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It is completely understandable that Alice rejections will go down as new guidance is provided. This is because people drafting patents react to the same new gu

It is completely understandable that Alice rejections will go down as new guidance is provided. This is because people drafting patents react to the same new guidance and draft patents accordingly. Guidance documents often come with examples, language from the Alice-overcoming examples will be included in patent applications and in arguments against Alice rejections. Often, word for word if possible. Note, there have been several rounds of 'new guidance' since Alice came down. Most of them (maybe all?) include examples from courts showing claims invalidated under Alice and examples claims that made it past Alice in court. It doesn't take that much effort to draft patents or arguments that match the good examples. Note, this doesn't change the scope of the inventions, it simply puts magic words into applications or claims to get around Alice if needed.

hcknwscommenter 6y ago
You almost got it. SO close. But you are completely wrong about the following "this doesn't change the scope of the inventions, it simply puts magic words into applications or claims to get around Alice if needed." This is wrong. The scope of the claims that result post-alice are completely different. And this is something the EFF post simply ignores. Just think about it. YOu are an inventor and invent some amazing new idea in the year 2000 like location track a plurality of requests for transportation, location track a plurality of transportation providers, use a novel form of graph theory to optimally match requests with providers with an optimized price that maximizes utility for driver and requestor (think uber-like service). You try to patent that. The patent office POST_ALICE says NOOOOO!!!!! That's just a concept. Abstract concepts are not patentable. But you, you smart cookie, you know that there are only a few practical ways to have a sufficiently fast database-lookup architecture to actually implement this at scale and that implementation and all its details is what you actually patent. Because you had the guidance, you knew what you could get and you went for it.
- pnw_hazor 6y ago
  Alice was about subject matter, not novelty. The Alice game was drafting/amending claims to look more like a machine. I talk about it more below in my response to your other comment. Often that can be accomplished by including claim language that doesn't limit the novel aspects of the invention. In other words, prior art is not a really a consideration when getting over a 101 rejection.

hcknwscommenter 6y ago

You almost got it. SO close. But you are completely wrong about the following "this doesn't change the scope of the inventions, it simply puts magic words into applications or claims to get around Alice if needed." This is wrong. The scope of the claims that result post-alice are completely different. And this is something the EFF post simply ignores. Just think about it. YOu are an inventor and invent some amazing new idea in the year 2000 like location track a plurality of requests for transportation, location track a plurality of transportation providers, use a novel form of graph theory to optimally match requests with providers with an optimized price that maximizes utility for driver and requestor (think uber-like service). You try to patent that. The patent office POST_ALICE says NOOOOO!!!!! That's just a concept. Abstract concepts are not patentable. But you, you smart cookie, you know that there are only a few practical ways to have a sufficiently fast database-lookup architecture to actually implement this at scale and that implementation and all its details is what you actually patent. Because you had the guidance, you knew what you could get and you went for it.

pnw_hazor 6y ago
Alice was about subject matter, not novelty. The Alice game was drafting/amending claims to look more like a machine. I talk about it more below in my response to your other comment. Often that can be accomplished by including claim language that doesn't limit the novel aspects of the invention. In other words, prior art is not a really a consideration when getting over a 101 rejection.