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IP: from Edupage WEB PATENTS WEAVE CONFUSION
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 17:05:20 -0400
WEB PATENTS WEAVE CONFUSION A federal appellate court ruling in July confirming that computerized "business methods" can be patented has sparked a wave of patent applications that electronic commerce proponents fear will amount to "holdups in cyberspace." The July case involved a computerized mathematical formula for apportioning the administrative costs associated with a family of mutual funds, but by "claiming the computer as part of the invention, you can make things patentable that weren't patentable before," says a patent attorney in California. Skeptics say many of the new patents won't hold up in court, and will suffer the same fate as the 1993 patent granted to Compton New Media, protecting a method for combining text, audio and video on a compact disk. That patent was revoked in 1994, after critics demonstrated the technology was already in common use. "Everyone is under the impression the Patent Office thoroughly investigates your claims," says a Forrester Research analyst. "They really don't." (Wall Street Journal 9 Oct 98)
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- IP: from Edupage WEB PATENTS WEAVE CONFUSION Dave Farber (Oct 11)