Source: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2010072913012223
Timestamp: 2017-04-23 19:41:46
Document Index: 284376671

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 102', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 102', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 102', '§ 103', '§ 112', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101']

Groklaw - USPTO Asks for Comments on New Interim Guidance on Bilski
Thursday, July 29 2010 @ 03:33 PM EDT
The PTO has just issued new guidance for their examiners on Bilski, Interim Guidance for Determining Subject Matter Eligibility for Process Claims in View of Bilski v. Kappos [PDF] -- on how to follow what they think Bilski held as to what is and isn't patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. "A claim to an abstract idea is not a patent-eligible process," Bilski holds, they point out, but exactly where is the line? How do you know an abstract idea when you see it? So the USPTO is asking for public comment on what they came up with for their understanding. They want to hear from the public by September 27, and they provide some specific questions and a list of factors examiners are to consider when evaluating an application. You know pro-patent companies' lawyers in droves will be telling them that their clients should be able to patent God's method and process for creating the heavens and the earth, so you may wish to comment yourself and let them know politely where you think the line should be drawn on the abstract idea exception to subject matter eligibility as set forth in Bilski, if this is a topic you care about. Otherwise, I can see it now, their report: We got 3,201 comments saying X and only 3 saying Y, so X carries the day. The truth is, I don't think anybody knows specifically what Bilski means, including the US Supreme Court. They couldn't draw a straight line, because they couldn't agree on enough, so they just didn't. So what is the USPTO supposed to do with it in the real world? They give it their best shot. They know algorithms are not patent eligible, because they list that, but you and I would want to ask: what do they think software is if not algorithms? No one yet has been able to answer my challenge to show me something in software that *isn't* an algorithm. Please feel free to try. And while abstract ideas are not patentable, usually, there is this "but" that the USPTO recites: Bilski reaffirmed Diehr’s holding that "while an abstract idea, law of nature, or mathematical formula could not be patented, 'an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection.'" So all the patent applications will read, "A method or process for creating the heavens and the earth, on a particular machine" and it will stress it is an *application* of the laws of physics, not patenting the actual laws themselves per se. The USPTO gets it that abstract ideas are not patentable, but then lists this as one factor:
A. If the method involves or is executed on a particular machine, it is more likely patent eligible. *More* likely? Uh oh. I don't think they realize general computers aren't transformed by software, unless one redefines the word "transform" to mean "not transformative". That's why you can run more than one program at once. But it's heartening they see that a particular machine is better than just any old laptop. I find these factors that they list, for example, very encouraging:Factors To Be Considered in an Abstract Idea Determination of a Method Claim
(3) Whether its involvement is extrasolution activity or a field-of-use, i.e., the extent to which (or how) the machine or apparatus imposes meaningful limits on the execution of the claimed method steps. Use of a machine or apparatus that contributes only nominally or insignificantly to the execution of the claimed method (e.g., in a data gathering step or in a field-of-use limitation) would weigh against eligibility. Think about software. If the system can't make it all the way to banning software patents as a category, I think you can see how much better life would become for programmers if patents had to at least be tied to a particular computer or machine. Anything that narrows the damage is to the good. They are asking for comments from the public, preferably by email:Any member of the public may submit written comments on the Interim Bilski Guidance. The Office is especially interested in receiving comments regarding the scope and extent of the holding in Bilski. It's easier for you and me to know what is abstract, but it's a lot harder for patent lawyers and administrators, because they got used to patenting almost everything under the sun, particularly if it added "with a computer", so their brains all tilt in the direction of patentability. They say in the document they've always rejected abstract ideas, even before Bilski, but that tells me they may need to think a bit deeper about software. They did reject Bilski's application, though, and the Supreme Court upheld that decision, so they have been trying to get it right. But they need help connecting *all* the dots, in my view.
From Inventive Step, a summary of what is new:Specifically, the PTO requests comments on these questions:
The Guidance still relies heavily on the Federal Circuit’s machine-or-transformation test and seems to be skeptical that there are methods that would be patent eligible that do not meet the test.
To date, no court, presented with a subject matter eligibility issue, has ever ruled that a method claim that lacked a machine or a transformation was patent-eligible.
The Guidance suggests that claims must be considered as a whole and that patent eligibility under § 101 is only a threshold test. Patent claims must still be examined for compliance with §§ 102, 103, and 112. Examiners are admonished to state all non-cumulative reasons and bases for rejecting the claims in the first office action and should not treat an application solely on the basis of § 101 except in the most extreme cases.
