Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: Trolls, Software and Literature

Although there is no 'breakthrough' news on the subject of software patents, Digital Majority has some picks of interest. They shed light on where things stand.

Patent Trolls



Cisco went on the record criticising the current patent system. Cisco's former intellectual monopolies director, Rick Frenkel, turned out to be Patent Troll Tracker an then sued, but Mark Chandler's remarks seem similarly critical.

Mark Chandler - senior vice president of legal services and general counsel of Cisco Systems - said that "technology companies all too often find themselves as defendants in patent suits". Is it a sign that software patents contribute negatively to the benefit balance of the patent system for software firms?


There are those who fight fire with fire.

After failing to get Congress to pass a patent reform bill, some large technology companies have decided that if they can’t beat the patent trolls, they can at least use some of the trolls’ own weapons against them.

Called different names—patent trolls, non-practicing entities (NPE), third-party patent holding companies—depending on who’s talking, trolls typically buy patents and then try to extract license fees from large corporations that they allege infringe on those patents. They have long been a thorn in the side of companies with successful products and deep pockets. But in the last five years, the problem has gotten worse as more money has flowed to NPEs (see sidebar, "Trolling for dollars").


Some Background



A couple of new posts explain how software patents came about in the first place:

1. Software Patents

However, with the addition of software and business method patents in the 1980’s, the statute has been the subject of dispute. Until about 1981, the U.S. Patent Office held that steps performed by a computer were unpatentable under at least €§ 101. However, in Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175 (1981), the Supreme Court overruled the Patent Office and held that, though an algorithm and the like are abstract and unpatentable, the fact that an otherwise patentable process is carried out on a computer does not make it unpatentable.


2. Leveraging Through Software Patents

In 1995, the U.S.P.T.O. decided it was time to develop guidelines for patent examiners that reflect these recent court decisions. After releasing draft versions of the guidelines for comment, the U.S.P.T.O. adopted guidelines for U.S.P.T.O. examiners to determine when a software related invention is statutory and therefore patentable.


It's important to recognise history in order to prevent exacerbation.

More Issues



When code can be produced so rapidly with just a keyboard and a $20 second-hand PC, the barriers imposed by software patents become significant. When this code is distributed, i.e. duplicated ('manufacturing' equivalent), then the R&D-equivalent cost becomes much greater and serious problems are encountered. Here is a post that conveys part of this conundrum.

Collecting the information necessary to prepare a patent application covering a computer related invention can be quite challenging. Typically, most computer related inventions today relate at least in some way to software, which is at the core of the challenge. This software challenge stems from the fact that the software code is not protected by patent law, but rather how the software operates is protected. This means that the description needs to be one that can be replicated by others regardless of how they choose to write code to accomplish the necessary tasks.

A patent does not need to be a blueprint, but it needs to direct. For example, you do not need to provide the code for the scripts, although that is certainly one way to make sure it is described adequately.


Papers



The following paper from Duke [PDF] explores the issue of code ownership at universities.

University policies towards ownership of software have recently become quite controversial. In this paper, we present what is to our knowledge the first systematic study of such ownership. We rely in part on a unique, hand-curated database of university software patents. The combination of our quantitative and qualitative research yields a number of interesting results. First, software patents represent an important, and growing, component of university patent holdings. Second, the main determinant of university software patenting is not computer science-related R&D (or even overall R&D) but the university's overall tendency to seek patents on R&D outputs.


More people appear to be exploring this subject and addressing important questions.

I'm currently preparing a paper on the Open Source software developer's perspective on software patents (with a friend of mine, Owen Jones, who has the real expertise in patents), and so naturally I was interested in what the expert panel had to say about software patents.


An entire book has already been written on the subject and here is the latest review of this book (among several more reviews).

You'd have to do a lot of man-on-the-street interviews before you'd find someone who could explain the difference between a patent and a trademark. And even the relatively savvy participants in the Ars forums have been known to mangle copyright's fair use doctrine, misunderstand key provisions of the GPL, or foolishly assume that the law must track their own notions of common sense.

Yet the complex and esoteric legal regimes collectively known as "intellectual property"—copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets—have never been more important in the lives of software developers. Failure to understand the implications of key legal documents can prevent programmers from doing their jobs and enjoying the fruits of their labor. And because the free software community has learned to leverage the power of copyright law to protect end-users' freedom, understanding copyright law is especially important to developers of free software.


Miscellaneous



Just like in India, Australia is carefully rechecking the scope of patenting and its impact on development.

A report has been completed. It says, the inventive steps required to qualify for patents should be considerable, and the resulting patents must be well defined, as to mininise litigation and maximise the scope for subsequent innovators. In particular software and business method patenting is an Australian concern.


Glyn Moody on intellectual monopolies in the International Expert Group on Biotechnology:

One of the heartening signs of things changing in the world of intellectual monopolies is that more and more groups and studies are coming out that highlight the manifest problems with the current system.


Appended below are some new (ish) video additions from YouTube which show not why patents are valuable; it helps in understanding how so-called 'inventors' think. It's underwhelming in places and maybe worth a glance over the weekend.




