Granting of Ecommerce Business Methods Patents Under Scrutiny

[mandy]

For years, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has granted patents covering e-commerce business methods, and companies have exploited such patents to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace...

Such patents have provided a valuable resource for companies to obtain venture capital and to protect research and development investments.
A Rare Hearing

However, an impending decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington may soon change things. That court, which decides all patent appeals in the United States, held a rare full-court hearing on May 8 to decide whether to limit "process patents." At issue in the case is a decision by the PTO to reject a patent application for a business process involving transactions designed to balance risks associated with commodity costs...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/End-of-t...63107.html