Bonum Certa Men Certa

An Uphill Battle for Software Patents in the United States, Except When Catchphrases and Buzzwords Are Used

20 Buzzwords you have to know in Artificial Intelligence
Reference: 20 Buzzwords you have to know in Artificial Intelligence



Summary: Barring or excepting misuse of buzzwords such as Artificial Intelligence, software patents have become incredibly hard to assert in the United States, albeit they're possible to sneak past examiners and then license without any legal challenge

THIS summer, i.e. several months from now, Alice will turn four. The USPTO is still granting some software patents (that ought to have stopped), but the courts as well as PTAB barely tolerate any of that.



"The USPTO is still granting some software patents (that ought to have stopped), but the courts as well as PTAB barely tolerate any of that."Watchtroll is still overtly promoting software patents, even in a so-called 'webiner'. It's like a front group. But worry not, they're not getting their way.

One way remains to get software patents past examiners and sometimes judges too. It boils down to semantics; they just try to make software patents sound like something they're not. They use all sorts of catchphrases and buzzwords -- many of which we have named here before. That includes, more recently, artificial intelligence (AI).

"They use all sorts of catchphrases and buzzwords -- many of which we have named here before. That includes, more recently, artificial intelligence (AI)."It has been particularly hard to overlook or ignore the "AI" buzzword (and media hype) this month. Everywhere one looks in the news -- not just science news -- it's "AI", "AI", "AI"... it's not even a new concept.

Wayne Ramsay, Chief Strategy Officer at Exigent, wrote about "AI" some days ago in relation to law firms. It's time for law firms which neither understand "AI" nor care about "AI" to just say "AI" all the time:

Instead, alternative providers have taken a multifaceted approach to innovation: still applying the FTE billable hour model while slowly shifting to the faster, better quality, fixed-fee model enabled by Artificial Intelligence. [AI]


"We previously hypothesised and showed evidence for "AI" as a buzzword of choice for software patents, along with "machine learning" (ML) and other related terms."All this hype about artificial intelligence has even reached IAM some days ago ("Patent search: the evolution from manual to artificial intelligence"), not to mention Lexology ("Artificial Intelligence: All Our Patent Are Belong to You 3.0"). This nearly sickening media hype around "Artificial Intelligence" (especially over the past month) is mystifying. Who is pushing this? The concept is many decades old. Why is it all of a sudden like the "next best thing"? We previously hypothesised and showed evidence for "AI" as a buzzword of choice for software patents, along with "machine learning" (ML) and other related terms. A lot of examiners might not be familiar with these concepts, which can make any old idea sound more novel/innovative. I actually implemented "AI" more than 15 years ago when I wrote game engines and wrote papers about machine learning about 15 years ago when working on my Ph.D. Even back then those things weren't particularly cutting-edge. It's statistics. It's mathematics.

We kindly ask examiners as well as other readers not to be misled by buzzwords. They're like fashion.

"We kindly ask examiners as well as other readers not to be misled by buzzwords. They're like fashion."Why does the US still grant some software patents on what's clearly not eligible under Alice? A few days ago I saw this new press release about 4 newly-granted patents on computer vision (my research discipline). Do they really not know that it's just mathematics (matrices)?

How about Walmart applying for a 3D image patent for online grocery? This too was in the news some days ago and again it's computer vision, i.e. software/geometry. Stop granting monopolies on maths...

"As it's a blanket/bulk licence, they might be paying for patents that aren't even eligible."To name one last example, Aterica licenses mMed patents [1, 2] on a "hardware and software platform," which we assume means that some of these patents simply cover software. As it's a blanket/bulk licence, they might be paying for patents that aren't even eligible. This kind of bundling of decent patents with dubious ones has become so common. It's one way to drive up the price of licensing or litigation (for instance, suing or threatening to sue a company with 100 patents, only a handful of which are decent). Patent maximalism is quite a disease and it's antithetical to the theory of incentive.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Google News, and Other LLM Slopfarms
Why does Google News keep promoting these fake articles?
Links 29/10/2025: Amazon Kept "Data Center Water Use Secret", "Abuse of Power" Against Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/10/2025: "My Hardware Specs" and "Goodbye Debian…"
Links for the day
EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete