“Software modules are often specified in functional terms and the details of the underlying algorithms are left to implementation. While this level of description is generally enough to guide software ...

The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Aristocrat Technologies will require software patent drafters to take more care to describe algorithms covered by their software--or risk patent invalidity.

Means-plus-function claiming has been disfavored (by and large) since at least 1994 when the Federal Circuit handed down its decision in In re Donaldson, where the Federal Circuit sitting en banc ...