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Business Method Patents And Patent Floods, Michael J. Meurer

Faculty Scholarship

Technological breakthroughs occasionally set off floods of inventions and associated patents. The decline of the business method exception to patentability is likely to increase the frequency of patent floods. Future technological breakthroughs might now cause two different patent floods: a flood of patents covering the relevant technology, and a flood of patents covering business methods in the new market opened by the breakthrough. Furthermore, a technological breakthrough is no longer a precondition for a patent flood. Any factor that opens a new market might cause a future flood of business method patents.

A flood of related patents in a new …