Bonum Certa Men Certa

Design/Software Patents Next on the Supreme Court's Agenda as Android/Linux Case Escalated to Highest Possible Level

Wasting valuable courts' time on some silly patents that are neither novel nor nontrivial (prior art below)

Gates



Summary: The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is going to deal with inane Apple patents that are being used in an effort to make billions of dollars ('Apple tax') out of a Linux-based operating system (Android) which competes against Apple's

TECHRIGHTS has among its primary goals the abolition of software patents and the success of FOSS, which is ascending in Europe these days. This would be beneficial to software developers and probably for the public as a whole. The losers? Probably patent lawyers and their biggest clients, who refer to their patent portfolio as a "war chest".



"We believe that real change can come from the courts, especially the high ones, which everyone must follow."We recognise that significant change hardly comes from politicians anymore, as they are nowadays funded (especially in the United States) by the aforementioned "biggest clients". We believe that real change can come from the courts, especially the high ones, which everyone must follow. Consider the long-awaited SCOTUS appeal regarding an Android case. Can SCOTUS bury so-called ‘design’ patents, which are essentially akin to software patents (usually a GUI with some buttons and unspecified callback functions for behaviour)? After Alice, which changed a lot, we sure hope so.

We have been covering Apple's attacks on Android/Linux since the very beginning (the Apple vs HTC case). It's still being dragged on, even several years after the death of Steve Jobs, which says a lot about Apple (they are still an aggressive patenting company). The expected decision on whether it shall be dealt with by SCOTUS was scheduled for Monday, after some people waited in vain on Friday. This has been covered to death in the media by now, so we won't bore our readers with yet more of the mundane pertinent details (we covered these before anyway, including the laughable patents at hand [1, 2]).

"It's still being dragged on, even several years after the death of Steve Jobs, which says a lot about Apple (they are still an aggressive patenting company)."To give just a short media survey/roundup, Spicy IP oddly enough chose to focus on another case. It said: "We’ve been given to believe that the Roche vs Cipla appeal came up at the Supreme Court today."

An article by Joe Mullin, on the other hand, noted: "Are design patents for "carpets and wall-papers and oil-cloths" or smartphones?"

Korean English-speaking media said the obvious, FOSS proponents like SJVN spread the news early on, and maybe hundreds if not thousands of media outlets wrote about this as well. To quote SJVN: "Years in the making, the Supreme Court has agreed to listen to Samsung's appeal of Apple's design patent awards. [...] At first it looked like Apple won its design patent wars over Samsung. As time went on, that "victory" started looking more like a defeat as Samsung won its appeals. Now, Apple is in even more trouble. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has elected to hear Samsung's appeal of the $548-million award lower courts gave Apple."

"The expected decision on whether it shall be dealt with by SCOTUS was scheduled for Monday, after some people waited in vain on Friday."To quote Florian Müller, who used to be a FOSS opponent (Microsoft/Horacio Gutierrez paid him for this) but later seemed to have flipped back to pro-FOSS, he wrote: "The Supreme Court of the United States has just published a decision it had already made on Friday (March 18): Samsung's December 2015 petition for writ of certiorari (request for Supreme Court review) in Apple's design patents case has been GRANTED with respect to question 2 (damages). As a result, the Apple v. Samsung damages re-retrial scheduled to begin later this month in the Northern District of California is almost certainly going to be postponed indefinitely, as Apple is seeking unapportioned infringer's profits on all five products still at issue and won't be entitled to that if Samsung prevails in the top U.S. court."

"For my take on why design patents were neglected for such a long (and crucial) time," wrote this person to Müller (whose expertise is this one particular case), linking to the paper about design patents. To quote part of the abstract: "This project, initially published as a two-part series of articles entitled 'Design and Deviance: Patent as Symbol, Rhetoric as Metric,' reveals the unrecognized power of gender and sexuality norms in the deep discourse of pivotal American case law on design patents."

"A re-retrial was scheduled to take place in California in a week," Müller wrote. "In light of the Supreme Court decision I'm sure Judge Koh will cancel it."

The reason we quote Müller so extensively about this particular case is that, with respect, he did follow this case for many years. He later added:



"Watch how some patent lawyers view things. It’s all about money to them (even a crude picture of dollars)."Here is an analysis by a Professor of Law (journalists tend to be clueless about these matters) and Patently-O's take from Jason Rantanen and Professor Crouch, who looks for some input through a survey.

Levy from CCIA (lobbying) wrote: "CCIA argued to the Court that this interpretation overreached in an unconstitutional way, and that the correct interpretation could be found by looking at a related statute, the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act." Rob Lever, a journalist, said that: "The US Supreme Court on Monday opened the door to reducing the hundreds of millions of dollars in damages owed by Samsung to Apple in the blockbuster patent case between the world's biggest smartphone makers."

"We look forward to following the case and hopefully we shall see Apple walking away with nothing."Watch how some patent lawyers view things. It's all about money to them (even a crude picture of dollars). To quote a part of it: "It is penny-wise and pound-foolish to scrimp on “preparation and prosecution” of patents—which if the invention is any good, will be infringed and attacked—and then to spend hundreds of millions on patent infringement and validity and damages litigation and appeals."