They are asking if there are any categories of business methods that ought to be unpatentable as abstract ideas. I imagine you can come up with some. I'm not positive it will do any good, but education is never a waste. If you have a lawyer handy, ask for help, if you can. And ideas can be gleaned from the amicus briefs filed by the good guys that you'll find here on Groklaw. The Software Freedom Law Center's brief particularly addressed the issue of what software is: The holding of Benson is properly applicable to all software, because a computer program, no matter what its function, is neither more nor less than the representation of one or more algorithms. Further, just as claiming fifty — or even a thousand — laws of nature is no more patentable than claiming a single law of nature, no form of software, regardless of how many algorithms or formulas it comprises, is patentable: It will always be merely and solely made up of algorithms for computers to execute, written down in a form comprehensible to human beings for them to study and expand upon....In its unprocessed source code form, software is merely the expression of abstract ideas in human language — a description of a sequence of steps that will produce a particular result (i.e. an “algorithm”). The source code of a program which performs the steps described in a software patent is distinguishable from the literal patent only in that it expresses the same steps in a different language. Therefore, since anyone may copy or publish the actual patent without infringing, it must also be permissible to communicate its claims in source code form. The new guidance goes into effect immediately, but presumably there could be another one, after they read the comments:The Interim Bilski Guidance is effective July 27, 2010. This guidance applies to all applications filed before, on or after the effective date of July 27, 2010. And here's who you write to:ADDRESSES: Comments concerning this Interim Bilski Guidance should be sent by electronic mail message over the Internet addressed to Bilski_Guidance@uspto.gov or facsimile transmitted to (571) 273–0125. Comments may also be submitted by mail addressed to: Mail Stop Comments—Patents, Commissioner for Patents, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313–1450. Although comments may be submitted by facsimile or mail, the Office prefers to receive comments via the Internet.
The comments will be available for public inspection at the Office of the Commissioner for Patents, located in Madison East, Tenth Floor, 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, Virginia, and will be available via the USPTO Internet Web site, (address: http://www.uspto.gov). Because comments will be available for public inspection, information that is not desired to be made public, such as an address or phone number, should not be included in the comments.
Caroline D. Dennison, Legal Advisor, Office of Patent Legal Administration, Office of the Associate Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy, by telephone at (571) 272–7729, or by mail addressed to: Mail Stop Comments— Patents, Commissioner for Patents, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313–1450, marked to the attention of Caroline D. Dennison.
What The USPTO Thinks Bilski Means:
Here's what the USPTO is telling their examiners Bilski means:II. Summary: The Bilski Court underscored that the text of § 101 is expansive, specifying four independent categories of inventions eligible for protection, including processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter. See slip op. at 4 ("In choosing such expansive terms * * * modified by the comprehensive 'any', Congress plainly contemplated that the patent laws would be given wide scope.") (quoting Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 308 (1980)). The Court also made clear that business methods are not "categorically outside of § 101’s scope," stating that "a business method is simply one kind of 'method' that is, at least in some circumstances, eligible for patenting under § 101." Id. at 10–11. Examiners are reminded that § 101 is not the sole tool for determining patentability; where a claim encompasses an abstract idea, sections 102, 103, and 112 will provide additional tools for ensuring that the claim meets the conditions for patentability. As the Court made clear in Bilski:
Therefore, examiners should avoid focusing on issues of patent-eligibility under § 101 to the detriment of considering an application for compliance with the requirements of §§ 102, 103, and 112, and should avoid treating an application solely on the basis of patent-eligibility under § 101 except in the most extreme cases.
III. The Abstract Idea Exception to Subject Matter Eligibility: There are limits on the scope of patent-eligibility. In particular, the Supreme Court has identified three specific exceptions to § 101’s broad patent-eligibility principles: Laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas. See id.
The Office has been using the so-called "machine-or-transformation" test used by the Federal Circuit to evaluate whether a method claim qualifies as a statutory patent-eligible process. See Interim Examination Instructions For Evaluating Subject Matter Eligibility Under 35 U.S.C. 101 dated August 24, 2009 ("2009 Interim Instructions"). The Supreme Court stated in Bilski that the machine-or-transformation test is a "useful and important clue" and "investigative tool" for determining whether some claimed methods are statutory processes, but it "is not the sole test for deciding whether an invention is a patent-eligible ‘process.'" Slip op. at 8. Its primary objection was to the elevation of the machine-or-transformation test — which it considered to be "atextual" — as the "sole test" for patent-eligibility. Slip op. at 6–8, 16. To date, no court, presented with a subject matter eligibility issue, has ever ruled that a method claim that lacked a machine or a transformation was patent-eligible. However, Bilski held open the possibility that some claims that do not meet the machine-or-transformation test might nevertheless be patent-eligible.
