Bonum Certa Men Certa

Software Patent Applications Already Being Rejected in the US Owing to SCOTUS Ruling, Some Patent Lawyers Are Fuming

Small change

A restrooom



Summary: Good news on the software patents front as the USPTO starts rejecting software patent applications, based on patent lawyers' words

There is a curious new piece from zealous patent lawyers who promote software patents and equate sales with need for patents, adding foolish statements like the conclusion below (from WatchTroll's co-writer): "The Alice decision will no doubt take some time to shake out in the lower courts and perhaps some certainty (i.e., one or more tests for each step in the Mayo framework) will develop. In the meantime, I note that according to the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, the U.S. software and IT services industry had revenue totaling US$606B in 2011, with overall research and development spending of US$126.3B, and a U.S. workforce of nearly two million people. Further, a PriceWaterhouseCoopers report pegs the cumulative value of technology-related M&A activity for 2013 at US$99.8B, with software representing 25% of this total value and 35% of the total deal volume. This is a substantial amount of U.S. commerce that deserves stable and predictable patent law protection! Until then, code (and patent) on!"



This is a completely bogus argument, whose premise can be used to say the very opposite about software patents. Just because he ends with an exclamation point doesn't mean he is right. Quite the contrary. These patent lawyers only care about themselves. The status quo of software patents is mostly beneficial to patent trolls, as pointed out by this new article that says: "Surveys dating back to 1996 and statements by leading visionaries in the area of software programming such as Richard Stallman show that most people in the industry are not in support of software patents. These show that reform is required in this area and most are of the belief that software development is impeded by the fact there may be patents and/or copyrights. These patents and/or copyrights may prevent them from releasing their product on to the market and may also cause monetary damage to them in terms of legal fees and lost sales arising out of potential litigation."

Meanwhile, looking at the latest from Microsoft's propaganda and FOSS mole blog, the company makes money out of taxing GNU/Linux, due to SUSE's appalling complicity. This is what patents on software lead to.

While SUSE does continue to exist (although with diminished presence) people around the world should just boycott it. Microsoft wants software patents not to encourage innovation but to assure extortion; likewise, patent lawyers fight hard to re-frame the SCOTUS ruling because it limits their parasitic overreach which taxes software everywhere.

Going back to the previous article, let us remember who else benefits from software patents. This is a correlation that we noted numerous times before, especially when arguing that patent scope -- not trolls -- is the core issue and the way to tackle this issue. To quote just the conclusion: "The fourth chart depicts that unto 93% of patent litigations in the software area are being initiated by NPEs (Non-practicing entities) aka patent trolls; whereas for other technology areas, the percentage of patent litigations being initiated by NPEs are in a minority. The fifth chart depicts the percentage of patents with at least one invalid claim (as decided by the courts during the course of litigation), wherein the invalidity may be based on novelty and/or non-obviousness. 38% and 53% of the patents in the software and business method area respectively have at least one invalid claim; whereas only 27% of patents in the other technological areas have at least one invalid claim. Further, this chart also shows that 59% of patents assigned to trolls have at least one invalid claim. The sixth chart depicts the rising number of patent litigations in the courts, with chart #7 depicting that the ratio of litigations related to patents from the software/business method have been rising at an average of 2000 per annum. The ninth chart depicts the costs of patent litigation and the ever increasing trend of the costs."

Gene Quinn, the WatchTroll himself, is a patent lawyer who is actively lobbying for software patents. Based on this important article from him (important for what he reports, not his commetary), things rapidly improve in the US as software becomes hard too patent and hence also hard to enforce through the courts. To quote the software patents booster himself: "A friend who handles large numbers of software patent applications for some of the most elite technology companies sent me an e-mail late last week about what he has already started seeing coming from patent examiners. He says he has seen the below form paragraph twice within a week. Most alarming, in one case the form paragraph came in the form of a supplemental office action, but the outstanding original office action didn’t have any patent eligibility rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101."

Well, he is very much upset by this. He accuses the messenger. He says: "The claims are abstract because the claims do not recite limitations significantly more than an abstract idea. Truthfully, this rather ridiculous logical construct can’t be blamed on patent examiners when the Supreme Court refuses to provide a definition for what is an abstract idea."

All software patents are abstract (not code), so they should all be seen as invalid. We explained this several times in the past month. This is something that lawyers struggle to grasp, either because they don't want to grasp it (cognitive dissonance) or because they cannot.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
 
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025
Links 24/04/2025: GAFAM Problems and No Peace (or Ceasefire) in Sight
Links for the day
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Promoting Microsoft and Proprietary Software Using Microsoft Operatives
Because nothing says "Open Source" like GPL violations facilitated by Microsoft
Another Site Bites the Dust: "Open Source For You" Becoming a Slopfarm (LLM Slop)
What a shame. Another dead site.
Links 23/04/2025: Crackdowns on Dissent, Palin Loses Libel Retrial Against New York Times
Links for the day
Links 23/04/2025: Hard Times and Digital Amnesia
Links for the day
The GNU/Linux Site Formerly Known as "linoxide.com" is Back... as an LLM Slopfarm!
Better for linoxide.com to go offline than to do this
Richard Stallman to Speak in Oxford University Exactly a Day From Now
outsourced to GAFAM
Links 23/04/2025: "Hiding Corruption" and "The Cost of Defunding Harvard"
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Studies' Again? Leon Musolff is Writing Papers With Microsoft.
Even if one can see/find a link to "the study" (in the Bezos-controlled publication), most people won't look any further and just take everything at face value.
Towards GNU World Domination
The FSF led by Geoffrey S. Knauth with his friend Richard Stallman in the FSF's Board [...] Let's encourage people to adopt GNU/Linux. There has never been a better time.
statCounter Helps Visualise Just How Deep in Trouble Microsoft is (Especially in Africa)
Microsoft sabotaged efforts to connect Africans and equip them with GNU/Linux laptops
The Register is Using Linux-Hostile Clickbait in Articles of Linux Proponents
Don't be a "whore" to advertisers, team El Reg
Microsoft Windows in Cyprus Lacking a Future
Most people access the Web there from mobile
Matrix Has a Severe Problem With Illegal Images
If Matrix cannot get the CP problem under control, many projects and people will dump Matrix
Never Try to Justify Strangulation of Women (Not in the US and Not in the UK)
Joint post by Mrs. Rianne Schestowitz and Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Links 23/04/2025: Tesla Profits Plunge 71%, Intel Ready to Lay Off 20% of Staff, Microsoft and IBM Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Most Profound Issue is That People Moved to 'Mobile' and "App Stores" (Microsoft's Presence There is Negligible)
Expect a wild ride for Microsoft this year
Google News is Amplifying FUD and Lies About Linux (and OpenSSH/SSH) by Promoting Slopfarms With Machine-Generated FUD and Slop Images
Google should know better
Gemini Links 23/04/2025: Librarians, Anubis, and Refactoring a Gemini Capsule
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 22, 2025