Note: The below is a sarcastic parody, in the spirit of our earlier sarcastic parodies. By Michael Borella — WASHINGTON D.C., June 23, 1984. In a unanimous decision, the Federal Circuit has ruled U.S. Patent No. 4,405,829 invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101, finding the claimed invention directed to an abstract idea. The ‘829 patent, assigned to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was the brainchild of three of its professors, Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman. Lauded in academic circles as one of the first viable public-key cryptosystems and duly granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office,…
