As someone who has written before (1, 2, 3, 4) about the obvious idiocy of some patents and patent applications, I am glad to report that some normalcy is about to be restored. According to the Bengaluru, India-based IT Examiner "The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in Washington DC has decided that in the future, instead of automatically granting a patent for a business practice, there will be a specific testing procedure to determine how patentable is that process."

The IT Examiner also observes that "Microsoft has a problem" and that "Much of the patent portfolio of some of the world's biggest software companies has become worthless overnight, thanks to a ruling yesterday by the US patent court."

Full article.