Sanity From the 1st Post-Bilski Decision from BPAI: In Re Proudler

“Look at this, will you? The first decision from the Board of
Patents Appeals and Interferences post-Bilski to reference that US
Supreme Court decision, in In Re Proudler [PDF], a ruling rejecting
HP’s application for a software patent, setting forth a rule
stating, as I read it, as saying software is not patentable because
it’s an abstraction:

“Laws of nature, abstract ideas, and natural phenomena are
excluded from patent protection. Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. at 185.
A claim that recites no more than software, logic or a data
structure (i.e., an abstraction) does not fall within any statutory
category. In re Warmerdam, 33 F.3d 1354, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
Significantly, “Abstract software code is an idea without physical
embodiment.” Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., 550 U.S. 437, 449
(2007). The unpatentability of abstract ideas was confirmed by the
U.S. Supreme Court in Bilski v. Kappos, No. 08-964, 2010 WL 2555192
(June 28, 2010).

“This is not the last word, I’m sure, as HP can certainly try to
reword. But don’t you find this encouraging? I do. And that’s why I
wanted it in our permanent record of the Bilski case and its
aftermath.”

Complete
Story