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High US Court Reconsiders Policy Of Patenting Business Methods

By Drew Clark for Intellectual Property Watch
WASHINGTON, DC - The chief US appeals court that rules on patent disputes has squarely reconsidered whether the United States' 1998 decision to allow greater berth for business method patents was the right intellectual property policy.

Adding heft to the position of changing course on business method patents was the US Patent and Trademark Office, which challenged a patent application on a method for financial hedging by inventors Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw.

The USPTO urged the court to reject the patent as ineligible subject matter. It offered a standard for invalidating the patent that demonstrated a dramatic change of course for the US government over the past 10 years.

First Round Results Of Voting For WIPO DG

  Candidate Votes   Francis Gurry (Australia) 24   José Graça Aranha (Brazil) 16   Masood Khan (Pakistan) 13   Yoshiyuki Takagi (Japan) 6   Jorge Amigo Castañeda (Mexico) 4   Philippe Petit (France) 4   Alicja Adamczak (Poland) 3…

First Candidate For WIPO Director General Post Withdraws

By William New Just days before the election begins for the next director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the first candidate has withdrawn, according to official sources. Mauro Masi, a former chief of staff to Italian Prime…

Suspending TRIPS Obligations: A Rising Alternative For WTO Retaliation

By Catherine Saez
Retaliating against a country found in violation of World Trade Organization rules by sanctioning the country's activities in an unrelated trade sector may be a more effective alternative for developing countries than retaliating under the sector of the violation, especially when such cross-retaliation involves WTO rules on intellectual property rights, an expert told a panel this week.