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posted by janrinok on Tuesday October 04 2016, @01:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the step-in-the-right-direction dept.

Roy Schestowitz at TechRights reports

Further reinforcing the current trend, software patents' demise in the United States has just been ascertained again.

[...] The latest decision[PDF] [...] from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) is eye-catching, but either it hasn't caught the eye of legal firms or they're just trying to ignore it, so we'll be covering it more than we usually cover such decisions.

[...] The ruling is very important because it serves to demonstrate a loss for patent trolls and for software patents (or patent trolls that use software patents, which is typical). The decision criticises patent trolling as well.

[...] So far, based on our research, only one press article has been published about this decision. It's titled "Here's Why Software Patents Are in Peril After the Intellectual Ventures Ruling".

The end may be in sight for software patents--which have long been highly controversial in the tech industry--in the wake of a remarkable appeals court ruling that described such patents as a "deadweight loss on the nation's economy" and a threat to the First Amendment's free speech protections.

The ruling, issued on Friday [September 30] by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, found that three patents asserted against anti-virus companies Symantec [...] and Trend Micro were invalid because they did not describe a patentable invention. The patents were owned by Intellectual Ventures, which has a notorious reputation in the tech world as a so-called "patent troll", a phrase that describes firms that buy up old patents and wage lawsuits in order to demand payments from productive companies.

Software Patents as a Threat to Free Speech

Friday's ruling is also significant because Judge [Haldane Robert] Mayer eschews the insider baseball language that typically dominates patent law, and addresses patents in the broader context of technology and government monopolies.

Pointing out that intellectual property monopolies can limit free speech, Mayer notes that copyright law has built-in First Amendment protections such as "fair use" and that patent law must include similar safeguards. He suggests that the safeguard comes in the form of a part of the Patent Act, known as "Section 101", which says some things--including abstract ideas--simply can't be patented in the first place.


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  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday October 04 2016, @02:38PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday October 04 2016, @02:38PM (#410008) Journal

    > hasn't caught the eye of legal firms or they're just trying to ignore it

    I'm going with "ignore". Patent and copyright fights have been a cash cow for legal firms. They sure don't want any clarifications that make lawsuits unnecessary and pointless.

    As to why the media is ignoring this, it doesn't have enough drama for them. I don't think it has much to do with any connections to lawyers.

    Yet this is big stuff. Linking IP monopolies to Freedom of Speech by stating that they hinder it? Wow. That part may not hold up, but there are many other arguments against IP monopolies that may suffice to end the patenting of software. Took an awful lot of patent trolling to show people that software patents are a bad idea.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @03:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @03:01PM (#410018)

    Linking IP monopolies to Freedom of Speech by stating that they hinder it?

    Well, software patents certainly do hinder freedom of speech. Hopefully this decision is upheld, but I'm not expecting anything

  • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:42PM

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:42PM (#410300)

    As to why the media is ignoring this, it doesn't have enough drama for them. I don't think it has much to do with any connections to lawyers.

    This, plus the fact it is a fairly complex issue not easily squeezed down to a 14 second sound bite. Try explaining the problems with software patents to a non-tech friend and you'll see.