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In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that you can't get a patent for implementing an otherwise abstract idea on a computer. The decision, known as CLS Bank v. Alice, has had a big impact over the last five years, invalidating a lot of broad software patents.
But a ruling this week illustrates the limits of that landmark ruling. The confusingly named United Services Automobile Association, which provides insurance and other financial products, sued Wells Fargo for infringing two patents on the concept of cashing checks with a mobile device. Wells Fargo argued that the patents were abstract—and therefore invalid—under the Alice rule.
[...] The patents cover check-cashing mobile apps that automatically snap a photo once a suitable image of the check is in the field of view.
A key claim of one of the USAA patents covers the concept of using a "processor" (aka a smartphone) to take a picture of a check and then send the check over a "communication pathway" (aka a network). USAA's supposed invention is the idea of monitoring "an image of the check in a field of view of a camera of a mobile device with respect to a monitoring criterion using an image monitoring and capture module of the mobile device"—and waiting until the image has met the criteria (is the entire check in the frame? Is there adequate light?) before snapping the picture. In other words, they patented the idea that you should wait until you have a good shot before snapping a picture.
[...] Wells Fargo argued that USAA had simply used a computer to perform the same steps any human being would take when snapping a photo of a check. Obviously if a human being was snapping a picture of a check, they would monitor the image in the viewfinder and only click the button once it showed an acceptable image.
But the court disagreed, noting that human eyes and human brains can't measure objective criteria like brightness as precisely as a computer can. USAA has argued that its approach leads to fewer bad check images being submitted. So in the court's view, the patent doesn't just cover an old-fashioned process being done on a computer—the use of the computer improves the process, yielding a patentable invention.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 02 2019, @07:56PM
It has been discussed, but not in the right places. The USPTO says it doesn't have the resources to make serious investigations into patents that are filed. Or, even cursory investigations, apparently. That is an issue for congress to address - more funds, more personnel, and a mandate to screen patent applications. You are perfectly right - more than 90% of these patent troll suits should have been shut down when the patents were filed. The phrase "on a computer" should be sufficient to kill a patent application.