米国 再考の時が来た

State Street事件のCAFC控訴審で判事の一人として事件にかかわったPlager判事が今となってはその判断を後悔し、ビジネスモデル特許やソフトウェア特許を特許として認めるべきか再考の時期が来ていると述べました。(1)(2)

CAFC Senior Judge Jay Plager said he regretted the unintended consequences of the decisions in State Street Bank and AT&T at a symposium at George Mason University.

According to BNA,

Plager called for a renewed focus on setting recognizable patent ownership boundaries and on strengthening the notice function that patents are intended to serve. Such a reevaluation might require a reassessment of whether software and business methods are patentable subject matter, Plager said. It might lead to limiting a patent’s scope to what was known at the time of the application filing, and to an abandonment the doctrine of equivalents as a basis for patent infringement liability.

Plager said he regretted the unintended consequences of the decisions in State Street Bank and AT&T. Those rulings led to a flood of applications for software and business method patents, he noted. If we “rethink the breadth of patentable subject matter”

U.S. Patent 5,193,056 "Data Processing System for Hub and Spoke Financial Services Configuration"