LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Field of Patents
I
read with much interest your very good patent article in the most recent UVA Lawyer, and sent the professors mentioned a short history of my own exposure to the field of patents. I graduated from Virginia Law many decades ago (1972) and did not become interested in patents until relatively recently. After retiring from the FDIC in 2002, I pursued other interests and ended up earning a BS in electrical engineering from George Mason University. I thought the Patent Office might be a good place to put the JD and BSEE to work. I only lasted about six weeks in the patent examiner training program, however, before concluding that I would be on the bottom rung of an organization and system in serious need of repair. For one thing, I was destined for the field of so-called business methods patents, and it took only a brief exposure for me to say, “These things just ain’t right.” So I moved on. But I was intrigued enough by the “everything under the sun that is made by man” approach to patentability that I started and maintain a website focused on business methods patents and more generally on the possible limits of Section 101’s four patent-eligible categories: process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. On the website, www.patentsbyfrip.com, I summarize some of the patents issued each week in the 705 classification category—where most business process patents are found—and decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (formerly the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences) concerning Section 101 issues. In view of my FDIC and financial consulting background, my patent summaries are primarily of patents in the financial area. David S. Holland, ’72 Alexandria, VA [Editor’s Note—see In Print for information about Mr. Holland’s book, How the Information Age and the Computer Have Undermined Capitalism, and Socialism Too.]
66 UVA LAWYER / SPRING 2013