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9 November 2015Patents

WIPR survey: Legislation needed to clear up Alice uncertainty, readers say

US legislation will eventually be required to address the uncertainty created by the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Alice v CLS Bank, readers have said.

Responding to WIPR’s latest survey, 88% of respondents said legislation should be created to end the uncertainty created by last June’s ruling.

We asked the question following comments made by the lead intellectual property attorney at technology company IBM.

Speaking at the LES 2015 Annual Meeting, which took place in New York last month, Reza Sarbakhsh said the decision had provided little guidance on what is patentable in the computer software space.

The US Supreme Court’s ruling determined that computer-implemented inventions are not eligible for patent protection.

“As with any other business, uncertainty is the enemy,” Sarbakhsh said, asking whether legislation should be required.

He added that, although he didn’t know if Congress can be convinced to address problems in the short term, “eventually legislation is the answer”.

Not everyone was in agreement, however. One respondent said it did not think that legislation was required, but that “some companies will seek to have legislation” anyway.

For this week’s question we ask: “Last week, we reported that the Electronic Frontier Foundation said that the number of patent lawsuits filed at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas should be limited. Do you agree?”

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27 October 2015   Legislation will ultimately be required to address the uncertainty created by the Alice Corp v CLS Bank ruling, a lawyer from IBM told the LES 2015 Annual Meeting.