Bonum Certa Men Certa

After Alice Case 'Judges Invalidated Patents Wholesale'

Wonderland may be on the horizon now

Alice in Wonderland



Summary: Courts in the United States are rapidly eliminating many software patents, but the media, (mis)informed by patent lawyers and other patent practitioners, is slow to report it if it ever reports this at all

PatentBuddy says that "ABA [American Bar Association] Alice Task Force found that Dist. Ct. judges invalidated patents wholesale, citing Alice, without any evidence, 66% of time." Separately it claims that "ABA Post Alice Task Force Found that USPTO Rejections of Claims under 101/Alice Relied upon Boilerplate only, no evidence, 64% of time."



Whichever figure is taken (with a grain of salt of course), it is clear that a lot of software patents are being invalidated and patent lawyers (and by extension barristers or judges) are expectedly worried. Lawyers are trying to discredit courts' decisions to invalidate software patents because it's basically their livelihood -- preying on programmers who are actually creating something, not just printing lots of pages and fighting in courts or sending threatening letters at the rate of approximately $300 per hour.

"Whichever figure is taken (with a grain of salt of course), it is clear that a lot of software patents are being invalidated and patent lawyers are expectedly worried."PatentBuddy also shares this PDF and writes that this is "Amicus Brief in Support of Ultramercial's Petition to S.Ct. Seeking 101 Clarity Post Alice" (for the uninitiated, 101/Alice alludes to invalidation based on how abstract a patent is).

Techrights is of course delighted to see some software patents diminishing in the US, for their demise in the US might, in turn, lead to their global demise (even in Japan and maybe China).

Scott Graham, a writer for The Recorder, says that the "Federal Circuit Tightens Squeeze on Software Patents". He writes (behind a paywall of some esoteric kind): "En banc ruling Tuesday in 'Williamson v. Citrix' means more patents will be subject to statutory requirements for means-plus-function claims."

This is again good news, especially coming from the Federal Circuit despite its notorious biases.

Obviously, software patents are still celebrated in the corporate media. Even the so-called 'Guardian' does it. Language of lawyers can be found in Science Magazine (behind paywall), saying that "IBN has generated more than 300 patents, 80 licenses" (as if patents are "generated" and licences are "generated"), but we have come to expect that from media that large corporations are controlling, irrespective of what courts are ruling. Here is a prominent blog of patent lawyers speaking about patents being sold like a commodity, sometimes to trolls (at the behest of corporations even). It says: "The chart above shows the percentage of U.S. patents issued to Inventors and not (reportedly) assigned to any organization or government. The data comes from the PTO. While this chart shows a dramatic drop, the actual number of inventor-owned patents has stayed relatively stable over the past decade — the dropping percentage is due more to a rise in the number of patents granted to corporate owners. The drop here does not necessarily mean that independent inventors are being squeezed-out — just that the rise in patent grants is not due to independent inventors."

The term "independent inventors" is in itself a form of propaganda. It seeks to promote the old myth that patents exist to protect the "small guys" rather than massive corporations with a gigantic library -- perhaps weighing at millions of pages -- of patent monopolies (to be wielded like a weapon).

All in all, things appear to be improving with each ruling on software patents in the US. Don't expect patent lawyers to acknowledge that. It would be like Microsoft publicly stating that proprietary software is doomed.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Flying in 2025
worse than ever before
The UEFI 9/11 - Part III - Chaos is Scheduled to Happen Second Thursday of September (No Matter What the Microsofters Tell You)
The clock is ticking
Downplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
 
GAFAM and "MATA"
The use of dark humour there hopefully helps illuminate what a lot of "modern" technology became like and how it interacts with human civilisation (to what ends and whose gain)
Birds Are Not "Pests and Vermin", Privacy is Not a Crime, and GNU/Linux is Not 'Hacking Platform'
I could not help but think of Free software analogies
The Sites Should Be Very Fast Again
That issue is now resolved
Activists, Including Technical Activists, Need Not Pursue Affirmation
Techrights doesn't play or participate in a "popularity contest"
Government Sites Should Run Free Software
Not proprietary bloatware with buzzwords
LLM Slopfarms Take No Breaks
When people run sites by bots they don't need to worry about "breaks"
GNOME Having a Meltdown Again
Thanks and farewell to Steven Deobald
Gemini Links 30/08/2025: Low Tech and Hunchbin 1.0.6
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 29, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 29, 2025
Financiers and Sponsors of the Slop Hype (Pyramid Scheme Waiting to End, Bubble That Will Inevitably Implode)
It's also burning the planet
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Google Helps Ponzi Schemes and Slopfarms in Google News
Slopfarms are a real pain
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Retiring at 62 and URL Filtering HTTP(S) Proxy on Qubes OS
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Lisa Cook Sues Convicted Felon and Backdoor Mandate in UK Resisted
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
Links for the day
Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms