“Protecting groundbreaking business method innovations is a challenge. Getting meaningful patent protection on the early stage technical inventions required to implement a business method may be ...

Matt Wermager is a patent litigator at the law firm of Vinson & Elkins, LLP. Matt began his training in the art of persuasive argument at age 4, and coupled with his engineering background, has ...

To us, there's something oddly comforting when the Supreme Court justices all appear on the same page in a case; when Justice Scalia's comments echo Justice Breyer's, which, in turn, echo Chief ...

Bradley Lytle and Philippe Signore examine how finance-related companies are obtaining and enforcing business method patents in the US, and explain why portfolios of such patents are becoming ...

Business method patents (hereinafter, BMPs), like all other patents, are defined by their claims -- the language, typically resulting from a tug of war between the patent applicant and the patent ...

In the last couple of years, a new device has emerged on the legal scene to protect novel ways of conducting commerce. It’s called the business method patent, and it typically covers some combination ...

A U.S. appeals court has rejected patenting a way to smooth energy costs in a closely watched decision that could narrow the scope of "business method" patents. The case turned on whether an inventor ...

Imagine receiving a letter from a company offering to let you license a patent covering a computer-related business method for $50,000. Should you pay it? What if the company claims that its patent ...

The prevailing wisdom for some years has been that, generally, the US permits the patenting of business methods and that the EPO does not. In fact, this view has not been correct for some time now.