Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Circus of Patent 'Reporting' (by Omission) on the Subject of Software Patents in the US and USPTO Bias

Like asking army generals about the needs of war...

Creating war



Summary: A look at some of the latest oddities in the US patent system and much of the reporting about software patenting (more or less monopolised by those who profit from it, not harmed by it)

THE USPTO keeps snubbing SCOTUS (the Supreme Court) and ignoring decisions like those which annihilate software patents, unlike the Enfish v Microsoft decision [1, 2, 3]. What kind of a rigged office is this? And it's not even a private company, it's portrayed or framed as an institution that exists for the common good.



Based on what we constantly find online, patent lawyers are now selling services (like a webinar in this case) around the uncertainty, promising to be the 'experts' for getting around the rules at the USPTO (while the USPTO often accommodates this, for various different nefarious reasons). Some people in this meta-industry even produce some kind of 'cheatsheet', or "Top Ten 101 Patent Eligibility Patent Drafting Rules...and an Enfish Sideshow," as one patent attorney has just put it, linking to this PDF.

"See what David Kappos is doing nowadays on behalf of large corporations that pay him, including his former employer."The USPTO, as we noted here several days ago, is heavily biased, sometimes by omission. It just wants to grant more and more patents, so restrictions (like patent scope limitations) are considered to be an 'enemy' and a perceived threat to 'results' (or 'growth'). Matt Levy, whose wife works at the USPTO, has just posted a list of USPTO case studies following additional reports (patents 'industry' sites [1, 2]) which say that the USPTO adopts a pro-software patents decision, incorporating it into the examiners' guidance. Why not do anything about a decision from the same court that was against software patents just a few days later? Or many dozens before it, which were also against software patents (at CAFC)? Let's face it, this system is rigged and money (or moneyed interests, or large corporations with their lobbyists) determine what happens. See what David Kappos is doing nowadays on behalf of large corporations that pay him, including his former employer. Kappos was the Director of the USPTO until not so long ago, namely a few years. Like David Petraeus (see image above), the former CIA Director, David Kappos now makes a killing by selling influence and suggesting horrific policies to his 'connections' (doors have revolved). Kappos is paid to do this. His mouth is basically up for sale. He is a lobbyist of the most dangerous kind and thus a source of shame to the system he came from (as it's indicative of institutional corruption).

As one might expect, especially because we showed dozens of examples in the past week alone, patent lawyers continue to ignore almost every CAFC case and instead cherry-pick to add 'detergent' to their shameless never-ending brainwash. Here are 4 new examples [1, 2, 3, 4]. They just keep cropping up at an amazing pace, sending across the message that software patents are now magically patentable again, provided one hires the 'witty' lawyers who write these columns. It's all marketing. Lawyers are typically liars, with few exceptions in many people's experience. They have a client to serve, they're not judges. Brainwash from them can be found aplenty in the Oracle v Google case right now, where the jury and judge hardly know what FOSS and API are. Lawyers of Oracle mislead them every day (we post a lot of links about this case) and the more ignorant the judge and jury remain, the better off Oracle will be. In fact, this whole case is ludicrous and should have been thrown out before it even reached a court. Unfortunately, not programmers assess such cases for their actual merit (or lack thereof).

"They just keep cropping up at an amazing pace, sending across the message that software patents are now magically patentable again, provided one hires the 'witty' lawyers who write these columns."Some of these same patents 'industry' sites now use the aforementioned cases to further stretch the limits of patenting (see "Patents For Self-referential Computer Database Are Not Categorically Unpatentable as Abstract"), but it isn't exactly shocking, is it? We found only one single new report about the Vehicle Intelligence case (a case we have covered here for months), which resulted in software patents being chucked away, as is usually the case after Alice. That's not what the patents 'industry' wants people to hear about, so it nonchalantly ignores this ruling.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Real Security Elusive, Microsoft Layoffs to Coincide With Certificate Apocalypse
July 1
2026 is a Year of Strikes at the European Patent Office (EPO)
As it stands at the moment, to many people the EPO represents crime, not law
Only 1.5% Oppose the European Patent Office's (EPO) Strikes and Other Industrial Actions Until 2027
Among those polled/surveyed (in a ballot)
 
