AS WE POINTED out a couple of days ago, In Re Bilski goes all the way to the top, potentially to invalidate software patents in the United States. Groklaw has some very extensive text and the software patents-hostile wiki has a new page asking, "should the whole patent system be axed?"
Microsoft, Lucent battle in huge patent case
Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) argued before an appeals court on Tuesday that its Outlook calendar date-picker tool did not infringe an Alcatel-Lucent (ALUA.PA) patent and asked for a $358 million jury verdict to be overturned.
The lawsuit is the last remaining after Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft settled other patent fights in December. The case was appealed from a district court in San Diego, where a jury ruled that Microsoft did infringe and ordered it to pay $358 million, or $511 million including interest.
[PDF] recently an Amicus Curiae Brief to the EPO EBoA defending the approval of software patents.
Bilski was up for discussion yesterday at the Supreme Court's private cert-consideration conference, so we could know as early as Monday if Judge Sotomayor will have that one facing her in the fall. I have no idea what Judge Sotomayor's views are on the patentability of software-implemented business method patents, and I don't think anyone else does either.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: I may not be a software developer, but as I read the invention, it's displaying pictures of your wares on a computer network and, you know, picking which ones you want and buying them. I -- I might have been able to do that.In the patent bar and at the Federal Circuit, software patents are the law of the land. But during oral arguments in the 2007 AT&T v. Microsoft case, which regarded damages for infringing copies of software distributed overseas, it became clear that the at least a few Supreme Court justices haven't made up their minds about whether software should be patentable.
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During oral arguments in that case, Justice Breyer went out of his way to make it clear that despite the fact that software patents were issued widely following the Federal Circuit's 1998 State Street Bank decision, he had never gotten the opportunity to weigh in, and as far as he was concerned, it's not a settled issue:
JUSTICE BREYER: “I take it that we are operating on an assumption that software is patentable? We have never held that in this Court, have we?”Later, Justice Stevens also asked a government lawyer point-blank whether software is patentable. The answer: "Standing alone in and of itself, no."
He likely said that because as it stands, software has to be tied to a machine to get a patent—not hard to do. But it shows that for Stevens, like Breyer, software patents are up for debate.
Store Payment Info In Your Online Store? Watch Out For Patent Infringement Lawsuits
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As for the patents in question, they're all a variation on a "method and apparatus for conducting electronic commerce transactions using electronic tokens." The specific patents are 7,376,621, 7,249,099, 7,328,189 and 7,177,838. Reading through the claims, this seems like an incredibly typical online system for storing payment info and seeing if the person can actually pay. Since the patent system defenders among our readers get quite upset whenever I say something seems "obvious" to me, let's flip this around. Can anyone explain how these concepts were not obvious at the time of filing?
Patent trolls live under the bridge
Dell, HP, Fujitsu and IBM have been hit by a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas Marshall Division - famously known for its ability to expedite patent (chapter 830) disputes. The article linked to points out that it is unfair to describe anyone bringing patent suits to court as "patent trolls" - they have to have a sound case and deserve their time in court. So who exactly are the trolls?
Actus goes patent lawsuit crazy
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The outfit clams that more than 15 companies, including Apple, Amazonmdocs, American Express, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Cabela's, Citigroup, Ebay, Firstview, Marketing Technology Concepts, Netspend, Officemax, US Bancorp, and Vivotech have nicked its technology.
Comments
The Mad Hatter
2009-06-06 16:29:14
1) Optimized location of a switch. 2) Reactionless Space Ship Drive 3) Location of a Grease Fitting to prevent water ingress (mount if facing down) 4) Installing an engine in a machine 5) Installing a fuel system on an engine (well duh!) 6) Measuring the level of fluid in a tank
They literally will issue patents for anything. Some of these things have been done for years (but not documented - who knew that location of a grease fitting needs to be documented) or are scientifically impossible (check the "Dean Drive" entry on Wikipedia).
Roy Schestowitz
2009-06-06 18:42:13