CyberSource: Machines Executing Processes and the Computer-Readable Medium

In <i>CyberSource v. Retail Decisions</i>, a panel of the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court's summary judgment ruling that the asserted patent claims were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101, and held that purely mental processes are unpatentable abstract ideas. The court decided that merely limiting an unpatentable mental process to a computer-readable medium for execution on a processor, in a so-called <i>Beauregard</i> claim, did not satisfy § 101.

18 minute read September 28, 2011 at 12:45 PM

Brian Avery

Since the Bilski v. Kappos decision, 130 S. Ct. 3218 (2010), practitioners in the software arts have debated whether the inclusion of a computer or computer-readable medium in claims that include process steps would render claims patentable.

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CyberSource: Machines Executing Processes and the Computer-Readable Medium

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