Welcome to NewEconomyPatents.org!

NewEconomyPatents.org is a dedicated on-line forum for the advocacy of an open and technology-neutral United States patent system. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) threatens to reverse long-standing patent neutrality, and eliminate an entire class of innovation from eligibility for patenting --- i.e. innovative business processes, by limiting protection only to processes that are “machine-implemented” or that “transform an article to a different state or thing.” This limitation on human ingenuity threatens the future of U.S. innovation and its competitiveness in the global economy, particularly at a time when our economy is most dependent on services and information.

NewEconomyPatents.org will serve as a dedicated information clearinghouse on the issue of business process patenting and the continued openness and neutrality of the U.S. patent system.

On June 1, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari in the Bilski v. Doll case.  This decision comes after Accenture and Pitney Bowes filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in March 2009, supporting the granting of a petition for certiorari.

The amicus brief requested that the Supreme Court review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s 9-3 decision to uphold the rejection of a patent application on a method for managing risk in commodities trading – a complex business method. The appeal followed the rejection by the USPTO of a patent application for a process for hedge fund risk management, filed by inventors Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw.

The Court's decision in In re Bilski was significant: crucially, the Court had asked whether its prior decision in State Street Bank –which held that so long as an inventive process was "useful, concrete or tangible" it was eligible for patenting– should be reversed or limited. The Bilski decision could suddenly curtail the patenting of business-related processes, and represents a sharp departure from the long-standing trend of Congress, the USPTO, and the Federal Circuit and Supreme Court, of ever-broadening the scope and reach of the patent system to embrace new technologies and practical innovations. Underscoring the importance of these issues, the Court decided to have all its judges hear this case, and solicited friend-of-court briefs from interested parties (some 30 briefs have been filed, see Amicus Curiae Briefs).
 
Ironically, the potential to reverse course and no longer protect business-related processes and methods comes at a time when information and services industries are driving the world economy. And the United States leads this new services and information-based world. While lower-cost labor has propelled China and other emerging markets to the lead in industrial production, leadership in information and services has become essential to America's competitiveness. As the United States has continued to lead the global innovation agenda, this has been in no small part due to the United States' open and neutral patent system. Compare, for example, the experience of the last 30 years since the Supreme Court definitively acknowledged the patentability of software. The United States' leadership in software development and formation of innovative software companies has soared, while Europe (which provides for software patenting only in fits and starts), has clearly lagged. Economists, historians and partisans debate whether our patent system helps or hinders innovation, but the long term results have been clear.

Ever since the Founding Fathers wrote intellectual property protection into our Constitution, the United States' patent system has fostered U.S. competitiveness. Protection has been extended not only to innovative industrial-age machines like Eli Whitney's cotton gin, but also to new technologies and processes, scarcely imaginable to Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, such as computer technology, integrated circuit designs, bioengineered life-saving drugs, and remarkable software-based inventions. Throughout our progress as a nation, from an agrarian society through the industrial era and now into the post-industrial new economy of services and information, an open and neutral patent system has ensured a vibrant culture of innovation within the United States. Congress and the courts have repeatedly affirmed the patent system was intended to protect all forms of human, practical innovation, including processes.

So why the debate?

Criticism over "trivial" patents that have slipped through an overburdened U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has led to mounting pressure to rein in such abuses and reform the system. Unfortunately, business process innovations have become the scapegoat for these abuses.

Trivial patents are a problem that requires a solution, but shutting business-related processes out of patent protection is not that solution. Instead, such a move runs counter to Congress' clear intent and threatens to jeopardize United States' competitiveness in the global economy. The answer is simply for the USPTO and the courts to perform their proper job: separating the grain from the chaff, determining which inventions are truly new, not obvious and clearly described, and which are not. The courts and the USPTO should not be deciding issues of industrial policy, or choosing favorites about which technologies and processes may be protected and which may not. For additional details, read Fact Sheet.

This Web site was created to serve as a dedicated information and clearinghouse on the issue of openness and neutrality of the U.S. patent system. As the debate continues, we encourage you to register for updates and to visit the Web site often to peruse the information and resources that are available.

COURT FILINGS

May 1, 2009, the U.S. government issued its reponse to the amicus curiae brief, which Accenture and Pitney Bowes Inc. jointly filed on March 3, 2009 with the Supreme Court of the United States in support of the petitioners, Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw, in the Supreme Court's consideration of In re Bilski. On May 8, 2009, the Petitioner, Bilski, filed its reply to the government brief.

On Jan. 28, 2009, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP, filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the case In re Bilski. The petition seeks to overturn the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit which set forth a test requiring that a patentable  process either be tied to a machine or apparatus or involve a transformation of one thing into something else.

On Oct. 30, 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Court reached a 9-3 decision in the case  In re Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw.

On May 8, 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard oral arguments in the case In re Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw. The full text of briefs filed with the court, as well as commentary written by allies of NewEconomyPatents.org about specific briefs, are available on the Court Filings and Amicus Curiae Briefs pages.

WHAT'S NEW

Dispelling The Myths - New York, July 29-30, 2008
Wayne Sobon, founder of New Economy Patents and IP director for Accenture, will deliver a keynote speech addressing the myths (and realities) skewing the current debate over business method patents.
To View Wayne Sobon's Presentation, Click Here 

NewEconomyPatents.org Legal Times Advertisement - May 5, 2008
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