Thursday, February 15, 2007

Ex parte Bilski --rotten to the core

Where to begin on this 71-page masterpiece? Maybe the best place is with Judge McQuade's concurrence on page 71:
Considered collectively, these are powerfully persuasive factual indicators (not tests) that the method recited in claim 1 is, at its core, a disembodied business concept representing nothing more than a non-statutory abstract idea. That the "initiating" and "identifying," steps recited in the claim are drafted as acts required to be performed is of no moment. Given the full context of the claim, these- acts are nominal in nature and merely serve to superficially couch the appellants' abstract idea in a method or process format. For these reasons, the examiner's determination that claim l, and claims 2-11, which stand or fall therewith, are directed to non-statutory subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §101 is well founded.
That's the ticket then. We will start with the evil applicant's "abstract idea" and then clothe it with these "nominal in nature" acts (initiating, identifying, initiating) and then we will strip away the clothing --all the while seeing the claim in its "full context"-- and then whalla, we are back staring at the "abstract idea" which fills the rotten core of this applicant's apple. Heck, apples are circular. Apples are phenomenon of Nature. Therefore this kind of circular logic is perfectly natural and "well founded" on stilts of solid logic. Makes sense to me. With that "powerfully persuasive" chapter out of the way, we can proceed to the majority conclusion on page 65 regarding oral arguments: ... to be continued

4 comments:

Step Back said...

Thank you Larry Ebert and thank you Peter Zura for mentioning my little vent hole from Hades.

Honestly, I'm just a one-person show and a slow typist to boot. Don't expect a prolific shower of current events from this site. This site was just a "design-around" that resulted from having my commenting wings clipped off (temporarily) at Patently-O.

Larry's IPbiz is one of my habitual reading holes as are Patently-O and 271.

If you get tired of the same old same old, you might want to give the dice on Google's patent blogs searcher a whirl.

Step back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Anonymous said...

I suggest you read the State Street opinion. It is possible the applicant could have rendered his ideas patentable, but as it stands the rejection of Bilski was on firm ground. It's not the courts job to read the applicants 'intent'.

Step Back said...

No court has yet, to my knowledge, looked at Bilski's patent application. Apparently he has appealed to the Fed. Cir.
I'm not here to root one way or another for any particular patent application.

But as for the "firm ground", your position at present floats on pure air. You have substantiated it with nothing. Exactly which part of the Bilski rejection do you stake your reputation on?

Anonymous said...

"[W]halla" is not the word you meant to use -- you've obviously heard this word grossly mispronounced (and maybe never pronounced correctly). Please, buy a dictionary, or go to dictionary.com, or quit using the word. The word, for what it's worth, is "voila." It's a French word, and it means, literally, "to see there."

Here's a hint: Before using a word like "whalla" maybe you should try looking it up in a dictionary. If you can't find it, that's probably because it's not a word.