ESP Wiki is looking for moderators and active contributors!
Field-of-use limitations in patent applications
Field-of-use limitations in patent applications should not be confused with field-of-use limitations in patent licences.
(In patent licences, they can lead to court cases over whether a licence covered a certain usage. They can also prevent software from being free software.[1])
In patent applications, they are used to attempt to get a patent for a non-patentable idea by giving the illusion of being tied to a particular machine or process. This technique was rejected by the Supreme Court in Parker v. Flook (1978).
References
