An article from last week’s Economist drew my attention to business-method patents, which I hadn’t been aware of before. For the last ten years, it seems, the Patent Office has allowed patents on business strategies. For example, Priceline holds a patent on the method of using Dutch auctions to sell tickets.
All patents are fundamentally anti-competitive, but patenting business methods seems particularly egregious. Therefore, it seems like good news that the US Court of Appeals is considering overturning the case that allowed them.
On the other hand, the NYT quotes one observer who is not bullish about the chances that business-method patents will be overturned, commenting: “Definitions of business method patents always end up being circular. You can’t really ban something unless you can define it and no one is offering a definition we can use.”
The Prior Art, an IP blog, has been following the case and has some other interesting thoughts.
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