Bye Bye software patents! (article)
 

"The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc.

In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bilski, the Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in § 101 of the Patent Act. In the most recent of these three?the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal?the Office takes the position that process inventions generally are unpatentable unless they ?result in a physical transformation of an article? or are ?tied to a particular machine.?[1] Perhaps, the agency has conceded, some ?new, unforeseen technology? might warrant an ?exception? to this formalistic test, but in the agency?s view, no such technology has yet emerged so there is no reason currently to use a more inclusive standard.[2]"

READ MORE:
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2008...ath-of-go.html

yowsa. the article states that googles page rank patent could be found to be invalid.

with all the money google has, they will surely be fighting this thing, and tie up the end resolution of eliminating process patents.

these days, capital is easier to find if you truly have a great idea, so the whole of patents was to protect the little guy from the big guys.. instead, patents have served the big guys in steamrolling over little guys.


Fight the Patent!

Instead of flat-out dropping software patents, they should just invent a new "type" of patent. All current "Patent" holders for software related property, would automatically be converted to this new type.

Fuck yeah!!!!

i would expect google, ibm, microsoft, apple, etc to have this thing tied up with lobbyists and lawsuits, etc for years.

there is too much money at stake. there are current licensees of patents that wouldn't have to pay, therefore resulting in billions of dollars lost to the patent holders is what they will be crying about.

I am glad to see there is a realization that process patents that don't make anything tangible are under attack.


Fight the whining!

I agree with this. Process patents on non-tangible goods shouldn't be recognized, however... The web / computers etc... have introduced new types of "products" in the digital realm. Non-tangible, however they are still products"and processes which should be able to be protected. Something like I mentioned above, with some sort of software patent.

Why doesn't copywrite protection apply for software? Or is it about royalties?

Copyright does apply, but it covers the finished works. Not the "Idea" of it.

How appropriate...:1orglaugh

great news! :)

This would certainly shove a BIG fuck you up Acacia Research's sizable butthole.

:D

:thumbsup :thumbsup

When patents are done, i'll start up Fight the BS!

Fight the always something to fight about!

About fucking time. Even if you have never looked at someone else's patent it is impossible to program anything of significant size without violating half a dozen patents you know nothing about. True innovation that requires considerable R&D investment should be patentable I think, but something that is just an obvious extension that dozens of other people will stumble upon randomly in the course of their work should not be.

God I've wasted SO MUCH money pursuing software patents over the past 10 years. Fuck the PTO.... I've never been exposed to a more arbitrary or bureaucratic backwater populated with dimwits that are incentivized by how many applications they can process in as little time as possible, which means an endless cycle of innappropriate responses that indicate how very little the examiners understand about technology, precedent, and law.

fight the power