Bonum Certa Men Certa

US Supreme Court Poised to Limit Patent Scope Even Further and Hamper Trolls-Friendly Courts

Progress being made... (and the infamous patent on the progress bar would be a thing of the past)

Progress bar



Summary: The steps taken by US Justices, who view patents from a compassionate point of view rather than a maximalist perspective, undo decades of a patent gold rush

THE USPTO became "Great Again" under the latter Obama years (maybe the past three years). "Key Patent Law Decisions Of 2016", a new article from the patent lawyers' platform, recalls that "[t]he U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit wrestled with a number of important issues of patent law in 2016, including in three Supreme Court opinions (with more on the way) and three en banc Federal Circuit opinions. The issues in these cases were diverse and wide-ranging, including administrative review of patents in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") and the International Trade Commission ("ITC"), recognition of a new patent agent privilege, and the Supreme Court's first design patent decision in more than a century."



"The patent microcosm is still moaning about decisions that are years behind; it wants a resurgence of patent maximalism, i.e. the misguided belief that the more patents we have, the better off the economy will be (not just their own bottom line)."We have covered most of these and pointed out that SCOTUS limited patent scope in 2016, just as it had done in 2015 and 2014 (Alice, Mayo and so on). This is fantastic news to patent reformers and we hope that reformist policies will persist under Trump. Posted behind paywall yesterday was the article "The Supreme Court's Impact on Patentable Subject Matter". The patent microcosm is still moaning about decisions that are years behind; it wants a resurgence of patent maximalism, i.e. the misguided belief that the more patents we have, the better off the economy will be (not just their own bottom line).

The EFF, which has been habitually attacked by the patent microcosm (Watchtroll called it “a leftist anti-patent activist coalition” [1, 2]), has just released a statement titled "EFF To Patent Office: Supreme Court Limits On Abstract Patents Are a Good Thing"; it's a powerful statement which cites Alice -- a decision which is now killing software patents. To quote:

"EFF has submitted comments to the Patent Office urging it not to support efforts to undermine the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Alice v. CLS Bank. The Patent Office had called for public submissions regarding whether “legislative changes are desirable” in response to recent court decisions, including Alice. We explain that, far from harming the software industry, Alice has helped it thrive.

"Every software engineer, system administrator etc. that I speak to absolutely loves Alice. It was belated (by decades) justice to the software profession and it gives many software companies peace of mind.""When the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Alice, it was a shock to a patent system that had been churning out software patents by the tens of thousands every year. Back in the 1990s, the Federal Circuit had opened the software patent floodgate with its ruling in State Street and In re Alappat. That decision held that any general purpose computer could be eligible for a patent so long as it is programmed to perform a particular function. In Alice, the Supreme Court substantially moderated that holding by ruling that a generic computer is not eligible for a patent simply because it is programed to implement an abstract idea.

"Courts have applied Alice to throw out many of the worst software patents. Alice is particularly valuable because, in some cases, courts have applied it early in litigation thereby preventing patent trolls from using the high expense of litigation to pressure defendants into settlements. While we think that the Federal Circuit could do more to diligently apply Alice, it has at least been a step forward."

Every software engineer, system administrator etc. that I speak to absolutely loves Alice. It was belated (by decades) justice to the software profession and it gives many software companies peace of mind. I personally know some people whose employer/customers got attacked by patent trolls and suffered severely as a result. These patent trolls, as usual, relied on software patents.

Speaking of patent trolls, are they about to lose it all? SCOTUS intends to look into their breeding ground, as Above the Law noted this week, under the title "Leaving The Heartland?"

To quote:

By accepting the case, the Supreme Court has already indicated it is willing to consider the question of whether the Federal Circuit has taken too expansive a view of venue in patent cases. If the Supreme Court decides that restrictive language in the patent venue statute controls, then patent cases will be permitted only in districts where either the defendant is incorporated or has a physical place of business. Since relatively few regular patent defendants meet either criteria in the EDTX, the thought is that the EDTX’s patent litigation well will quickly dry up. Which may be a boon to technology companies located on either coast, many of which would not miss the EDTX one iota. At the same time, the robust infrastructure that has arisen to support patent litigation in the EDTX would be adversely affected, likely to the economic detriment of the region.


Trump will likely nominate if not appoint a Scalia replacement. If all the rest of the Justices keep their seats, then we expect (as do others, including scholars) the Supreme Court to deal a mortal blow to patent trolls

Promising times ahead.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 11/04/2025: Microcosmographia Academica and Ada Language
Links for the day
At the Root of the SLAPPs There Are Matters of GitHub Corruption and Microsoft Competition Crimes
Keep both eyes on the ball; this is about monopoly abuse and attempts to muzzle critics
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: More on the Complaint, Which Also Points the Finger at Stefano Mafulli and Deb Nicholson
Focus on what they are attempting to distract from
"Linux" Foundation, Besieged by Microsoft, Isn't About Science But Against Science and Against Facts
(and for Microsoft Dogma, Microsoft Domination, Microsoft Money)
IBM Pays IDG's IDC to Market Proprietary Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Under the Guise of "Research"
Proprietary RHEL promoted by FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt or just plain fear-mongering)
 
