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I didn't know where else to go with this, and given your past comments on patent reform I figured you'd know the answer (plus be interested enough to respond). So I'm jotting down critiques about a law review submission about the SCOTUS' upcoming landmark decision in In re Bilski, in which the appellate court overruled State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group to finally make clear that processes which are not implemented by some machine and don't transform the state of an article, i.e. 1) many software designs and 2) virtually all business/finance methodologies, are categorically not patentable.
The author contends that this doesn't stifle innovation because it simply pushes those categories into the complementary protections of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) at the state level, and a principal basis for this argument is the utter BAM that reverse engineering won't eviscerate these protections because 1) DRM technology delays reverse engineering long enough for the innovator to obtain a decisive competitive advantage, and 2) outsiders' reverse engineering of business methodologies (like Bilski's commodity hedging technique) would be "impossible."
Now I know #1 is bull****, but #2 made me curious - are you aware of any math hotshots like yourself whose job is largely to sit and monitor trades, lending, or other transactions by competitors solely to infer just how said competitors' own internal risk analysis works, i.e. essentially "reverse engineer" their business methods, thereby circumventing the UTSA? My first instinct is of course since wherever there's an incentive there's somebody profiting off of it, but I can't find any specific examples to point to.
That aside, what's your overall take on Bilski at a glance? Does it concern you at all that most of your work product at GS will now be without IP protection?
The author contends that this doesn't stifle innovation because it simply pushes those categories into the complementary protections of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) at the state level, and a principal basis for this argument is the utter BAM that reverse engineering won't eviscerate these protections because 1) DRM technology delays reverse engineering long enough for the innovator to obtain a decisive competitive advantage, and 2) outsiders' reverse engineering of business methodologies (like Bilski's commodity hedging technique) would be "impossible."
Now I know #1 is bull****, but #2 made me curious - are you aware of any math hotshots like yourself whose job is largely to sit and monitor trades, lending, or other transactions by competitors solely to infer just how said competitors' own internal risk analysis works, i.e. essentially "reverse engineer" their business methods, thereby circumventing the UTSA? My first instinct is of course since wherever there's an incentive there's somebody profiting off of it, but I can't find any specific examples to point to.
That aside, what's your overall take on Bilski at a glance? Does it concern you at all that most of your work product at GS will now be without IP protection?
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