Patent Court Stands By Its Claim That Adding 'On The Internet' Can Make An Abstract Idea Patentable
from the oh-come-on dept
We’ve been following the Ultramercial case quite closely over the past few years. If you’re not aware, this involved a company that more or less patented the idea of “you must watch this ad to get this content” (US Patent 7,346,545) and then sued pretty much everyone. Most of the companies it sued settled rather than fight (which happens all the time), including YouTube and Hulu, but one company, WildTangent, has continued the fight. Eventually, though, the case reached the Supreme Court with the key question being does taking an abstract idea like “watch this before getting that” and adding “on the internet” to it make it patentable? It’s well established that you can’t patent an abstract idea, but for some reason many seem to think that if you say “on the internet” it’s no longer abstract. The Supreme Court did not do a full hearing on the case, but asked the appeals court of the federal circuit (CAFC — known as the patent appeals court) to reconsider its original ruling in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Prometheus case, where it said that you can’t patent broad medical diagnostics. The rule there was that you “could not simply recite a law of nature and then add the instruction ‘apply the law.'” So, is the same true for “abstract idea” plus “on the internet”?
Apparently, for CAFC, the answer is that there is a difference, and that merely adding “on the internet” to an abstract idea makes it patentable. The ruling is quite incredible, not just for the fact that it sets up a ridiculous standard, but also for its technical naivete. CAFC basically says, gee, there are a lot of steps and graphs and charts in the patent, so, it’s probably not abstract.
Viewing the subject matter as a whole, the invention involves an extensive computer interface. Unlike Morse, the claims are not made without regard to a particular process. Likewise, it does not say “sell advertising using a computer,” and so there is no risk of preempting all forms of advertising, let alone advertising on the Internet. Further, the record at this stage shows no evidence that the recited steps are all token pre- or post-solution steps. Finally, the claim appears far from over generalized, with eleven separate and specific steps with many limitations and sub-steps in each category. The district court improperly made a subjective evaluation that these limitations did not meaningfully limit the “abstract idea at the core” of the claims.
Part of the issue is that it needs to show something new here, and the court seems to argue that any software effectively creates a “new machine” based on some really wacky logic. It states “as computer scientists understand”:
a programmed computer contains circuitry unique to that computer. That “new machine” could be claimed in terms of a complex array of hardware circuits, or more efficiently, in terms of the programming that facilitates a unique function.
Read that again. They’re saying every software program creates “unique circuitry.” That’s how they claim this is a “new machine” making the idea patent eligible. However, as computer scientist, Tim Lee points out, this claim is “nonsense.”
It seems that, once again, CAFC is not getting the Supreme Court’s message clearly. We’ve already gone through this with Myriad and Mayo cases. In Mayo, CAFC twice ruled that diagnostic tests were patentable, even after the Supreme Court gave it an extra chance to correct that. That resulted in the Supreme Court slapping down CAFC and rejecting medical diagnostic patents. Then, CAFC, similarly did the same thing with gene patents, only to be smacked down just last week.
This is a nearly identical situation. CAFC rules one way (“yes, of course this abstract idea/thing of nature is patentable”), the Supreme Court says “are you sure?!? please look at this other ruling,” and CAFC comes back with “yes, we’re sure! patent patent patent!” The last few times that’s happened the Supreme Court has had to smack CAFC down, and it looks like it may need to do so again.
Filed Under: abstract ideas, advertising, cafc, content, drm, on the internet, patent eligibility, patents, software patents, supreme court
Companies: hulu, ultramercial, wildtangent, youtube
Comments on “Patent Court Stands By Its Claim That Adding 'On The Internet' Can Make An Abstract Idea Patentable”
This comment is patented because I posted it ON THE INTERNET.
Just try violating my patent. I dare you.
Re: Re:
Quote Patent Number, your unsubstantiated assertion remains an unsubstantiated assertion.
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Here’s my assertion, now kiss it!
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Someone puts the “ass” in “assertion” alright.
Sarcasm noted though.
Re: Re:
On it like a tentacle monster on a japanese schoolgirl
Not just nonsense
Not just nonsense, but hilarious.
However, the thought occurs to me: what if the program is burned into something like an FPGA? programming one of those really does create new circuitry.
Re: Not just nonsense
Well, when you say ?burned?, then you’re probably not talking about a CPLD.