We look forward to following the case and hopefully we shall see Apple walking away with nothing. As usual, only the lawyers are guaranteed to win.

Recent Techrights' Posts

At Least 3 Richard Stallman Talks in Europe Confirmed So Far, Next Week in Rome There's Another
Dr. Stallman has not announced this yet
Rust is Eating Linux
That's a recipe for problems
Cindy Cohn (Executive Director of EFF) is a Millionaire, Earned Almost $30,000 Per Month Before Departing While the EFF Lost Money
EFF is "Big Business"
 
Evidence Contradicting Microsoft's Non-Denying Denials and Expectation of Many Layoffs Soon
"Microsoft has had this constant drip of layoffs for months."
The "AI Revolution" is Going Very Well, Right?
money that does not exist and alleged potential that is pure fiction
Links 06/10/2025: Scam Altman Himself Admits He Runs a Scam Based on a Bubble, US Administration Adopts “War From Within” Narrative to Crush Opposition/Dissent
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Ubuntu 'Articles' and Google News Helps People Who Plagiarise Phoronix Using LLMs
Michael Larabel can't possibly be happy about that
6,000 Pages/Articles a Year
Today in one month from now the site turns 19
When Things Become So Ubiquitous That They're Almost Nameless
The notion or the concept of software freedom isn't tied to any particular brand or project, so it should still resonate
IDG Seems to Have Abandoned Sandra Henry Stocker's UNIX/Linux Column
Unless we hear otherwise or see some update/s, this may mark another death blow from IDG
Gemini Links 06/10/2025: Winter Nights and "Virtue Signaling"
Links for the day
Links 06/10/2025: Scientific Awards and Typhoon Matmo
Links for the day
IP Kat Gone Bonkers, Pushing Slop in Patents (Likely Illegal, With Severe Consequences)
AstraZenecaKat: "Last time, this Kat covered some practical steps on how to ensure client confidentiality when using AI tools (IPKat)."
Links 06/10/2025: Grokipedia as Malicious Slop, US 'Martial Law' a "New Normal"
Links for the day
Fake Economics and Clown Computing Circuses
who's gonna pay for these scams?
Nobel Prize in Economics Does Not Exist, It's Propaganda From Sveriges Riksbank
"It is that time of the year when it is important to remind people that there are no Nobel Prizes for professional wrestling, astrology, or economics"
Non-Denying Denial From Microsoft (Again) Regarding the End of XBox Consoles
It's kind of hilarious that even the site chosen by Microsoft to relay its BS, based on past loyalty, isn't quite buying it
Bringing Back Lost Articles From the 1990s: Microsoft Products Leave Door Open to NSA
Nothing has changed since then
When the Slop Bubble Pops People Will Say Richard Stallman Was Right (Again)
What was once known as Computer Science turned into "IT"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 05, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 05, 2025
Links 06/10/2025: Science, Hardware, and Andrej Babis Making a Comeback
Links for the day
Links 05/10/2025: Slow News Day and Wondering About the Canada Post Walkout
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/10/2025: Telnet Debugging and The Programmer’s Brain
Links for the day
More Than "Just a Rumour": XBox Seems to Have Just Died
At this point, why would any studio out there target or partner with XBox?
How to Tell Your Community, Project or Company is Being Infiltrated by Saboteurs
How to identify nefarious social engineering
The Fortieth Birthday of the FSF Made Us Extremely Happy
It feels like the 'hacker community' is regrouping to discuss things and prepare for the next Big Challenge
Chat Control 2 Them, Not 2 U
Follow the advice of Dr. Patrick Breyer
Mozilla: Throw Away Your "Old" PC and Enable "Digital Rights Management (DRM)"
This is heading in a bad direction
Controlling Our Computing for Another Forty Years
40 years of freedom
Motivational Small Place to Run Large Sites
We deem this scenery motivational and inspiring
Techrights' Text Version (Daily Bulletin) Turns Five This Month
our plain-text bulletins are turning 5 this month
We'll Continue Covering the Moribund OSI and Other Dysfunctional if Not Hostile Institutions
Stefano Maffulli's departure is due to his defection and due to him failing the mission in pursuit of money (his salary)
Microsoft XBox is Dying as More Retailers Stop Stocking It and Massive Layoffs Planned Again
Microsoft is circling down the drain
Links 05/10/2025: Lufthansa Layoffs (4,000) and More Spotify Woes (Aside From Massive Debt)
Links for the day
The Free Software Foundation's Livestream Has Ended, Video/s Might be Online Next
I've asked whether they'll upload video of some of the event; I still wait for an answer
The Register MS Does Not Know the Difference Between Microsoft GitHub and GitLab
At the time of writing (October 5) the article from "Thu 2 Oct 2025" remains uncorrected
Linux and the Freedom Paradox
Linux is losing freedom if some external actors who only use Microsoft tools for development wrest control
"Bullshit Generators" (What RMS Calls LLMs) and Fake Images Already Target the FSF
Why does Google News promote fake articles about the FSF while omitting all the real ones?
Software Patents as a Bubble
Don't invest resources in hype; if you detect a bubble, run away from it
Links 05/10/2025: Political Leftovers, Climate Change, and Security Incidents
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 04, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 04, 2025
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
Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
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
Links for the day
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
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