Inventors Insider 01 - Financing your Invention Part 1






Inventors Insider 02 - Financing your Invention Part 2






Inventors Insider 03 - Financing your Invention Part 3






Inventors Insider 04 - Financing your Invention Part 4






Inventors Insider 05 - Financing your Invention Part 5






Inventors Insider 06 - Scandalous and Immoral Patents Pt1






Inventors Insider 07 - Scandalous and Immoral Patents Pt2






Inventors Insider 08 - Scandalous and Immoral Patents Pt3

Recent Techrights' Posts

BetaNews Has More or Less Died After Experiments With LLM Slop, Is Linuxsecurity Next?
It doesn't seem like BetaNews knows what it's doing, let alone what it talks about
Links 13/06/2025: Journalists Targeted by Cracking, China-Japan and Israel-Iran Tensions Grow
Links for the day
 
Links 14/06/2025: Wars and L.A. Distortion Effect
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/06/2025: Historic Ada Design and GeminiSpace.Club to Expire
Links for the day
Links 14/06/2025: India Plane Crash and Middle-Eastern War
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 13, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: (Not)virtues and Project Yeet Broadband
Links for the day
Links 13/06/2025: US Reduces Nonessential Staff at Baghdad Embassy Ahead of Strikes in Iran, Invasion of California Debated
Links for the day
X11 is Free Software
Whether you agree (e.g. on politics) with the person/s forking it doesn't matter
The More Time Passes, the Better Our Advice on Social Control Media Seems
At the end of the day, any platform you do not control yourself is working for someone else
Twitter (X) is Dying, Now It's Just Like a Mafia-Type Operation of the Man Who Does Nazi Salutes in Public
a form of extortion
UK High Court Blasts Brett Wilson LLP for Misusing "GDPR" After Failed Efforts to Censor Critics Using 'Libel' Claims
No wonder this firm is rapidly shrinking
Recent Blunders in Microsoft GitHub (e.g. Slop-Generated Bug Reports or GPL Violations 'as a Service') Taking Their Toll?
Put bluntly, if you still use Microsoft GitHub, then you're slave to Microsoft
American Imperialism and Microsoft Plagiarism
Techrights will therefore do what Microsoft does not want it to do: it'll write even more about Microsoft
When They Have Nothing Left to Help Advance Abusive Litigation for Microsoft People... Other Than Throwing ~500 Pages of Someone Else's Work Into a PDF
Microsoft is having a very tough year
The Price of Exposing Corruption in Poland (and Elsewhere)
It's easier to participate in corruption than to merely do the right thing and oppose it
Slopwatch and Yet More Holes in 'Secure Boot' (as Usual!), Promoted Inside Linux by the Man We Are Suing
Today's Slopwatch will be short
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: People You've Left Behind, Life Update and OS Changes
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 12, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 12, 2025
Links 12/06/2025: Portland Homeless Deaths Quadruple, COVID Cases Surge in Asia
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IX: Minimum Wages For You (Experienced Scientist), Alicante/EU Paydays For Me (Unproductive, Corrupt Official)
Does UPRP maladministration extend to the false belief that qualified and experienced scientists can play the role of circus clowns?
"The Liberating Power of Simply Telling People the Truth."
'polite' bullying
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
EPO's Gareth Lord Asked About "Quality and Productivity" or, Put Another Way, Why the EPO Keeps Granting So Many Invalid/Illegal Patents
letter to Lord
EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) Scrutinises the Man Who Illegally Grants (and Forces Others to Illegally Participate in Granting) Software Patents in Europe
EPO compels examiners to break the law in the name of obeying illegal "rules" or "orders"
The Latest Rumour Says The Next (as Correctly Predicted Before) Wave of Layoffs at Microsoft is 3 Weeks Away, "Larger Than the First Wave"
Step 2
TV Licensing Used to SPAM Your Postbox, Now It Does the Same to E-mail
First they ask for your E-mail address; then they start nagging you via E-mail
The Toxic Playbook
Either you support Prince Mohammed bin Salman or you're a nazi
It's Possible That BetaNews Got Cracked, But Nobody Talks About It, The Site Contains an Outdated Old Image, No Activity
It's possible that they will never explain what happened to the site and users' accounts
Links 12/06/2025: Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/06/2025: Video Game Diegesis and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Why the Militants Have Lost Every Battle Since 2022 (When Attacking My Wife and I in Various Ways, Even Attacking Our Employers)
This takes patience, sure, but at the end most evildoers face the consequences for their actions
Our Priority is Still Tackling Software Patents and Corruption in Patent Offices
Meanwhile we got compliments on our recent articles, which means that they are effective
Politics Will Impact Software Choices
Will those systems respect users' freedom?
EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition
Yesterday the Central Staff Committee at the EPO spoke about another "reform" at the Office
Slopwatch: Another Day, Another Slopfest, LLM Slop Scrapers Slow Down Our Site
We too have some slop issues; this past day this site and the sister site had to answer about 2.5 million requests (not counting Gemini Protocol) and it's slowing things down for everybody
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 11, 2025