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Patents Roundup: Software Patents Debate in the US, Microsoft and Apple Fight in Favour

Depositing money using weaponised patents, for the benefit or enrichment of patent trolls, monopolists, and those working for them

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Summary: A week's roundup of news about software patents in the United States, primarily from sources that stand to gain from them (software monopolists and patent lawyers)

THE US patent system, the USPTO (which also combines another aspect, trademarks), is arguably creating a chilling environment that at times can discourage innovation. This has been a subject of active debate for quite some time because in some domains, such as software, any development work can be done quickly by a single person, to whom it is infeasible to study a lot of patents before undertaking the development work. To make matter worse, because a lot of software is reducible to logic or mathematics, there may not be any workarounds, especially when the patent is so vague that it covers a whole breadth of different approaches (patent on a progress bar for instance).



"To make matter worse, because a lot of software is reducible to logic or mathematics, there may not be any workarounds, especially when the patent is so vague that it covers a whole breadth of different approaches (patent on a progress bar for instance)."The world's prominent patent maximalists (and occasional proponents of patent trolls) promoted the potency of software patents back in September, in spite of Alice. Also see Amanda Ciccatelli's "How the USPTO's “analysis paralysis” changed the software patent game". She said that "As of late, the USPTO has invalidated an increasing number of software patents and denied numerous patent applications that deal with software that’s too abstract. With so much uncertainty about the patentability of software-related inventions, there are steps that patent-seekers take to ensure compliance with €§101."

Looking to this new article from a lawyers' site, it becomes clearer just how some patents can discourage creation, either pre-actively, out of fear, or after the work was already done. To quote: "Receiving a cease and desist letter that alleges patent infringement is becoming more common in today’s competitive business markets and may come as a shock to the recipient, particularly if the sender is unknown to them and the recipient is unaware of the patents referenced in the cease and desist letter. That shock may quickly evolve into an emotional reaction based on an assumption or suspicion that the sender may be a “patent troll”, which may result in the letter being tossed into the garbage."

"Software patents are the weapon of choice of patent trolls and patent lawyers universally like these because they profit from feuds."Software patents are the weapon of choice of patent trolls and patent lawyers universally like these because they profit from feuds. The more litigation, the more business they get. That's just how this market works; companies don't just amass patents for publicity, vanity, etc. as though these are trophies. They use these offensively.

This new article by Tony Dutra speaks of a new story about patent trolls. To quote the gist of it: "A Harvard Business School study released Dec. 9 claims that patents on inventions in the financial services industry score lower on standard measures of quality compared to patents in non-financial fields.

"Professor Josh Lerner and his team looked at patents awarded by the Patent and Trademark Office after the Federal Circuit's 1998 State Street Bank decision opened the door to business method patents. The patents featured fewer citations to other documentation—non-patent literature, leading academic journals, etc.—that is likely to show an exhaustive prior art search for patentability assessments."

"That's just how this market works; companies don't just amass patents for publicity, vanity, etc. as though these are trophies. They use these offensively."According to this new report from the Financial Times, Goldman Sachs "had applied to patent a virtual currency settlement system" (we mentioned this some days ago). The intersection between patents on business methods and on software were previously explored by SCOTUS with the Bilski case.

Justin Blows, an Australian patent attorney, speaks about the recent trolling with encryption patents (patents on software). He called it "the rise of US software patents", but in reality, software patents are a declining market in the US. Blows says that in "the Alice decision, a two-step test for patent-eligible subject matter was created. In a first step, it is considered if the claims are directed to an abstract idea. If so, in a second step it is considered whether the claims have a sufficient "inventive concept" to render the idea patent-eligible. A summary of the two-step test can be found here.

"I do not believe that anyone would dispute that encryption is directed to an abstract idea. In fact, many computer implemented calculations relate to an abstract idea and so this question is particularly interesting."

"...Microsoft and Apple are now lobbying for software patents, not so surprisingly (they both use software patents against GNU, Linux, Free software and so forth)."Software patents are still on their way out (as we have shown here before, with some exceptions). Based on this new report, titled "Court to hear animation case some call broad threat to software patents", Microsoft and Apple are now lobbying for software patents, not so surprisingly (they both use software patents against GNU, Linux, Free software and so forth).

To quote Reuters, "McRO Inc, its attorneys at MoloLamken and Mishcon de Reya, and an industry group that counts Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp among its members, say that a ruling last year from a district court in California canceling McRO's patent puts the software industry in jeopardy."

Interesting to see the litigation/litigious firm which the EPO uses to attack me (Mishcon de Reya) on the same side as Microsoft.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
 
Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
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Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
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Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
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Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
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Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
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Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
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Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
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Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day