In a May 2006 decision, in a case related to eBay's "Buy It Now" technology, the court made it more difficult for patent holders to win injunctions when they sue another company over alleged patent infringements.
In addition, sellers may not end up receiving top dollar for their patent sales to Google, because the concentrated length of the program means that it would be difficult for patent holders to shop around for competitive bids.
Admittedly, the sheer size and complexity of modern software have made it difficult for patent examiners to judge whether a program contains features that are genuinely novel, non-obvious and useful the three criteria for patentability.
But Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, co-sponsor of the Senate legislation, said Mr. Bush had stopped short of calling for measures included in his bill that would make it even more difficult for patent holders to delay the introduction of generic competitors.
Other countries make it very difficult to patent business methods or software.
The Texas ruling was one of the first to apply a new test established by the Supreme Court on April 30 that makes it more difficult to obtain patents on new products that combine elements of already existing patents.
This observation applies to less well-known cases, particularly the attempts to patent models of networks of genes and proteins, which is much more difficult than when patenting a single expression of a gene (Allarakhia and Wensley 2005: 1486).
Without access to proper patent drafting, it is difficult for the Kenyan patent office to find applications that are suitable for granting as patents, and the ability of local inventors to obtain patents is severely diminished.
The distinction is not difficult, even though patent lawyers attempt to blur it.
"We're navigating a difficult period with patent expiration," said Lowth, adding that the next two quarters would be even tougher.
