Bonum Certa Men Certa

US Patent Lawyers Stressed, Still Complaining About Alice Case and the Potential Sunset on Software Patents

Sunset



Summary: As the dawn of a new, post-software patents era is upon us, those who were making money from conflict are bemoaning the state of affairs

In order to salvage whatever reputation it has left, the USPTO must follow the example of SCOTUS (US Supreme Court) and limit the granting of patents on software. This doesn't mean that software patents are already dead, but little by little we may be getting there. It's only bad news for society's richest people.



"This doesn't mean that software patents are already dead, but little by little we may be getting there."According to the bankers' media, Goldman Sachs now uses patents versus competition from the likes of Bitcoin. "Goldman Sachs," explains this article, "has made a patent application for a cryptocurrency settlement system in a move that underlines bank hopes that the architecture behind bitcoin can revolutionise global payments.

"The application for a new virtual currency, dubbed “SETLcoin” by the bank, said it would offer “nearly instantaneous execution and settlement” of trades involving assets including stocks and bonds."

"They are abstract and are therefore not suitable or worthy of patent grants."We previously wrote many articles here about patents which relate to electronic payments. The challenges are being tackled not with innovation but with patent monopolies. Remember that the famous Alice case too involved a bank (CLS Bank). Patent lawyers are incidentally whining again, alleging that the sky is falling because the Supreme Court did its job and told the public the truth about software patents. They are abstract and are therefore not suitable or worthy of patent grants.

""Innovators" is what the lawyers basically call monopolists, for the most part."Here we have another legal firm, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP, calling the possible end of software patents (or the beginning of the end) "wreaking havoc" as if it's the most terrible thing to even happen (to them at least). To quote their new article: "The Alice Corp. decision and its progeny have been wreaking havoc at the USPTO. In addition to increasing costs, it has cast a shadow on our patent system. Innovators are seemingly unable to get patents without jumping through the ill‑defined “abstract idea/significantly more” hoop. Worse still, if your application ends up classified as a Business Method application, you could face a never‑ending string of €§ 101 rejections for the time being. Clearly, new approaches are needed to get past perfunctory rejections that dismiss claims as mere abstractions."

"Innovators" is what the lawyers basically call monopolists, for the most part. In their minds, more patents absolutely imply more innovation. It's nonsense. By lowering the bar (and the accompanying fees) every patent office can increase the number of patents. This does nothing for innovation. In many cases, innovation can only be retarded by this.

So, after this dramatic opening they say: "Rejections under €§ 101 generally contain a statement about what “abstract idea” the claims represent, along with a statement that any “additional elements” do not constitute “significantly more” than that idea. It’s quite difficult to get over this first hurdle. The Interim Eligibility Guidance from July asserts that abstract ideas “need not be old or long‑prevalent.” Combined with the Supreme Court’s statement in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, 134 S.Ct. 2347, 2354 (2014), that “all inventions . . . embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of nature, natural phenomena, or abstract ideas,” it is clear that the USPTO considers very few claims to not include some abstract idea."

And rightly so. USPTO is doing what's long overdue because it must become more harmonious with courts' decisions, otherwise confidence in patents will decline and almost every patent granted by the USPTO will be viewed as bogus, invalid, incapable of withstanding scrutiny in court.

"Some articles in the media are overwhelmingly dominated by views of profiteers to whom terms like 'innovation' mean nothing; they never innovated anything in their lives, they just engineered disputes, threats, and lawsuits, often on behalf of some large and powerful institutions."At the end, watch how the lawyers are selling themselves to help confuse examiners and get around the rules: "request an interview with the examiner to get clarification as to which elements are abstract. In your next response, argue that the technological elements of the claims are outside of that abstract idea. This will force the examiner to more clearly explain the rejection, which will prepare your application for appeal or – better yet – result in the withdrawal of the rejection."

Meaning, pay a patent lawyer (i.e. a parasite) to see how you can patent software despite increasingly hostile rules (examination guidelines).

Yesterday at a Christmas party I had a chat with a retired MSP from London (he used to work as a programmer with Fortran before becoming a manager). When I explained to him some of these issues he ended up saying that if patent lawyers end up dried of income, he would very much applaud it. Some articles in the media are overwhelmingly dominated by views of profiteers to whom terms like 'innovation' mean nothing; they never innovated anything in their lives, they just engineered disputes, threats, and lawsuits, often on behalf of some large and powerful institutions. Litigation is not production.

“Never confuse motion with action.”

--Benjamin Franklin



Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
 
Links 31/05/2025: Microsoft-Connected Builder.ai is a Fraud and US is Purging Students Based on Race/Nationality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Limmat, Doomscrollers, and Arguments Parsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025
Links 29/05/2025: Chinese Cracking Against EU Institutions (Prague), More Assaults on Media and Its Funding Sources
Links for the day
EPO Workers Caution That the Officials Are Still Illegally Trying to Replace Staff With Slop (to Lower Quality and Validity of European Patents)
Nobody in Europe voted for any of this
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025