SSCOTUS deals another blow to software developers (as before) by sidling with the unreasonable and requiring that coders essentially study hundreds of thousands of patents before writing a single line of code. Ars Technica says that according to SCOTUS, "'willful blindness' to patent infringement not OK":
In a lopsided 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court on Tuesday held that "willful blindness" to the existence of a patent will not save you from charges of inducing other companies to violate the patent at issue. The case has drawn interest from the software industry because a lower court decision had chosen a laxer standard, "deliberate indifference," that a coalition of software companies warned would be bad for innovation. The Supreme Court agreed with the lower court that the defendant here was liable, but it did so with a narrower rule that is less likely to ensnare inadvertent infringers in future.
Comments
twitter
2011-06-03 00:34:15
As usual, the solution is to abolish software patents.
Needs Sunlight
2011-06-03 07:26:17
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2011-06-03 07:29:35