Case law in the USA

From en.swpat.org

Case law in the USA is the collection of rulings handed down by the courts that deal with patents in the USA.

The US Supreme Court made rulings in the 80s and 90s that were interpreted as allowing software patents, however, none of these rulings dealt with the question explicitly. A 2007 ruling in KSR v Teleflex indicated that the scope of patenting was to be narrowed.

A 2008 ruling of the Federal Circuit court in the case in re Bilski introduced the machine-or-transformation test which narrows or closes the scope for patenting software ideas. The Supreme Court is reviewing this new test in the Bilski v. Kappos case.

Contents 1 Of historical interest 1.1 O'Reilly v. Morse, 1853 1.2 Gottschalk v. Benson, 1972 1.3 Parker v Flook, 1978 2 The 80s and 90s rulings which opened floodgates 3 Recent rulings which question swpats 4 Unsorted cases 5 Finding USA court documents 6 Related pages on en.swpat.org 7 External links

[edit] Of historical interest

[edit] O'Reilly v. Morse, 1853

• Wikipedia: O’Reilly v. Morse

[edit] Gottschalk v. Benson, 1972

• Full name: Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63 (1972)
• Wikipedia: Gottschalk v. Benson

[edit] Parker v Flook, 1978

• Article: Parker v. Flook (1978, USA)
• Full name: Parker v Flook, 437 U.S. 584 (1978)
• Wikipedia: Parker v. Flook

[edit] The 80s and 90s rulings which opened floodgates

• Diamond v. Diehr, 1981

[edit] Recent rulings which question swpats

• KSR v. Teleflex (2007, USA)
• "Bilski" - in re Bilski CAFC 2008, and in the Supreme Court 2009/2010 as Bilski v. Kappos

[edit] Unsorted cases

AT&T Corp. v. Excel Communications Inc., 172 F.3d 1352, 1356­59 (Fed. Cir. 1999)

Ex parte Yang-Huffman, Appeal 2007­2130, slip op. at 3 (Bd. Pat. App. & Interf. Oct. 4, 2007)

Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1, 6 (1966)

In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1543 (Fed. Cir. 1994)

Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings v. Metabolite Laboratories, Inc., 548 U.S. 124 (2007)

NTP v. Research in Motion, Ltd., 397 F. Supp. 2d 785 (E.D. Va. 2005)

Northern Telecom v. Datapoint, 908 F.2d 931, 940-941 (1990)

State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc., 149 F.3d 1368, 1374 n. 6 (Fed. Cir. 1999)

eBay v. MercExchange (2006, USA)

[edit] Finding USA court documents

• Example, for i4i v. Microsoft: http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-txedce/case_no-6:2007cv00113/case_id-101834/ - not very useful, but it's a start

[edit] Related pages on en.swpat.org

• USA patents courts and appeals
• Microsoft v. AT&T (2006, USA)
• In re Lowry
• In re Alappat
• State Street v. Signature Group (1999, USA)

[edit] External links

• Software patents under United States patent law
• Patent rulings by the Supreme Court
• LPF's page contains links to various Amicus briefs, among other things
• Bitlaw.com's History of software patents in the USA
• Congress weighs patent specialization for federal judges, by Timothy B. Lee, 2009 - discusses a possible change in Judge selection
• http://patentsusa.blogspot.com/ - will have to read it to see if it's interesting
• Dr. David Garrod's Glossaries of Judicial Claim Constructions Available Free of Charge