Micro law: patenting computerized methods of doing business

Abstract

E-Data's patent on the idea of selling merchandise over the Net is only one of many ambitious schemes to patent computerized methods of doing business. Another example, involved in a pending appeal before the Federal Circuit (the patent appeals court) is the Boes patent of the State Street Bank case. The many ambitious schemes and this pending appeal raise the nonlegal issue (which the court is unlikely to address) of whether it is good public policy to have patents on computerized methods of doing business.