Very ethical company...
Campaign of Defamation Against the People Who Built NixOS (and Are Now Pushed Out From Their Own Project)
We've already grown familiar with - and resistant to - such tactics
Links 17/10/2025: Nestlé Crisis, Canada Post Versus 'Gig Economy' [sic] and Vista 11 Breaks Itself
Links for the day
Tux Machines Has Helped Separate Opinions/Analysis From News
In September 2023 we decided to split things apart and not repeat links in both sites
Tux Machines Has Improved Navigation of GNU/Linux and BSD News
Some more 'wiring' work
What a World Would Look Like If Everyone Used Free Software Only
Freedom is what matters, not "Open".
Richard Stallman (RMS) is a Target of Defamation Campaigns Because of His Views on Software (But Politics Are the Excuse for Defaming Him)
Here in this site we try to refrain from politics, except in Daily Links
End of Vista 10 and Rise of GNU/Linux as Client Side Operating System
It seems certain GNU/Linux will grow in popularity over time
Taking Stock of a Week's Worth of EPO Leaks
We remain committed to exposing EPO corruption as long as it keeps happening
Mathieu Parreaux claims FINMA knew since day one
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Calumny, Libel, Joerg Jaspert & debian-private untouchable cyberbullies
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 16, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 16, 2025
Techrights Turns 19 in 3 Weeks
coverage of suppressed topics and protecting all sources/whistleblowers
International E-Waste Day Same Day as End of Vista 10
message from Akira Urushibata
The EPO's Central Staff Committee Presents Evidence That Staff Compensation Lowered While the Office Increases Income by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents
These people become millionaires by doing illegal things
Second or Third Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in October 2025, This Time Portugal
Those are just the ones we know about, there may be several more
'Help Net Security' (helpnetsecurity.com) May Have Become a Slopfarm as Well
Zeljka Zorz, Editor-in-Chief at Help Net Security, was reported to us
Gemini Links 17/10/2025: Rant About Network Solutions, Strange Anomaly on Lagrange
Links for the day
EPO Staff Representation Lacks Social Dialogue With Relevant Management, Controversial and Sometimes Illegal Policies Implemented Without Necessary Input
"In this open letter, the CSC requests that the President submits an agenda item in the next available General Consultative Committee (GCC) meeting on setting up regular meetings between the CSC and the higher management of DG1."
Links 16/10/2025: Political Leftovers and Gemini Protocol Links
Links for the day
Lies Need to be Corrected
the Court never invited us
Slopwatch: Guardian Digital (linuxsecurity.com), Slashdot, Google News, and More
Maybe one day, once the bubble pops completely, Google News will just outright delist all slopfarms
Lufthansa Modern Slavery, Joerg Jaspert (ganneff) & Debian NSB Softwareentwicklung charade
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 16/10/2025: US Starting More Trade Wars With China, CIA War on Venezuela
Links for the day
SUSE Blog is Still LLM Slop, Marketing Manager at SUSE Cannot Write
Would you buy from a company or seek support from a company that cannot even write (or fakes writing)?
Pretend You're Not Dead: Microsoft Spent Almost Two Decades Rebranding Things as "Cloud, Then "AI", Now "XBox" and "Quantum"
"AI" bubble pops, Microsoft harping about "quantum" already
IBM Allegedly Found New Tricks for Silent Layoffs: LPI, Then MIS (Not PIP)
Remember that "Red Hat layoffs" won't be reported after the bluewashing
Links 16/10/2025: Red Lines and Feeding of Microsoft Trolls
Links for the day
MIT as a Propaganda Mill of GAFAM, Paid by GAFAM
"the news" today
Links 16/10/2025: Lies Euphemised as ‘Dueling Versions of Reality’ and Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Resorts to Porn as No Business Model Was Found
Links for the day
The Local Staff Committee Munich (Representation of the EPO's Staff) Explains When Cluster of Pregnancies May Result in Reduced Pay
"...even one week of part-time working is sufficient to reduce the salary you perceive during the entirety of your maternity leave."
Another Black Eye for 'Secure Boot', Microsoft Media Tries to Blame "Linux"
It enables Microsoft to remotely control computers, even computers that don't run Windows and never had any Microsoft software installed
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, linuxsecurity.com, and Various Slopfarms in Google News Attacking "Linux"
A new survey of the Web said that the majority of the Web is now slop (that's being said in the news this week)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Links 16/10/2025: Increased Use of Social Control Media Surveillance in US, French Rage Over Pensions
Links for the day
Links 15/10/2025: Qantas Airways Loses Control of Sensitive Data and Software Patents Are Being Thrown Out
Links for the day
Vista 10 is 'Dead', Here's Why People Should Move to GNU/Linux (or the BSDs)
Today we try to make an outline of reasons move away from Windows to GNU/Linux
Our Sites Continue to Improve
LLM slop has had no noticeable impact on us
Gemini Links 15/10/2025: Neovim, Helix Compared and Gemlog.blue Now Closed
Links for the day
Links 15/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon, OneDrive Spyware Revved Up, More 'Gen Z Protests'
Links for the day
The EPO's Staff Engagement Survey 2025 is Already Tainted by Intimidation by EPO Management (Trying to Influence Outcomes by Scaring Genuine, Honest Critics)
"[W]e have received reports that, following the previous survey, teams with negative responses were reproached or questioned about their answers..."
The DDoS Attacks by Microsoft's Scam Altman and Other Slop Charlatans and Frauds is Hurting the FSF, Delinking It From Copyleft Projects
This impacts a lot more than access to the licences
Microsoft Scanning Faces in Photos People Upload to Microsoft (Even Unconsciously), Slashdot Turns Report About It Into "Microsoft Sez" (Says)
Or "let's repeat the lies from a PR person/Microsoft's publicist"
[Teaser] Angel Aledo Lopez the Manipulator (Nepotism, Poll Rigging, and Other EPO Corruption)
We'll discuss this later today or tomorrow, based on internal EPO material
Attacks on Techrights Are Only Making Techrights Bigger and Even More Popular
A week ago they offered to settle with us
Epic Metaphor for End of IBM: "The IBM Demolition is Down to the Last Shards!"
Nothing lasts forever
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 14, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Proprietary and DRM Prisons Spiralling Down the Sinkhole? Not Just Yet.
Let's hope that more people will flee to GNU/Linux
The European Patent Office (EPO), the Second-Largest Institution in Europe, is Cracking Down on Recreational Activities
Without AMICALE activities, and as staff already says it's pressured to work more for less, how can the EPO recruit bright people?
Transparency: FSFE financial reports exclude speaker fees and expenses
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock