Federal Circuit Court Advised on Risks of Limiting Patent Protection
Friends of the court discuss implications for U.S. leadership in innovation and competitiveness

Washington, D.C. – As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard oral arguments In re Bilski today, advocates of an open and technology-neutral patent system argued that limiting the types of innovation that can be patented would be out of synch with historic practice, congressional intent and the best interests of the United States.

"This case has significance far beyond whether the appellants ought to be granted a patent," said Wayne Sobon, founder of New Economy Patents and director of intellectual property for Accenture. "This case will influence the future vitality of innovation in the United States." Accenture was among almost 40 friends of the court that filed briefs in the Bilski case.

In oral argument presented before the Court today, John Duffy, counsel for amicus Regulatory Datacorp (RDC), said, "If you start to exclude financial engineering and other new areas of practical application from patentability, that would strongly depart from Congress' clear intent."

At issue is a move by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to curtail patent protection for business processes. USPTO wants to limit protection to only those processes performed by a machine or that cause a physical transformation. As Jakub Michna of The Boston Patent Law Association pointed out, this approach "might have been appropriate for the industrial revolution, when the cutting edge was smelting ore or dying fabric. But that's not the situation we live in now. Today, we need a broad rule to fit our information-based economy."

In a post-industrial global economy, the United States' competitiveness is increasingly dependent on information, knowledge and services. Yet the USPTO's proposal to eliminate business process innovations from patent protection strikes at the core of the nation's competitive edge in the new economy.

Furthermore, industrial engineering and management science-the foundation of business methods-have been recognized as technical disciplines, eligible for patenting, for more than 100 years.

Throughout the United States' 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 dynamic economy and a vibrant culture of innovation within the United States.

To learn more about In re Bilski and why American innovation and its global competitiveness is at risk, visit www.NewEconomyPatents.org.