US

US – Idée Abstraite + Ordinateur = Non brevetable

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Dans Bancorp Services, L.L.C. v. Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (U.S.), Fed. Cir., No. 2011-1467, la Federal Circuit a statué qu’une revendication d’un système incluant un ordinateur mettant en oeuvre des étapes évidentes permettant de résoudre un problème plus rapidement n’est pas brevetable.

As we have explained, “[s]imply adding a ‘computer aided’ limitation to a claim covering an abstract concept, without more, is insufficient to render the claim patent eligible.” …

To salvage an otherwise patent-ineligible process, a computer must be integral to the claimed invention, facilitating the process in a way that a person making calculations or computations could not. … Thus, as we held in Fort Properties, Inc. v. American Master Lease LLC, [671 F.3d 1317 (Fed. Cir. 2012)], the limitation “using a computer” in an otherwise abstract concept did not “ ‘play a significant part in permitting the claimed method to be performed.’ ” … The computer required by some of Bancorp’s claims is employed only for its most basic function, the performance of repetitive calculations, and as such does not impose meaningful limits on the scope of those claims.

 

Précisions récentes de la US Board of Patent Appel and Interference concernant la brevetabilité d’inventions reliées aux ordinateurs

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Dans Ex Parte Hu, App. No. 2010-000151 (BPAI 2012) des revendications portant sur un “computer-readable storage medium” sont acceptées alors que celles concernant un “computer readable medium” sont rejetées.

Selon le Board of Patent Appel and Interference:

– the allowed subject matter “… is directed to a tangible storage medium, which can be read by a computer and therefore fall within one of the four statutory classes of 35 U.S.C. § 101”.

 

Dans “Ex Parte Svendsen, App. No. 2011-012505 (BPAI 2012)”, le BPAI précise à propos de revendications incluant entre autre un “wired communication interface” que :

– ” the “extra-solution activity” doctrine “is more properly applicable to cases where Appellant is attempting to circumvent the prohibition on patenting abstract ideas by adding insignificant and unrelated activity…”;

– “Here, however, the storing and transmitting steps are clearly integral to the selection and delivery of media previews.”