What do you mean ?something like? a FPGA? That isn’t a CPLD. But that someone ?burns?.
Re: Re: Not just nonsense
Yeah, ok, a CPLD. However, in my defense, I’m old enough to remember when FPGAs were the new hotness, and they were programmed by blowing on-board PROMs (originally, FPGAs were essentially hybrids of PROMs and PLDs).
Although I am well aware that we’re no longer in the dark ages, I had hoped to cover my butt by saying “something like”. 🙂
WTF?!
Is every computer an FPGA now?
Every programmer now is probably violating FPGA manufacturers patents LoL
This is like a patent version of fortune cookies.
Quickly before it's too late
Someone in the US go NOW amd patent
using the internet, ON THE INTERNET
this would surely open up a logic hole in the universe, transporting our planet to a far better place.
Re: Quickly before it's too late
Sorry, I have a patent on logic holes transporting our planet to a far better place. Um, on the internet. You could try for a far worse place, but it seems like that may have already happened.
Re: Re: Quickly before it's too late
…several times.
That patent was downright hurtful to read through. It is absolutely insane that I, as a non-professional in computer-science can see through this method (several of the 12 steps are 1 line of code! None of the steps are even the slightest bit inventive and the very limited use of specifics makes it plain logic without any technical specificity. “On the internet” is by no means a prerequirement given the claims!)
It is absolutely disgusting for anyone to even consider it for patentability, let alone judicially give it thumbs up.
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The inventiveness is in describing that which others invented in a way to get the patent accepted. Lots of irrelevant graphs and figures help.
CAFC
A long time ago a lawyer gave them the “program” = “new machine” idea asca way to allow patents on software. It is nonsense, of course, but the judges on the CAFC are arrogant/stupid tobadmit they got bamboozled. So we stuck with the resulting patent mess.
… just how often does the CAFC need to be slapped down before it can be replaced as obviously not being fit for purpose?
Patent Act of 1952 - CAFC
Chief Judge Rader for the most part recycled his opinion from his dissent in CLS v. Alice. I’ve been working on writing this up and it is not quite complete. But just in looking at basic public documents, I’ve found a lot to contest Judge Rader’s,(and Judge Moore’s and Judge Newman’s contention that in passing the Patent Act of 1952, on the “conservative” end, it intended to significantly broaden subject matter eligibility, and on the more lunatic end, that the congressional intent was to abandon the judicial exceptions entirely and rely on the text alone.
I’ve made the following observations:
1) Judge Rich, one of the non-elected people who drafted language submitted to the committee – when receiving an award, bragged about how the Patent Act of 1952 was passed. Stating that they maneuvered it so that there was no floor debate, and it was done on a consent calendar. He mentions that a lot of “hot air” was saved by doing it this way.
Furthermore, he appears to have been proud that the “legislative history” was created AFTER the act was enacted. In other words, people involved with doing the write up, who were not elected, commented after the fact on what they thought the statute meant.
2) I’m not a lawyer or an expert on legislation, but I found that the production of “legislative history” is an area rife with abuse. In one (non-patent) instance I found cited, a congressman is essentially quoted as saying I have an amendment I’d like to add, but if we can accomplish the same thing by “creating” legislative history after the fact – I’m OK with that. Justice Scalia has apparently dug up a lot of pretty egregious efforts to legislate after the fact in this regard.
3) When the Patent Act of 1952 was put on the floor from committee for a straight vote without debate (which is a special procedure), congressman asked whether it was changing the law, or merely codifying the old law (modernizing and streamlining it). In one instance, the response was “It codifies the present patent laws.” In another, “The bill simply constitutes a restatement of the patent laws of the United States.”
4) Even better, when it was in committee, a representative of a patent bar organization came in and complained that some verbiage had been removed from an earlier version. He fretted that this would not allow valid patents for inventions whose heart was a law of nature (which is similar to the restriction against abstract ideas). In sparring with the person running the committee and sponsoring the legislation, he is repeatedly informed that “there is no intention to change the law as it is presently written: the purpose is just to make it clearer.” Eventually the congressman essentially tells him that to change the law he should do separate legislation, because changing the law in this area was not the purpose of the legislation.
From all this it seems pretty clear that most members of Congress did not think they were voting to repeal or significantly scale back the judicial exceptions to eligible subject matter when they enacted the Patent Act of 1952. At a minimum this should be carefully investigated.
