CCIA Urges Supreme Court to Address Business Method Patents

File Under: 2005, Copyright

Dec 23, 2005

Continuing its campaign to reform patent law, the Computer & Communications Industry Association told the Supreme Court today that the credibility of the U.S. patent system is at risk unless meaningful limits are placed o­n what is “patentable.”

In a filing presented today, CCIA attorneys urged Justices to reverse a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that upheld and enforced a multimillion dollar jury verdict for the infringement of a patent o­n the simple act of “correlating” a medical test result with a vitamin deficiency.

In its “friend-of-the-court” brief, CCIA argued that the case illustrates the larger issue of the Federal Circuit’s radical expansion of patentable subject matter. This expansion, the brief said, is “demonstrated most clearly by the problem of so-called ‘business method’ patents.” The brief argued that the Supreme Court should reassert its own precedents to “remedy the dysfunctional system that the Federal Circuit has created: o­ne which encourages opportunism while undermining innovation.”

“If you can patent an abstract idea, the patent system will encourage free-riders and opportunists, not innovators,” said CCIA President and CEO Ed Black. “Patents won’t incentivize invention if developers can be sued just for thinking about a patented process.”

“The patent system was designed to protect technology,” said CCIA Fellow Brian Kahin, who led the drafting of the brief, “but the Federal Circuit has turned it into a land grab for anybody who can show a practical application for any abstract idea.” Kahin added: “Remarkably, the Federal Circuit offers no good reason for this, but it claims to have just discovered that Congress intended to open patents up to all areas of human activity when it last codified patent laws in 1952. So it has authorized monopolies o­n useful knowledge and basic business models that preempt technological innovation.”

To view the brief, click here