The PTO on software patents

The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has been fighting patents on algorithms and other computer software for the last 30 years, but it has now decided to throw in the towel. According to draft software patent guidelines just released for public comment, the PTO is now willing to grant a patent on a computer program procedure as long as the patent is limited to a procedure if encoded into a machine-readable floppy disk, DRAM chip, and other storage medium or memory. Members of the public may file comments in writing or by Internet until July 31, but perhaps the PTO will extend the rather short comment period