This is also I think a cautionary tale with respect to patent reform. We have to be sure to avoid this sort of trojan horse strategy both from the patent bar and from others with vested economic interests (large corporations) as legislation is enacted.
The writeup I am working on is here:
http://www.altageneral.com/cls-v-alice-en-banc-patent-act-of-1952.php
so this part of the patent changes Obama talked about isn’t included then. it’s still gonna carry on the same. i would like to know, however, where those that make this decision actually got their brains and were they patented? the idea being ‘you cant put sense where there isn’t room!’
“Patent Court Stands By Its Claim That Adding ‘On The Internet’ Can Make An Abstract Idea Patentable”
1. Not a “patent court”, so trying to name it as such is misleading to those unfamiliar with what the court actually does in its appellate capacity.
2. The court in its opinion most certainly did not say that adding the phrase “on the internet” may be sufficient render a claimed invention patentable. In fact, this part of its opinion had nothing to do with patentability, which involves primarily the application of Title 35, Sections 102, 103 and 112. It dealt solely with whether or not a claimed invention falls within the scope of eligible subject matter pursuant to 35 USC 101. Subject matter eligibility and patentability are wholly distinct matters subject to their own sets of rules.
3. The court neither said nor implied that a general purpose computer “loaded” with a program (e.g., MS Word) has different circuitry than that very same computer “loaded” with another program (e.g., Adobe Photoshop). Perhaps Mr. Lee would benefit from reading the opinion for comprehension.
4. Other deficiencies can be noted, but 1 through 3 are believed to be sufficient to highlight significant deficiencies in the article.
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Have you considered patenting your ability to be verbose while actually saying nothing?
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I presume this was directed to the author of the article since it is certainly verbose and laden with inaccurate information.
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Citation needed.
New machine
The Court quoted its own 1994 Alappat decision:
“. . . programming creates a new machine, because a general purpose computer *in effect* becomes a special purpose computer once it is programmed to perform particular functions pursuant to instructions from program software.?
Sure, just like playing a different roll on a player piano creates a new player piano, playing a different music CD on a CD player creates a new CD player, and a radio station broadcasting music becomes a new radio station every time a different song is played.
The claimed *fact* — not law — that all software could be implemented as hardware in a special purpose computer is not only false but is also irrelevant as a matter of formal logic. General purpose computers are designed to process different software programs that produce differing results. Special purpose computers hard-wired to use no software are not designed to process software. That is the essence of their difference, not their similarity as the Federal Circuit panel would have you believe.
For that reason, it would be a logical fallacy to claim that a general purpose computer “becomes a special purpose computer once it is programmed to perform particular functions pursuant to instructions from program software.? The general purpose computer and the special purpose computer are quite different inventions and neither defines the other. The Alappat decision’s author knew that when s/he wrote, which is why the author inserted the red flag qualifier phrase “in effect” and hoped no one would notice.
S/he might as logically have written, “a house can be destroyed by fire whether the fire is started by accident or by an arsonist. Because these two possibilities have the same *effect* and arson is a crime — therefore starting a fire accidentally that destroys a house is also a crime.”
That is fallacious reasoning. But an extra point to the Alappat author for combining two fallacies in one sentence, the red herring and the weak analogy.
How about in outer space?
Patent Applicant: “I’d like to patent this.”
Patent Office: “I’m sorry, it seems someone has already patented that.”
Patent Applicant: “Can I borrow your pen?” (adds ‘on the internet’ to application, returns pen, application).
Patent Office: (Reviews application, checks database.) “Congratulations sir, allow me to…” (computer beeps) “… I’m sorry sir, Samsung and Apple have just been issued patents for that on the internet.”
Patent Applicant: “O r’ly? Can I see your pen again?” (Makes another change to application). “Could you check once more?”
Patent Office: “… in space?”
Ah, the good old Moby Dick Support Device
When software makes a new machine out of a generic computer, then surely I can make a Moby Dick Support Device out of a bookshelf?
http://seegras.discordia.ch/Blog/the-moby-dick-support-device/
So, theoretically, I could simply say ‘Making music on the internet’, and steal the royalties of Jonathan Coulton [not that I would]? It’s ludicrous, silly, and I’d rather this not even be possible.