Recent Changes in Patent Eligibility Will Impact the Securities and Banking Industries

Two important recent events are likely to impact the patenting of inventions related to the securities and banking industries. First, on June 28, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in Bilski v. Kappos (http://tinyurl.com/24qhdmo). The Bilski decision is the Supreme Court’s most recent statement on what types of inventions are eligible to receive patents. For a detailed discussion of the Bilski opinion, please see our Legal News Alert at http://tinyurl.com/37d75bs. Second, on July 27, in response to the Bilski decision, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) updated its guidelines for evaluating patent applications on subject matter eligibility. The guidelines, which provide concrete insight on how the USPTO will treat specific types of patent applications, are available online at http://tinyurl.com/3ah98xr.

The securities and banking industries, of course, are no strangers to business method patents. The watershed case, State Street Bank & Trust v. Signature Financial Group, Inc., 149 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 1998), involved a hub and spoke configuration for pooling assets from mutual funds. Since then, companies have sought to patent all manner of business methods and related innovations, including trading systems, securities products, hedging techniques, modeling techniques, customer and B2B Web site features, and so on.

ビルスキー事件
多くの人が、ビルスキー判決がビジネス方法特許を全面的に廃止すると推測した。しかしそれは実現しなかった。最高裁は係争中の発明が特許適格性を有しないと判断した一方で、ビジネス方法特許に対する広範な排除を採用することを拒否した。ビルスキー事件における発明は、リスクヘッジのプロセスに関するものだった。 最高裁は、この事実のみが発明の特許適格性を妨げるものではないと示唆した。むしろ問題は、発明が抽象的に定義されすぎている点にあった。裁判所によれば、「申立人の出願における請求項1および4は、ヘッジング（リスク回避）の基本概念を説明している：『ヘッジングは、わが国の商取引システムにおいて長らく普及している基本的な経済的慣行であり、初歩的な金融学の授業で教えられるものである』」 判決文15頁。裁判所の論旨は、ビルスキー氏が発明をより実践的な用語で、より具体的に定義していれば、特許適格性を認められた可能性を示唆している。

USPTO Guidelines
The USPTO guidelines shed further light on how the USPTO will treat specific types of patent applications. As instructed by the Supreme Court decision in Bilski, the USPTO will evaluate patent claims “as a whole” to determine patent eligibility. Thus, it would be improper for a patent examiner to dissect the invention into old and new elements and then ignore the old elements in assessing whether the invention is too abstract to be patent-eligible. Hence, patent applicants would be well-advised to consider including a computerized implementation of their invention in their patent application. Even though the computer hardware (without the inventive software) may be old, the patent examiner may not ignore the presence of the computer hardware in conducting the patent-eligibility analysis. Of course, to receive patent protection, the invention also must meet the separate requirements that it represents a new and non-obvious advance over what is already known. However, the inventive software elements can be used to meet those tests, even though the otherwise old elements relating to the computer hardware are relied upon to qualify as patent-eligible.

The guidelines also include provisions that are pertinent to inventions that are financial in nature. Specifically, they discuss the patent eligibility of “general concepts” such as economic practices or theories (e.g., hedging, insurance, financial transactions, marketing); legal theories (e.g., contracts, dispute resolution, rules of law); concepts relating to “how business should be conducted,” and so on. In evaluating such inventions, the guidelines instruct patent examiners to weigh various factors to assess whether the patent applicant is seeking a patent on merely the general concept in the abstract or on a particular practical application of the concept. One factor weighing against patent eligibility is if the invention is defined so abstractly that granting the patent would effectively grant a monopoly over the general concept. Another factor weighing against patent eligibility is if performance of the invention is subjective and imperceptible rather than observable and verifiable. A factor that weighs in favor of patent eligibility is if the invention is described as being implemented in some tangible way. This suggests the advisability of including a computerized implementation of the invention in the claims of the patent application. For example, an algorithm that could be performed entirely in the human mind to predict whether a stock price will increase may be too imperceptible and intangible to be patent-eligible. The algorithm may stand a better chance of being patent-eligible if it is described as being implemented in a computer, particularly if further steps are added (e.g., a step of communicating an electronic signal to another computer system to execute a stock trade based on the output of the algorithm).

