state street bank
State Street Bank. Patents. A landmark 1998 decision in the Federal Circuit that made it easier to get patents on computer software, and also called into question the long-accepted notion that business methods are unpatentable. • The court struck down per se rules against patenting mathematical algorithms (the soul of software), focusing instead on whether the result was useful, concrete, and tangible in practice. State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Fin. Group, Inc., 149 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 1998).