Bonum Certa Men Certa

Demise of Software Patents and Refusal of the Patents 'Industry' to Accept That

Limiting entry of patents on software

Sign - no entry



Summary: More stories about the invalidation of software patents in the US and some responses from people who make a living handling patents

PATENTS on software are gradually being invalidated, not just failing to be granted in the first place. The Supreme Court (also known as SCOTUS) decided that if a patent on an abstract concept has insufficient merit, then it shouldn't be upheld and should instead be discarded. This discouraged some litigation, as numbers serve to demonstrate. Patent trolls and giant corporations would rather intimidate using patents (shakedown) than actually sue. SCOTUS has of course endorsed patent trolling since then and it very much knew what it was doing:



Not only did Scalia acknowledge such a beast as a patent troll, but threw in my second-most favorite Latin phrase of all time, in terrorem which means “into or about fear”.


This new Securus press release, published from Texas, says "Securus Expects Some Patents To Be Invalidated – No Impact On Quality Or Scale Advantage of Securus' Industry Leading Patent Portfolio" (the context being some of their patents having been invalidated).

It seems clear that companies which base their business around patents are worried. It looks like the landscape is changing and SD Times, a magazine focused on software development and Microsoft promotion, has asked: "What just happened to software patents?"

Well, as lot of them are going away. "Rightly or wrongly," says the author, "these voices against software patents have become a cacophony. Courts listen to public opinion—don’t let anyone fool you into believing differently. So, when the public became concerned about the software-patent “threat,” so did courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court."

Activism in the area does make a different, make no mistake about it. That's why patent lawyers have been so adamant and determined to take over the media, spreading the false impression that nothing has changed after Alice.

"Software is reducible to mathematics, so software must never be patentable if we are to advance science rather than guard or create monopolies."The author proceeds to stating: "This mutated strain of cases harks back to a Supreme Court case decided in 1948 that had nothing to do with computer software: Funk Brothers v. Kalo. A fundamental tenet of patent law has long been that laws of nature (e.g., E=MC2) cannot be patented. Funk Brothers pushed that much further, saying that a newly discovered law of nature cannot even be the basis for patenting a practical application of that law to solve a real-world problem. Thirty years later, the Supreme Court applied this reasoning to a software-related patent in Parker v. Flook."

Software is reducible to mathematics, so software must never be patentable if we are to advance science rather than guard or create monopolies. Here is a company in DC bragging about acquiring patent monopolies on software, boasting some more in a press release [1, 2]. This is in no way advancing science; in this particular case it can even harm health.

A patent lawyers' blog, which often gives the platform to Microsoft and pro-software patents voices (never the opposite), is giving the platform to a Judge who is defending patent trolls. Among his words of 'wisdom': "The less enforceable the patent is in various ways, the lower the value of the patent for the whole portfolio."

In other words, this judge advocates more lawsuits (business for him) or shakedowns. Recall what patents were conceived for in the first place. It was about publication in exchange for a temporary monopoly, not a parade of litigation. A lot of patent lawyers, whose business is litigation and armament (in the legal sense), seem to conveniently forget or ignore that. Thankfully, as the SCOTUS tries to revert back to some level of sanity, the future of software patents does not look promising.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
 
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025
In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
They ought to move to GNU/Linux
Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
To them, it's either Google or Yandex
In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025