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"Business
method" patents continue to be a hot topic in the patent world after the July
1998 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in
State Street Bank and Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group upholding the
validity of a patent which claims a data processing system for implementing an
investment structure for use in administering mutual funds.
In fact,
whole companies are now built around business method patents. Consider
"Priceline.com" based on U.S. Patent No. 5,794,207, which covers a system for
letting travelers name the prices that they are willing to pay for airline
tickets and hotel rooms. This patent, however, is being challenged by a
Washington D.C. patent attorney who claims to have invented the idea first, and
an entrepreneur who claims that he disclosed the idea to Priceline in 1998 and
that it stole the idea from him. Neither dispute has yet been settled or
decided by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office or a court.
In
August, J. Walker of "Priceline.com" also received a patent, No. 5,926,796, for
a new method of selling magazine subscriptions at a newsstand. Is your planned
internet portal adequately protected?
Two bills (H.R. 1858 and H.R.
354) are currently pending before Congress which would protect against the
copying of databases. Currently, databases, such as telephone directories, do
not meet the level of creativity required to be protected under the federal
copyright laws. The debate concerning these bills centers around the fact that
copyright laws do not protect facts or mere data and only protect the author's
expression of those facts. Yet, on the other hand, the creation of certain
databases involves significant company resources and there is no current law
which would stop free-riders who pirate databases wholesale. Write your
congressman and/or senator to join the debate.
The text and images of
2 million patents and over 1 million registered and pending trademarks are now
available on the Patent and Trademark Office's website at http://www.uspto.gov.
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