Bonum Certa Men Certa

Bilski Case Working Against Patent Trolls and Against Software Patents -- Already

Supreme court
U.S. Supreme Court, March 2008



TODAY'S NEWS is encouraging because there are finally signs of resistance rather than cowardly settlement. The Facebook case that we mentioned the other day is summoning re Bilski [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33] as precedence to fend off the patent trolls.

Nick O’Neill of AllFacebook thinks Facebook might have to pay up (and he has a copy of the patent up on his site, for the curious). I’m not sure. A top patent court has recently ruled against the validity of patents that don’t involve some sort of “machine or transformation” — I wonder what “machine or transformation” Leader has to offer here? I’m no legal expert, but it’s not clear to me, after reading through the patent. I’m guessing Facebook, if not the rest of the web-based tech industry, won’t be losing too much sleep over it tonight.


Holders of software patents are already warned that their patents might be worthless and that they may require revision.

Clients with issued software patents, medical method patents, and other similar patents may want to run a "Bilski test" on the claims of those patents, particularly if there is a likelihood that the patents will be asserted in the future. If those patents raise any concerns, it may be advisable to correct potential problems or insure against them (e.g., by adding new, more-patentable claims) via reissue proceedings or continuation practice. However, clients should understand that amendments made in a reissue proceeding can provide competitors with additional defenses against a patent. As for patent applications that are still pending, applicants should develop strategies for adding the sorts of elements identified by the Federal Circuit to the claims - in most cases, we expect this can be done without significantly affecting the strength of the claims. For patents currently in litigation, defendants should re-check their defenses, but should be careful not to over-read Bilski, and plaintiffs may really want to look into correcting suspect patents.


As we showed back in May, even the pharmaceuticals are beginning to question the notion of intellectual monopolies as they decide to collaborate instead. Irrespective of this, there's some fear there of the Bilski ruling.

In re Bilski: Trouble Ahead for Biotech?



[...]

While Bilski purports to clarify the test for analyzing the patent-eligibility of processes, many key questions remain unanswered: When is a process sufficiently tied to a particular apparatus or machine? When is the use of a recited machine more than “insignificant extra-solution activity”? When is the claimed transformation “central to the purpose of the claimed process”? When does a claimed invention foreclose substantially all uses of a fundamental principle, such as an algorithm or natural phenomenon? Does Bilski have implications for method of treatment claims? And what about non-process claims, such as claims to a peptide or polynucleotide that was isolated and purified from nature?


Those companies ought to concentrate on bringing drugs to markets in urgent need. Patents encourage overpricing and isolation, i.e. slow progress. They often lead to death and make a morbid society, even literally speaking. So whatever the outcome of re Bilski may be, it's a clearly step in the right direction, which is rare.

On the downside, IBM and Cisco seem to be playing ball with the patent trolls of Intellectual Ventures, claiming that they do so in order to battle other trolls.

Now, two former executives of Myhrvold's Bellevue patent licensing firm are striking out on their own with support from IBM and Cisco to serve as a counterweight to patent holding firms like Intellectual Ventures. Today, RPX Corp. is launching what it dubs "defensive patent aggregation" -- a membership club of sorts where large and small technology companies pool capital in order to order to protect themselves from patent litigation.


What about small companies? Fighting fire with fire is not a solution. It only leads to burning. IBM should just step up and end software patents already.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
 
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025