Bonum Certa Men Certa

Software Patents Are Not Potent in Courts and Are Not Good for Marketing Purposes Either (They Cause Alienation)

Related: To Save Face, USPTO Ought to Stop Granting Software Patents Altogether

Summary: The status of software patents in the United States (and to a large degree elsewhere as well), especially in light of software's transition into a sharing modality

WE can never stress strongly enough that even though the USPTO grants software patents, rarely will such patents turn out to be useful. These are hardly enforceable, except by patent trolls which prey on the poor (incapable of affording legal defense or even a petition to PTAB). They essential bypass the legal process.



"These are hardly enforceable, except by patent trolls which prey on the poor (incapable of affording legal defense or even a petition to PTAB).""To obtain a software patent it is necessary to show that the effect of that software goes beyond a mere operational advantage," Ruth Wright wrote yesterday, "and has some technical impact."

Well, this might be a convenient loophole for walking past (or bypassing) examination, but what about prosecution? Experience suggests that even if such patents get granted, they will likely be invalidated (i.e. rendered WORTHLESS) in the courts.

"Experience suggests that even if such patents get granted, they will likely be invalidated (i.e. rendered WORTHLESS) in the courts."Just because people can manage to be granted software patents does not mean that these patents are worth the effort and money. This is especially true after Alice. As we showed last month, during the summer it seemed like not a single software patent had 'legs' in the higher courts. It's usually Alice that's invoked to eliminate them. Nevertheless, there are press releases like this one from yesterday where patents on software are shown off. This one example is a company that says it "delivers two-factor and multi-factor authentication utilizing patented software-based grids to convert static passwords/PINs into secure one-time passwords or PINs ("OTPs")."

"Now that Free/Libre software is becoming so prevalent, such patents are becoming ever more worthless in the "licensing" sense."That's just a software patent. It looks like it's mostly used for marketing purposes ("patented software-based grids"), as Steph from IP Troll Tracker pointed out a couple of years ago. Patents for the sake of vanity are not only a waste of time but also a waste of money. Now that Free/Libre software is becoming so prevalent, such patents are becoming ever more worthless in the "licensing" sense.

Consider this article from yesterday which said patents "in coding [are] often enforced to the detriment of the community at large."

Here is the relevant part in full:

For a long time free and open source software was a niche seen by many as a threat to major software developers and large corporations who wished to enforce stricter intellectual property rights. Although patents and intellectual property rights were originally designed to protect the rights of the creators, in coding this is often enforced to the detriment of the community at large.


This means that -- just as IAM put it some days ago (in its latest issue) -- Free/Libre software is here to stay and those who try to leverage software patents would merely stain their name and harm their reputation. Look what happened to Microsoft and IBM, for example.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rust Propaganda Now Amplified by Slopfarms Powered by Microsoft LLMs, Encouraging the Outsourcing of GNU/Linux Distros to Microsoft/GitHub/NSA (and a Shift Away From GPL/Copyleft)
Moving to Microsoft GitHub and adopting unfinished, untested code for highly critical bits
IBM is Rotting With "Zero Internal Jobs" and Many PIPs (Performance Improvement Plans) on the Way, Typically a Fast Track Towards Layoffs Without Severance
At risk of giving air(time) to tribal sentiments, the internal joke at IBM is that to IBM "AI" stands for "All Indian"
The Gerstnerisation of Microsoft: Seventh Wave of Microsoft Layoffs (Over 20,000 to be Cut) Allegedly Going to Start Shortly, Probably Start of Next Week, Microsoft Spreads Chaff and Noise Before the Big Axes Fall
we might be looking at about 50,000 people that Microsoft gets rid of this year
GNU (and the FSF) Still Changing the World
Today, in 2025, GNU powers almost everything
Military-Grade Anti-Linux Microsoft Propaganda Using Microsoft LLMs in Fake 'News' Sites (Slopfarms)
This is part of a pattern
 
"Victory Day" - Part II: Abject Defeat to Hypocrites and Objectionable People Who Strangle Women Whilst on Microsoft's Payroll
Someone is going to have to pay for this; it won't be us
Links 09/05/2025: Inflation Rising and Rights to Protest Curtailed Some More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/05/2025: Good and Evil, LLMs Made the Web Worse Yet Again
Links for the day
European Patent Office (EPO) Faked "Revenue Expansion" by Granting Loads of Invalid, Illegal Patents; Staff Still Wants to Know Where That Money Went
Only about 30% of the EPO's patents are for EU entities/people
Links 09/05/2025: TeleMessage Blunder, More Distractions From Impending Mass Layoffs at Microsoft
Links for the day
Links 09/05/2025: Analog Computer and First time at FOSDEM
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 08, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 08, 2025
Links 08/05/2025: Mass Layoffs at Google Again, India/Pakistan Tensions Continue to Grow, New Pope (US) Selected
Links for the day
"Victory Day" - Part I: That is the Day Microsofters Who Assault Women Pay for Their Actions in Foreign Land (Using "Guns for Hire" Who Attack Their Own Country for American Dollars)
Adding a friend from Microsoft to the docket didn't help
Rust is Starting to Seem More Like Microsoft-hosted "Digital Maoism", Not a Legitimate Effort to Improve Security
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
Gemini Links 08/05/2025: Practical Gemini Use Case, Shutdown of the Blanket Fort Webring
Links for the day
Links 08/05/2025: "Slop Presidency", US Government Defunds Public Broadcasting
Links for the day
Lasse Fister, Organiser of Libre Graphics Meeting, Points Out the Code of Conduct is Likely Violated by the Same People Who Promote Codes of Conduct (and Then Bully Him Into Cancelling a Keynote)
I am starting to see Lasse Fister as another victim
LLM Slop Attacks Not Only Sites of Free Software Projects But Also Bug Reporting Systems (Time-wasting, in Effect "DDoS")
Microsoft, the leading purveyor and promoter of slop, is a cancer
The Richard Stallman (RMS) "European Tour" Carries on In Spite of the Nuremberg Incident
Some people spoke about how they saw yesterday's talk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 07, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 07, 2025
The CoC Means the Founder of GNU/Linux Cannot Talk and a 72-Year-Old Man With Cancer is Somehow a "Safety" Risk?
Those who don't like RMS are not forced to attend his talks
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: A Shopping Spree and Digital Gardening
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: Pegasus Guilty and a Path Towards EU Without Russian Energy
Links for the day
People Used to Talk
If pets can live a measurably happy life without gadgets and "apps", why can't humans?
Outsourcing GNU/Linux to Microsoft GitHub Promoted by Microsoft LLM Slop and Army Officers
Something doesn't seem right
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part III: No More Media Lawsuits From Brett Wilson LLP This Year, One Can Only Guess Why
People leak a lot of material to Techrights because they know, based on the track record, that the sources will be protected and whatever gets published will stay online, in full, no matter how stubborn an effort (even lawsuits and blackmail) will be sent its way
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: Adopting GrapheneOS, Further Enshittification of Flickr
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: CISA Gutted, Debt-Saddled (Likely Insolvent) 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop) Faking Its Financial State Again
Links for the day
Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia Fortify Their Digital Border With GNU/Linux
This month's data from statCounter is particularly interesting near the Baltic Sea
The European Patent Office (EPO) Has a Very Profound Corruption Issue, Far More Urgent an Issue Than Pronouns
a rather long document
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk at Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic
"For programs that you could run, and for network services that could do your own computing, under what circumstances is it reasonable to trust them?"
Today We Turn 18.5
The eighteenth "and a half" anniversary
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 06, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 06, 2025