A reluctance to apply strict examination requirements to software opened up the floodgates to questionable software patents in the late 1990s. The requirements of the U.S. patent code that police scope and notice were not considered significant hurdles in software. Perhaps most significantly, the Section 112 requirements of written description and definiteness were not applied vigorously to software.
But borrowing from the biopharmaceutical industry, and particularly the bioinformatics context, I’d argue that both written description and definiteness could readily be used – right now, without any change in law – to tame claims in software.
via Wired
