Difference between revisions of "EB: GOTTSCHALK v. BENSON, 409 U.S. 63 (1972)"

Revision as of 12:43, 7 February 2011

Benson develops a "method for converting numerical information from binary-coded decimal numbers into pure binary numbers."
Gottschalk is the commissioner of patents who originally rejected the patent, Benson appealed and won - Supreme Court grants centiorari

Benson's patent is invalid (sustaining the examiners original decision, but reversing the Appeals court decision)

You can't patent an idea - if you discover a "phenomenon of nature" you can't claim a monopoly on it unless you apply the law of nature to a "new and useful end"
- The claims of Benson's patent were sweeping - claiming all rights to the process developed (whether by a computer or by hand)
A process is patentable if it transforms or reduces the subject matter to a "different state or thing"
- Benson's patent would "wholly pre-empt the mathematical formula and in practical effect would be a patent on the algorithm itself."
  - In other words, Benson's patent is for a mathematical formula/algorithm, and these are ruled to be ideas, which alone are not patentable
Important outcome: You can't patent a computer program (as of 1972)

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 **Benson's patent would "wholly pre-empt the mathematical formula and in practical effect would be a patent on the algorithm itself."
 ***In other words, Benson's patent is for a mathematical formula/algorithm, and these are ruled to be ideas, which alone are not patentable
-*Important outcome: You can't patent a computer program
+*Important outcome: You can't patent a computer program (as of 1972)