End Software Patents

(Temporary note: For statements supporting this article’s title, see en.swpat.org/wiki/raising_standards…)

The below text is a notice from the USPTO about tests they’re removing in order to make it less difficult to pass the test for obviousness. Low obviousness standards (silly patents) is not the mains cause of problems, but it aggravates already-problematic domains such as software patents.

An official PDF version of the text is available on ipeg.eu.

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Canada’s Federal Court (FCAFC) has ruled that Amazon’s 1-click shopping patent describes patentable subject matter. Amazon’s patent was rejected last year by the Canadian Patent Appeal Board on grounds that business methods are not patentable subject matter, but that rejection has been thrown out by the Federal Court.

Analysis of the court’s decision can be found on en.swpat.org:

• Amazon v. Commissioner for Patents (2010, Canada)