Effective January 7, 2019 U.S. patent examiners will have a new set of guidelines at their disposal to evaluate software patent applications. The guidelines have codified recent case law to provide more consistency in Patent Office actions dealing with software. The new guidelines emphasize that when evaluating a software patent application an examiner must apply […]
Widerman Malek Law Blog
Protecting Your Software’s Application Programming Interface (API)
In this article, we are continuing the discussion of a legal strategy to protect software that involves segmenting software into three tiers and protecting each tier separately. This strategy has been developed in response to a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court case, Alice v. CLS Bank, that effectively slammed the door on receiving and enforcing software […]
Is There Legal Protection for Software?
Although the protection strategy has changed, the answer is yes. Until recently, software patents accounted for about half of all utility patents issued by the USPTO. Application of a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court case, Alice v. CLS Bank, effectively slammed the door on this practice. Likewise, software patents issued prior to this decision have been […]