Prior to adoption of the machine-or-transformation test, the Office had used the "abstract idea" exception in cases where a claimed "method" did not sufficiently recite a physical instantiation. See, e.g., Ex parte Bilski, No. 2002–2257, slip op. at 46–49 (B.P.A.I. Sept. 26, 2006) (informative), http://www.uspto.gov/ip/boards/bpai/
decisions/inform/fd022257.pdf. Following Bilski, such an approach remains proper. A claim that attempts to patent an abstract idea is ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101. See slip op. at 13 ("[A]ll members of the Court agree that the patent application at issue here falls outside of § 101 because it claims an abstract idea."). The abstract idea exception has deep roots in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. See id. at 5 (citing Le Roy v. Tatham, 55 U.S. (14 How.) 156, 174–175 (1853)).
Bilski reaffirmed Diehr’s holding that "while an abstract idea, law of nature, or mathematical formula could not be patented, 'an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection.'" Id. at 14 (quoting Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 187 (1981)) (emphasis in original). The recitation of some structure, such as a machine, or the recitation of some transformative component will in most cases limit the claim to such an application. However, not all such recitations necessarily save the claim: "Flook established that limiting an abstract idea to one field of use or adding token postsolution components did not make the concept patentable." Id. at 15. Moreover, the fact that the steps of a claim might occur in the "real world" does not necessarily save it from a section 101 rejection. Thus, the Bilski claims were said to be drawn to an "abstract idea" despite the fact that they included steps drawn to initiating transactions. The "abstractness" is in the sense that there are no limitations as to the mechanism for entering into the transactions.
Consistent with the foregoing, Bilski holds that the following claim is abstract:
Specifically, the Court explains:
The concept of hedging, described in claim 1 and reduced to a mathematical formula in claim 4, is an unpatentable abstract idea, just like the algorithms at issue in Benson and Flook. Allowing petitioners to patent risk hedging would preempt use of this approach in all fields, and would effectively grant a monopoly over an abstract idea.
Bilski also held that the additional, narrowing, limitations in the dependent claims were mere field of use limitations or insignificant postsolution components, and that adding these limitations did not make the claims patent-eligible. See id. Claims 1–9 in Bilski are attached as examples of claims that run afoul of the abstract idea exception.
The day after deciding Bilski, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Ferguson v. Kappos, U.S. Supreme Court No. 09–1501, while granting, vacating, and remanding two other Federal Circuit section 101 cases. The denial of certiorari left intact the rejection of all of Ferguson’s claims. Although the Federal Circuit had applied the machine-or-transformation test to reject Ferguson’s process claims, the Supreme Court’s disposition of Ferguson makes it likely that the Ferguson claims also run afoul of the abstract idea exception. A representative Ferguson claim is:
The following guidance presents factors that are to be considered when evaluating patent-eligibility of method claims. The factors include inquiries from the machine-or-transformation test, which remains a useful investigative tool, and inquiries gleaned from Supreme Court precedent. While the Supreme Court in Bilski did not set forth detailed guidance, there are many factors to be considered when determining whether there is sufficient evidence to support a determination that a method claim is directed to an abstract idea. The following factors are intended to be useful examples and are not intended to be exclusive or limiting. It is recognized that new factors may be developed, particularly for emerging technologies. It is anticipated that the factors will be modified and changed to take into account developments in precedential case law and to accommodate prosecution issues that may arise in implementing this new practice.
Additional guidance in the form of expanded explanation and specific examples will follow in due course.
Taking into account the following factors, the examiner should determine whether the claimed invention, viewed as a whole, is disqualified as being a claim to an abstract idea. Relevant factors—both those in favor of patent- eligibility and those against such a finding—should be weighed in making the determination. Factors that weigh in favor of patent-eligibility satisfy the criteria of the machine-or-transformation test or provide evidence that the abstract idea has been practically applied. Factors that weigh against patent-eligibility neither satisfy the criteria of the machine-or-transformation test nor provide evidence that the abstract idea has been practically applied. Each case will present different factors, and it is likely that only some of the factors will be present in each application. It would be improper to make a conclusion based on one factor while ignoring other factors.
This additional guidance, which builds upon the 2009 Interim Instructions, is a factor-based inquiry. Although the following approach is a change, it is anticipated that subject matter eligibility determinations will not increase in complexity, particularly for examiners who do not routinely encounter claims that implicate the abstract idea exception. Examiners will recognize that the machine-or-transformation test set forth in Section II(B) of the 2009 Interim Instructions, although not the sole test for evaluating the subject matter eligibility of a method claim, is still pertinent in making determinations pursuant to the factors listed below. Examiners are referred to the summary sheet of factors provided at the end of this Interim Bilski Guidance which may be useful in determining subject matter eligibility of a method claim.
