Software still isn't eligible for patent protection, as I've said several times before (look at my comment history). Copyright protection and trade secret prote

Software still isn't eligible for patent protection, as I've said several times before (look at my comment history). Copyright protection and trade secret protection are available for software, while patent protection is available for "business methods." The whole issue is that one wouldn't reasonably believe that checking someone's driver's license to verify that it matches the name on the credit card they used to purchase goods at an auction qualifies as patentable subject matter. Yet, in 1999, eBay received a patent for a "Method and apparatus for verifying the identity of a participant within an on-line auction environment." [Pat. No. 6,466,917] As we move more and more brick and mortar business functions to the virtual world, people are able to get around the prior art by inextricably linking their business method with a device--a computer or, as patent attorneys eloquently say: "a client computer to present user interface information specifying an identity verification interface for obtaining personal information of a user and to communicate personal information over a communications network; a transaction computer, coupled to the client computer via a communications network, to implement a transaction system that facilitates transactions between the user and a further user, to receive the personal information from the client computer via the communications network, and to communicate the personal information over the communications network; and an identity verification computer, coupled to the transaction computer via the communications network, to receive the personal information from the transaction computer via the communications network, to perform an identity verification process to generate a verification result, and to communicate the verification result to the transaction computer over the communications network, wherein transaction computer makes the verification result available to the further user via the communications network and responsive to a request from the further user for information concerning the user." [Pat. No. 6,466,917] I find it intractable for one to reasonably believe that the virtual environment is so extraordinarily different from real life so as to justify awarding patents for routine business methods. The problem with business method patents, quite bluntly, is that the Supreme Court absolutely blew it in Bilski by not articulating, precisely, how much of a transformation is necessary to consider it "inventive." This is for Congress to decide.