To be honest, the software sector, especially in the states, has been unable to take a solid position against software patents. Red Hat have been a long supporter of our cause, and I want to thank them for that. Sun... well, they seem unwilling to upset Microsoft, and Microsoft has been pushing hellbent for software patents in Europe, along with Siemens and Phillips, despite the fact that MS is the number one victim of software patent troll attacks in the USA. At a recent conference I attended, a Sun spokesman declared that trademarks were more of a threat to free software than software patents. Very freaky!
The day that the software sector forms a clear front against software patents, as pharma does for a unitary patent system (where all industries are blighted by the same 20-year patent model), will be the day our cause comes close to winning.
The $250 million Vonage burned through as a result of the patent lawsuit brought by Verizon et al provides yet another example of why patents for business processes implemented on computers (a.k.a. software patents) deserve to die. Verizon’s two successful “name translation” patents negate an open standard assembled by Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, Intel and Vocaltec via the VoIP Forum during 1996. The threat of patent litigation cleared the landscape of independent VoIP companies the VoIP Forum sought to make possible.
In a stunning 7-1 decision with extremely broad implications in the field of patents and patentability, the US Supreme Court has overturned a Federal Circuit ruling that was in favor of AT&T, and has apparently affirmed Microsoft's arguments that software coupled with the device on which the software is installed cannot be considered patentable.