Many people agree that the current U.S. patent system is broken in some form or another, especially when it comes to technology. I’m all for having a process in place for individuals to protect their intellectual property so that they are recognized and rewarded for their inventions and creativity, but the hoarding of patents and the entire “patent troll” industry shines a harsh light on the faults in the system.
Well, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit may have made a pretty big step in the right direction as they delivered a ruling that should restricts patents for software and business methods. Basically, the court emphasized that these patents need to meet one of two specific criteria for them to be valid – a patent needs to be tied to a specific machine or it needs to change something from one “state” to another.