A. Whether the method involves or is executed by a particular machine or apparatus. If so, the claims are less likely to be drawn to an abstract idea;
if not, they are more likely to be so drawn. Where a machine or apparatus is recited or inherent in a patent claim, the following factors are relevant:
(3) Whether its involvement is extrasolution activity or a field-of-use, i.e., the extent to which (or how) the machine or apparatus imposes meaningful limits on the execution of the claimed method steps. Use of a machine or apparatus that contributes only nominally or insignificantly to the execution of the claimed method (e.g., in a data gathering step or in a field-of- use limitation) would weigh against eligibility.
(1) The particularity or generality of the application. Application of a law of nature having broad applicability across many fields of endeavor weighs against eligibility, such as where the claim generically recites an effect of the law of nature or claims every mode of accomplishing that effect, such that the claim would monopolize a natural force or patent a scientific fact. (As an example, claiming "the use of electromagnetism for transmitting signals at a distance.")
(2) The extent to which the claim is so abstract and sweeping as to cover both known and unknown uses of the concept, and be performed through any existing or future-devised machinery, or even without any apparatus. (3) The extent to which the claim would effectively cover all possible solutions to a particular problem; i.e., that the claim is a statement of the problem versus a description of a particular solution to the problem.
Basic legal theories (e.g., contracts, dispute resolution, rules of law); Mathematical concepts (e.g.,
algorithms, spatial relationships, geometry);
Instructing "how business should be conducted," Bilski, slip op. at 12.
V. Making the Determination of Eligibility: Each of the factors relevant to the particular patent application should be weighed to determine whether the method is claiming an abstract idea by covering a general concept, or combination of concepts, or whether the method is limited to a particular practical application of the concept. The presence or absence of a single factor will not be determinative as the relevant factors need to be considered and weighed to make a proper determination as to whether the claim as a whole is drawn to an abstract idea such that the claim would effectively grant a monopoly over an abstract idea and be ineligible for patent protection.
If the factors indicate that the method claim is not merely covering an abstract idea, the claim is eligible for patent protection under § 101 and must be further evaluated for patentability under all of the statutory requirements, including utility and double patenting (§ 101); novelty (§ 102); non-obviousness (§ 103); and definiteness and adequate description, enablement, and best mode (§ 112). Section 101 is merely a coarse filter and thus a determination of eligibility under § 101 is only a threshold question for patentability. Sections 102, 103, and 112 are typically the primary tools for evaluating patentability unless the claim is truly abstract, see, e.g., Bilski, slip op. at 12 (‘‘[S]ome business method patents raise special problems in terms of vagueness and suspect validity.’’).
If the factors indicate that the method claim is attempting to cover an abstract idea, the examiner will reject the claim under § 101, providing clear rationale supporting the determination that an abstract idea has been claimed, such that the examiner establishes a prima facie case of patent-ineligibility. The conclusion made by the examiner must be based on the evidence as a whole. In making a rejection or if presenting reasons for allowance when appropriate, the examiner should specifically point out the factors that are relied upon in making the determination. If a claim is rejected under § 101 on the basis that it is drawn to an abstract idea, the applicant then has the opportunity to explain why the claimed method is not drawn to an abstract idea. Specifically identifying the factors used in the analysis will allow the applicant to make specific arguments in response to the rejection if the applicant believes that the conclusion that the claim is directed to an abstract idea is in error.
The Interim Bilski Guidance is for examination guidance in light of the recent decision in Bilski. This guidance does not constitute substantive rule making and hence does not have the force and effect of law. Rejections will continue to be based upon the substantive law, and it is these rejections that are appealable. Consequently, any perceived failure by Office personnel to follow this guidance is neither appealable nor petitionable.
The Interim Bilski Guidance merely updates USPTO examination practice for consistency with the USPTO’s current understanding of the case law regarding patent subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101 in light of Bilski. Therefore, the Interim Bilski Guidance relates only to interpretative rules, general statements of policy, or rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice. The USPTO is providing this opportunity for public comment because the USPTO desires the benefit of public comment on the Interim Bilski Guidance; however, notice and an opportunity for public comment are not required under 5 U.S.C. 553(b) or any other law. See Cooper Techs. Co. v. Dudas, 536 F.3d 1330, 1336–37, 87 U.S.P.Q.2d 1705, 1710 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (stating that 5 U.S.C. 553, and thus 35 U.S.C. 2(b)(2)(B), does not require notice and comment rule making for "'interpretative rules, general statements of policy, or rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice.'" (quoting 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(A))). Persons submitting written comments should note that the USPTO may not provide a "comment and response" analysis of such comments as notice and an opportunity for public comment are not required under 5 U.S.C. 553(b) or any other law.
Dated: July 4, 2010.