United States
It is well known that in the U.S., abstract ideas, laws of nature, natural phenomena, and products of nature are all excluded from patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101. This article briefly outlines various U.S. approaches to subject matter eligibility with an eye towards succeeding in patenting domestically and internationally.
In the U.S., computer-implemented inventions such as software and business methods are patentable, yet hurdles abound. When assessing the eligibility of software and business method patents, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office applies the two step framework of Mayo and Alice.[1] If an invention is determined to be “abstract” in Step 1, it is often a fatal determination unless the Applicant can show “something more,” at Step 2, that transforms the abstract idea into patent eligible subject matter. Many software based inventions and business methods may be determined as “abstract” at Step 1, therefore practitioners must be prepared to
To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog:
A computer does just three things: receives information in the form of bits, transforms this information, and provides output based on the information as transformed. The receiving may take place by way of various types of input modalities, such as keyboards, touchscreens, mice, audio microphones, video cameras, network interfaces, sensors, and so on. The transforming may involve a literally infinite number of possibilities in the form of algorithms. The output may also take on various modalities, including images displayed on a screen, audio, storage to volatile or non-volatile memory, and transmission by way of network interfaces, just to name a few.