[W]e're introducing a new blog series, Stupid Patent of the Month, featuring spectacularly dumb patents that have been recently issued or asserted. With this series, we hope to illustrate by example just how badly reform is needed -- at the Patent Office, in court, and in Congress.
Stupid patents are nothing new, of course. I previously discussed a bizzare Amazon patent on taking pictures with particular photo settings. EFF is known for its Patent Busting Project, which seeks to invalidate or narrow high-priority "bogus software patents". Still, I like their method of advocating for (stalling) patent reform by example.
I like how they address their concerns in the blog post by specifically discussing the first claim of the patent. The blog post includes the first claim in verbatim and in a more human-readable form (by claim element), to support the argument that this is simply a patent on a "doctor's computer-secretary".
I am also intrigued that, according to the file history, the claim was originally rejected as abstract. The claim was, however, accepted after an element "g" was appended to elements "a"-"f":
(g) providing a computer, the computer performing steps “a” through “f”.
In other words, by simply adding a computer to the claim, it became eligible for a patent!
As I understand it, in a number of Supreme Court cases, from Gottschalk v. Benson (1972) to the recent Alice v. CLS (2014), the Court has consistently held that an abstract process or transformation cannot become patent-eligible subject matter simply by including a computer.
If so, this patent appears to blatantly violate that ruling. It looks too obvious to be overlooked.
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