A discussion was held as to how to get the ITC’s view on it, but with keeping in mind that the ITC cannot lobby Congress or officially set forth a position. If we could determine unofficially what the ITC thinks would be best, we should set forth and support that position. C. Preliminary Vote Members agreed that there are essentially two issues to decide with respect to this issue: (1) amend or not amend (d)(2) and instead add new section (d)(3); (2) whether the EPROM factors should be added in (d)(3). A preliminary vote was held on these two issues. D. Conclusions from Meeting The committee members agreed that we should try to send this draft proposal on out for a vote to the committee within the next 30 days, and then send it on up to the AIPLA Board for approval.
Scott announced that the committee is working on ideas/structures for future programs and requested that members offer any suggestions and ideas for future meetings, including possible other committees in which our committee could join. Tom provided the group with an interesting statistic that has recently been released: 15% of all patent cases that went to trial last year, went to trial at the ITC. Thus, our Committee is important, as it represents a large forum of patent cases. Kim announced that in the future, our committee would make every effort to have a dial-in number for our AIPLA Committee meetings for members who are not able to physically attend.
IV. Other Matters Tom reminded members to sign up for voting rights on the ITC Committee website.
Patent Law
Nicholas P. Godici (left photo) Barbara A. Fiacco, Vice-Chair (right photo) ___________________________________________
T
he Patent Law Committee met on Thursday afternoon at the 2008 Spring Meeting in Houston. The committee had a panel discussion on competing views of what constitutes patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §101 and speculated on the possible outcomes in the forthcoming decision from the Federal Circuit in In re Bilski. The panelists were Lance Reich of Woodcock Washburn, Jeff Ranck, Senior Attorney at Microsoft, and Wayne Sobon, Associate General Counsel and Director of Intellectual Property of the Legal Group of Accenture. Both Microsoft and Accenture have filed amicus briefs in In re Bilski.
2009 spring meeting issue
Mr. Ranck spoke first and outlined the issues present in In re Bilski. He then stated Microsoft’s position on patent-eligible subject matter as set forth in the Dell/ Miscrosoft Amicus brief. Specifically, that: 1. The requirement of Section 101 is that a patent-eligible invention be physical is satisfied by computer software-implemented processes and programmed computers operating pursuant to software instructions .
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