Patent Attorney and Founder
Hi everyone I’m JD Houvener your host of the ball today’s show where Hugh the inventor entrepreneur business owner gets your daily dose of inspiration to make the world a better place alright we’re in this week talking about software and software patents how that fits into your business and I even start to think about how it really pervades all of our everyday activity so today I want to talk about a specific case I see two cases that really lay out the beginning of what really became sort of an onslaught of deaths for software patents it began in 2012 for the case we’re going to show up here called Mayo in this case you know there’s a much longer a case description as you’ll see I call it Mayo because it started this test and to see whether a process or a machine as we’ve talked about it last you know as we talked about yesterday in the software pattern whether that fits into the category of an abstract idea okay an abstract idea or it law of nature have always been ineligible right a law of nature like gravity or e equals MC square right our old buddy Einstein these are ideas that are just not eligible because they belong to nature they belong to everyone they’re part of the public domain and knowledge just because you found out the equation yeah you’re a smart guy don’t get me wrong but you don’t own that you’re not gonna be able to make a claim on them so in order to get eligible application eligible patent if you have to show that you’re outside of them you’re doing something more than it abstracts and a natural phenomenon and so what may it is it provided a two-part test where you first analyze whether it’s an abstract idea then you say okay well even if it may be abstract have they added something that’s transformative have they made it substantially greater right substantially more than or improve something to the level that you can actually touch it and feel it or put her around you know put your arms around it as it were that’s the test and it was backed up and supported by a really landmark case called CLS Bank versus Alice and so that case that really said yeah actually set the precedent or it so he look at this case we called Mayo we decided two years ago the case of Alice was decided in 2014 said we were right said we’re gonna we’re going to use this Mayo test and when I put this two-part test in place where we say okay first up is is this you know this is directed to an abstract idea and secondly if it is before we kick it out and say it’s ineligible what I say is this in some way transforming the nature of it so that it’s a patent eligible invention even if the premise or is directed to an abstract idea is what’s being claimed doing something else with it is it taking it to the next level as it bring it into three dimensions is it changing temperature is it moving an electron around is it doing something with pressure or other bodies our device something moving that we can touch the scene feel and as long as that’s not non-obvious and has utility it is patentable all right well those two landmark cases Mayo and Alice really set the framework for the next couple days we’re gonna be talking about these bigger cases that have come up recently but the bottom line is that this is a huge ruling and that many many patents have been issued leading up until this case and after that there was about you know thousands of patents that were invalidated those that have already been told hey here’s your patent congratulations after that case got ruled in Dallas in 2014 over the next several years even up till now many of these those patents have been ruled to be invalid under the recent law so if you have any questions about this you know I know it’s a big subject I laid a lot out there for you in about five minutes please give us a call go on our website and book a consultation we’d be happy to talk with you I’m your host JD Houvener of the bold Today Show it’s been a pleasure go big go bold
[Music] at bold IP calm