Patent Protection for Business Methods
No area of patent law has caused as much controversy as the recent rush of Internet-related patents and patents for business methods. For years, the governing principle, and indeed federal law, disallowed patents for methods of doing business. In 1998, however, in State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group Inc., 149 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 1998), the Federal Circuit allowed a patent for a data-processing system designed to make financial calculations because the calculations produced a useful, concrete, and tangible result. The court's decision opened the floodgates for similar patents, most of which are related to methods for doing business. Because most business methods arguably produce some ...
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