Technology has progressed significantly since the early days of patent law, when US lawmakers in 1952 could only envision patentable subject matter into categories like “process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” The recent explosion of new types of innovations that don’t fall neatly into these categories has resulted in a game of catch-up, where patent practitioners dream up creative ways to protect these new innovations using existing (sometimes archaic) formats to comply with outdated rules. We saw this in the US through the past decades as people tried using a myriad of creative ways to protect business methods, computer software, and other less tangible innovations that were still practical…
