Bonum Certa Men Certa

US Patent Law Currently Not Changing Much and Software Patents Are Still in Limbo

The debate has been ending and it was won by opponents of software patents

Iancu comments
Unable to attract comments itself, Watchtroll urges readers to send comments in support of Iancu's watering down of 35 U.S.C. €§ 101/Alice



Summary: Surveying the news, as we still meticulously do (even if we don't write about it), it seems clear that American courts hardly tolerate software patents and proponents of such patents are losing their voice (or morale)

LAST year we wrote about a dozen articles every weekend only about the US. We responded to worries we had developed, seeing that decisions such as Oil States were in the "big" dockets, threatening to imperil if not halt inter partes reviews (IPRs) -- a process akin to oppositions or appeals at the EPO.



"General impressions count and based on a few hundreds of news reports from the past week or fortnight there's absolutely nothing that counts as a "turnaround" or a "comeback"."No matter what Iancu does, as expected, at the USPTO, e.g. messing around with 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 and weakening the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), the thing that matters most is that SCOTUS isn't revisiting Alice-like cases and the Federal Circuit continues to apply Alice-based tests. This morning we took a glimpse at new outcomes that cite Alice, even at the Federal Circuit, deeming the underlying (in-suit) patents invalid.

We generally prefer not to spend time covering US patent cases (especially not pertinent outcomes) as that can be laborious and boring to most readers anyway. General impressions count and based on a few hundreds of news reports from the past week or fortnight there's absolutely nothing that counts as a "turnaround" or a "comeback". Nothing.

We were actually amused to see that, facing a barrage of comments to the USPTO which oppose changes to €§ 101 guidance, patent maximalists decided that all of these comments are just "EFF" (similar to claiming that everything that opposes patent trolls is "Google").

As always, some examples or news to that effect can be found in our daily links (we shelve relevant articles and blog posts under the bottom sections while monitoring the situation).

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