ステート・ストリート銀行事件
ステート・ストリート銀行事件は最終的に、同事件で示された「有用で有形の具体的な結果」テストに基づくビジネス方法の広範な特許適格性を象徴する判決となったが、このテストはステート・ストリート銀行の発明を特許適格と認定するために必要以上に広範なものであった。ビルスキー事件の発明とは異なり、ステート・ストリート銀行の発明はコンピュータシステムによって定義されていた。

米国特許商標庁（USPTO）、連邦巡回区控訴裁判所、および最高裁判所は、ステート・ストリート・バンク事件における非常に広範な有用性・有形性・具体性結果テストを一様に批判しているものの、同事件におけるコンピュータ実装発明が特許適格性を有するという具体的な判断については批判していないように見える。ステート・ストリート銀行判決が覆されなかった事実は、同判決と同様のクレーム形式（発明をコンピュータ実装の観点から定義する形式）を用いることが、発明を特許適格とするのに十分である可能性を示唆している。 発明がコンピュータとソフトウェア（ステート・ストリート銀行のように）によって定義されるか、純粋にビジネスプロセス（ビルスキーのように）によって定義されるかは、基礎となる革新の性質よりも、特許の起草方法によって同程度かそれ以上に決定されることが多い。

Looking to the Future
Companies should expect to continue to see patents issuing that relate to the securities and banking industries. Prior to the decision in Bilski, the USPTO provided guidelines to patent examiners for evaluating patent eligibility issues that were based on the machine-or-transformation test. While the Supreme Court rejected the machine-or-transformation test as the sole test for patent eligibility, all nine Justices appear to agree that it is a useful tool for evaluating patent eligibility. Hence, companies should not expect to see a dramatic shift in the types of patents being granted by the USPTO. Companies in these industries also face threats in connection with patents from other industries. Various financial institutions have been sued on patents that the patent owners assert cover technologies used by the financial institutions to implement their Web sites (e.g., patents that are alleged to cover aspects of SSL encryption).

知的財産プログラムの価値
この点を踏まえ、企業は特許の影響をより伝統的に受けてきた他業界の企業と並行する知的財産プログラムの開発・維持を検討すべきである。まず、企業は重要な革新技術、特に外部に公開され、リバースエンジニアリングが可能、あるいは営業秘密保護が容易でない技術について特許を取得すべきである。

There are many reasons companies seek patents. For example, patents can help a company carve out a niche in the marketplace. There are obvious competitive advantages to offering a product or service that no other company is able to offer. Additionally, patents can serve a defensive purpose, in that owning patents may reduce the risk of being sued for patent infringement by other companies and thus may help to maintain a company’s freedom to operate. If your company is sued by another company on a patent matter, but holds a patent that is being infringed by the other company, the risk of cross-claims can lead to settlement of the litigation at a fraction of what it would have cost to settle without the patent. Indeed, if a company owns a substantial portfolio of patents relative to its competitors, that alone can serve as an effective deterrent when one of its competitor is considering suing the company on a patent issue. When both companies have roughly equal-sized patent portfolios, that can create an environment in which neither company is likely to sue the other because to do so would result in mutually assured destruction. If one company has a clearly superior patent position, that can often provide significant leverage against its competitors.

第二に、企業は新製品やサービスを市場に投入する前に特許調査を実施することも検討すべきである。新製品開発に投資する前に特許調査を行うことは、企業に投資する前に調査を行うことに類似している。 特許調査は、新製品開発への投資収益率が期待に沿うことを保証するのに役立ちます。他社が既に多数の特許を保有する分野で新製品を開発する場合、必要な特許権を取得するためのコストが、導入する製品の収益性を継続的に圧迫する要因となる可能性があります。

第三に、企業は競合他社の特許状況を常に把握すべきである。競合他社が自社の革新技術の特許を取得していない場合、その技術を採用しても特許侵害で訴えられるリスクはない。ただし、採用時には営業秘密など他の知的財産権侵害を避ける注意が必要となる。とはいえ、こうしたリスクは特許侵害リスクに比べ、通常はるかに管理しやすい。 逆に、競合他社が自社の革新技術をすべて積極的に特許化しようとする場合、その特許権を侵害する可能性のある新製品開発の投資収益率を予測する際には、潜在的な侵害訴訟を解決するためのコストを考慮に入れる必要がある。

Finally, while patents provide the strongest form of protection for many innovations, it is important to use patents as part of an orchestrated intellectual property strategy that also effectively employs other types of intellectual property protection. Trade secret protection, for example, may be more suitable in some circumstances to protect “under the hood” trading strategies that would be difficult for an outsider to reverse engineer. A critical consideration in the context of trade secret law is to ensure that your company is taking sufficiently “reasonable efforts” to maintain the secrecy of the trade secret. It is important to ensure that your company is exercising the appropriate care with regard to its trade secrets in order to permit your company to successfully claim their trade secret status later on during litigation.

リーガルニュースアラートは、クライアントや同僚に影響を与える喫緊の懸念事項や業界問題に関する最新情報を提供するという、当社の継続的な取り組みの一環です。本更新内容に関するご質問や、このトピックについてさらに議論をご希望の場合は、担当のフォーリー弁護士または下記までご連絡ください。

David G. Luettgen
Partner
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
414.297.5769
[email protected]

Kathryn M. Trkla
Partner
Chicago, Illinois
312.832.5179
[email protected]