Yahoo! Gets Fantasy Sports Software Patent
Online fantasy sports games, such as fantasy football, baseball, hockey, golf, and automobile racing, are extremely popular. In fact, this past weekend marks the start of the playoffs in my fantasy football league. Unfortunately, I did not make the playoffs this year. Darn injuries and under-performing “superstars”!!!
In any event, it is not at all uncommon to file fantasy sports related patents and patent applications. I myself have had occasion to draft a patent application (soon to be allowed) on a fantasy sports invention. So, a fantasy sports-related patent or application always grabs my attention.
If you are not familiar with fantasy sports, allow me to provide a bit of a primer. A user creates a fantasy team comprised of players that are associated with real-life players. The user’s fantasy team may compete against fantasy teams of other users, with specific scoring rules. When your player does something good, such as scores a touchdown or kicks a field goal, positive points are scored. When your player does something negative in real life, such as an fumble or throws an interception, points are subtracted.
The Tangible, Mechanical Nature of Software
Recently U.S. Patent No. 8,515,829 (the ‘829 patent) came to my attention. It is a patent issued to Google, titled Tax-free gifting. See Google Patents Tax-Free Gifting. The invention is interesting in its own right, but as I reviewed the patent, Figure 14 really caught my attention.
Figure 14, together with the associated textual discussion, is interesting because it shows rather conclusively that “software” can be described in mechanical terms. That is something that those familiar with software have always known, but it’s a nuance missed by many of the critics and judges who believe software is wholly disassociated from anything in the tangible, mechanical world.
Figure 14 from the ‘829 patent is shown below.
09.26.13 | Patent Issues, posts, software patents | Gene Quinn
Software Will Remain Patent Eligible
Software is now and will remain patentable in the United States. Software patents have been vilified by many, but they have been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and upheld in federal courts across the United States.
The Patent Act specifically envisions that some software must be patent eligible. For example, the America Invents Act (AIA) prohibits tax strategies from being patent eligible, but specifically says that this tax strategy prohibition does not apply to software that embodies a particular strategy. Furthermore, also as a part of the AIA, Congress created covered business method review as a new form of post grant procedure to challenge at least some issued software patents. Had Congress believed that software were not patent eligible, neither provision would have been enacted as part of the AIA; instead Congress would have merely statutorily prohibited software patents. Given that they statutorily prohibited tax strategy patents, it seems that Congress well understands how to wield that power when they want. Thus, software is patent eligible.
07.18.13 | Patent Issues, software patents | Gene Quinn
Apple Patents Digital Handshake Between Devices
On April 23, 2013, Apple obtained U.S. Patent No. 8429407, titled Digital Handshake between Devices.
Creating a secure connection between two devices that are in close physical proximity allows users to share a great deal of digital content. Instead of showing a webpage or document to another person by turning the screen towards them, a user could choose to send the info directly to another device, preventing people from having to crowd around a small device screen to see. The same is true of videos and pictures. Also, some applications allow users to interact with other nearby devices for money transfers or to play a game.
Apple was granted the right to protect the system of creating a secured connection between devices laid out in this patent. It would allow an iPhone to create a bar code or alphanumerical code that can be scanned by the camera of another device. Once the “digital handshake” has taken place, other phones can also scan the key that was generated by the device to connect with the other devices as well.
As Claim 1 describes, Apple has gained legal protections over:
“A method for establishing a communications path between a first device and a second device, comprising: capturing an image of the second device using the first device; extracting, from the image, a first key associated with the second device; selecting from a plurality of processes a process to be used for generating a digital handshake key; generating the digital handshake key using the selected process with the first key; and establishing a communications path with the second device using the digital handshake key.” (more…)
05.24.13 | patent eligibility, posts, software patents | Gene Quinn
Unanimous SCOTUS Sides with Monsanto on Seeds
![logo[2]](https://patentlawcenter.pli.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/logo2.png){kind=logo}
On Monday, May 13, 2013, the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, ruled that a farmer who buys Monsanto’s patented seeds cannot then propagate new seeds for future use without infringing the underlying patent.
The opening paragraph in the Court’s decision, which was delivered by Justice Kagan, succinctly captures the essence of the ruling. Justice Kagan wrote:
Under the doctrine of patent exhaustion, the authorized sale of a patented article gives the purchaser, or any subsequent owner, a right to use or resell that article. Such a sale, however, does not allow the purchaser to make new copies of the patented invention. The question in this case is whether a farmer who buys patented seeds may reproduce them through planting and harvesting without the patent holder’s permission. We hold that he may not.
Monsanto invented a genetic modification that enables soybean plants to survive exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in many herbicides (including Monsanto’s own Roundup). Monsanto markets soybean seed containing this altered genetic material as “Roundup Ready” seed. Farmers planting that seed can use a glyphosate-based herbicide to kill weeds without damaging their crops. Two patents issued to Monsanto cover various aspects of its Roundup Ready technology, including a seed incorporating the genetic alteration.
05.17.13 | biotechnology patents, Patent Issues, Supreme Court Cases | Gene Quinn
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12.2.13 | Patent Issues, posts, software patents | Gene Quinn