SLAPP Censorship - Part 112 Out of 200: Strangles Women, Then Refuses to Even Attend Any of His Own Hearings About It
It is meanwhile very apparent that Brett Wilson LLP is becoming a "mench sphere"
Gemini Links 20/06/2026: "There Was Never Supposed to Be a Camera" and "What Is A Programming Language"?
Links for the day
Geminispace Reaches Its 8th Year, Today It Has Turned 7
Gemini Protocol 'went live' 7 years ago, just before the COVID-19 pandemic
Links 20/06/2026: "Full Page Paralysis" and "Hopes For Xbox’s Future Might Be Over Before It Even Begins"
Links for the day
European Patent Office's (EPO) Strikes "at a Scale not Seen Since Battistelli", European Patent Grants Down by Over 25% in Past 3 Months
The actions are effective
Links 20/06/2026: Microsoft's "Year of Shame" and "Feed the Writers"
Links for the day
Web Browsers Are Technically Bloatware (No Matter What Runs in Them)
Don't make it a society that shames people into using a Web browser where none should be needed
Fedora Has Changed a Lot Since I Last Used It (IBM Dominates Almost Everything, IBM Agenda Displaces Community Goals)
"It is effectively 100% run by Red Hat/IBM employed people... even when they are community-elected representatives."
Andy (Cyber Show) on His Teacher Who "Squeezed Every Last Drop Out of Life, With Gratitude, Humility, Generosity and Mettle"
Some call them "eccentric" and are dismissive about what they have to offer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 19, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, June 19, 2026
Gopher/Gemini Links 20/06/2026: Slop With Tcl/Tk and Nokia 770 Perishes
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 111 Out of 200: Garrett and Graveley (the Latter Arrested for Strangling Women) Keep Ousting Their Collaboration in Litigation, Lawfare in a Foreign Continent
it's not law, it's just warfare disguised as "law"
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Lobbying in Lisbon...
reappointment campaign lobbying has not been restricted to the "home front" in Portugal
Slop Making Its Way Into Terms Where It Does Not Belong
Hopefully by year's end Google News can successfully cull (and deprive of traffic) almost all slopfarms
Links 19/06/2026: Microsoft Patent Troll Intellectual Ventures in Europe, "World Cup of Internet Resilience"
Links for the day
Links 19/06/2026: Salesforce Data Thefts and GAFAM's Conspiracy Theories That Data Center Opposition is a Foreign Plot
Links for the day
Links 19/06/2026: The Retweeting Class and Data Centres as National Security Risk
Links for the day
Don't Attack the Wives (or Spouses) of Pundits/Activists/Journalists
We will be writing several series about this in the future
Society Will Only Improve Owing to People Who Push Boundaries
Push boundaries with ideas and facts, not with forbidden language
Internet Relay Chat (Shorthand IRC) is Still Growing
Contrariwise, social control media is waning
The Register MS Published a New Page With "AI" 21 Times in It. It Was Paid SPAM.
The former editor of the The Register MS admitted to me (directly) that he knew all this "AI" stuff was stupid hype
Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Associates Dependence on a Ponzi Scheme With "the Future"
Those ludicrous ads (disguised as rankings) from WSJ deserve scorn and ridicule
The XBox Story is Still Fast-Developing, the Layoffs Are Confirmed to be Happening Already (Mid-June), Just Not "Officially"
Workers have Microsoft have long braced for what is happening this summer and will accelerate further in two weeks' time
Fake News From Rupert Murdoch's WSJ Could Not Keep IBM From Sinking
"2026 Best Companies for the Future"?
To GNU, AV2 Adoption May be a Year If Not Years Away
The leap between versions means that there is fertile ground for incompatibilities
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 18, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, June 18, 2026
Gemini Links 19/06/2026: "Born and Raised by the Internet", Fifteen Years in Gopher
Links for the day
Links 18/06/2026: Clown Computing Has Harmful Sound, Facebook "Must Face the Music (Infringement Litigation)"
Links for the day
Digital Sovereignty Discussed in the United Kingdom (UK)
Digital Sovereignty would be nice, but let's remember what contributes to it
IBM Adds Only More IBM Staff to the Fedora Council, They Like LLM Slop for Posting 'Articles'
It's like Canonical with Ubuntu, only worse
IBM Common Stock Down to About $250, It Was at $330 Just 17 Days Ago
Happy birthday IBM!
Microsoft's CEO Openly Admits XBox is Not Sustainable and Microsoft is Beginning to Admit Slop Isn't Working and Is Not Not Sustainable Either
Expect Microsoft cancellations next month (or later this month) to impact far more than XBox and some studios
EPO and Disabilities: Payments Allegedly Disabled
But people who do cocaine can claim paid "sick leave" (over 100,000 euros for no work at all) if the President sleeps with them
SLAPP Censorship - Part 110 Out of 200: Anti-SLAPP Reform Formally Advanced in the United Kingdom (UK) the Same Week the Serial Strangler From Microsoft (US) Does Forum-Shopping in the UK
The only language they understand is money. They don't understand privacy.
Links 18/06/2026: UK Social Media Ban for Minors, Finland Lifts a Nuclear Weapons Ban
Links for the day
'Article' With "AI" 27 Times in the Page, It's "Partner Content" (Paid Spam) as Usual at The Register MS
We deem this a timely reminder that a lot of the hype around slop is paid-for lies
Microsoft Layoffs Have Reportedly Already Started at ZeniMax
The overall scale is unknown
Cyber Show: "Our independence remains intact and we're set to continue relentlessly probing the world of digital technology with hard questions"
As one should
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Leveraging the Lusitanian Connection
Mendonça no longer functions as an independent agent but rather as a fig-leaf for a mafia-like entity that prizes obedience over integrity and self-preservation over truth
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 17, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 17, 2026