Links 11/04/2025: LLMs as Worthless Gimmicks, People in Trouble for Saying Too Much in (or Before) 'Cheeto Era'
Links for the day
Links 11/04/2025: "Getting Screamed At" and LLM Crawlers as Vandals Online
Links for the day
Links 11/04/2025: Microsoft Mass Layoffs Again, Zelensky Doubles Down on Claim That Many Chinese Are Fighting for Russia
Links for the day
Slopwatch: A Sea of LLM Slop About SparkyLinux, Kubernetes, Ubuntu, and Linux Kernel
Welcome to the future? The future of the Web?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 10, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 10, 2025
Gemini Links 10/04/2025: "Secret of Happiness" and Overthinking POSSE
Links for the day
Links 10/04/2025: NNCPNET Email Network, RSS Readers, and IRS as 'Immigration Enforcer'
Links for the day
IBM Layoffs in Markham (Canada) Apparently Still Happening
"Still going on... Got laid off today. TEL Canada, Band 9, 19 years with IBM."
Links 10/04/2025: Fentanylware (TikTok) Perils and Internet Shutdown
Links for the day
Microsoft's "Linux" Foundation Pays Writers to Publish Propaganda and Then LLM Slop Sites (Slopfarms) Repeat the Propaganda, Using Microsoft LLMs
consider the latest LLM slop
Once You Slop You Can't Stop and If You're a Serial Slopper Nobody Will Believe You Really Wrote an Article (Even If You Did)
It's a lot like, "if you're a serial liar people won't believe you even when you say some truth" (or "once a cheater, always a cheater")
Pressing Against SLAPPs (From Americans Who Strangle Women While Microsoft Pays Their Salaries) is a High Priority for Us
We also need to ensure that greedy firms/people that facilitate the SLAPPs get "disbarred" or "struck off"
Mozilla Firefox Already Down to 1% in Brazil
Don't people crave the surveillance and the slop?
Links 10/04/2025: Hardware, Politics, and Internet
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/04/2025: Creativity and Agitation, Life in the USA, CSS Naked Day 2025
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 09, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 09, 2025
Alleged Layoffs at IBM Consulting in Australia
IBM loses many government contracts these days
The Rumours Were Likely True: Sixth Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in 2025 (Days After "50" Anniversary and About 5,000 Layoffs)
5 hours ago, by Ashley Stewart
Malware in Proprietary Software - Latest Additions
Original by Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Links 09/04/2025: More Trade Wars and Wars, Chinese Army Troops Found Fighting in Ukraine
Links for the day
Linux Clickbait by Slop
Give it up for Brian Fagioli, the Serial Slopper
IBM and MCC: Layoffs Coming Again to Metro Connect Company Limited (MCC) as Tariffs Bite and IBM's Shares Fall
Blacklists applicable to Chinese suppliers also mean that IBM can no longer cooperate with key partners in Asia
Microsoft's Entire Premise for Its Future Existence Goes Up in Flames
32 minutes ago
GNU/Linux on a High in Colombia
Stereotypes much?
Go Static
Please don't Go(lang) or JavaScript or PHP or...
Techrights Be Like...
K.I.S.S.
Gemini Links 09/04/2025: Autism, Cybersecurity, and LLMs Attacking Services Online
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Would be Measured at Over 5% Globally (by statCounter) Had the Data in India Not Been Changed
GNU/Linux grew a lot in many countries and has expanded since then
Keeping Track of Microsoft Layoffs in 2025
So here's a quick roundup of 2025
The Sixth Anniversary of the Lightweight Alternative to the Web (Gemini Protocol)
Now 11 short of 3,000 active capsules. 65 short of 4,500 total.
Links 09/04/2025: Quartz Fires All Writers (Shutdown, LLM Slop or Slopfarm Instead), "Bitcoin Is Crashing Hard"
Links for the day
People Are Sick of LLM Slop. Offer Them Alternatives.
We never used LLM slop for anything and we never will
Web Surveyor statCounter Sees Apple's macOS Falling From 5.6% to 3.6% in Two Months, It Might Soon be Smaller Than GNU/Linux
Apple's "value" (faked, exaggerated) is back to "pandemic times"
UK House of Lords Recognises the SLAPP Issue in the UK and EFF Pursues "Bill (That) Could Put A Stop To Censorship By Lawsuit" in the US
"A House of Lords inquiry into how the news industry can survive into the future has accused the government of “failing to prioritise” action on strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs)."
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: Seeking Class Action Against the OSI
"LETTER SEEKING CLASS ACTION REPRESENTATION"
The Value of Slop, by Alexandre Oliva
Original by Alexandre Oliva
Gemini Links 09/04/2025: Neocities, Tinylogs, and Inter-community Protocols
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 08, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 08, 2025
You Can Be an A--hole to Women (Even Strangle Women) as Long as You Work for Microsoft
Recalling the Mark Shuttleworth origin story
Canonical is a Proprietary Software Reseller With a 'Debian Base'
"Canonical Ubuntu" is just Debian with some proprietary things sold on top of it