Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Scope Recognised as Essential For Patent Quality, But Software Patents Continue to be Granted

...not that courts tolerate these patents (if one can afford fighting them in court)

A lionSummary: Patents that are toothless, clawless lions are being accumulated by companies that should know various courts would scrutinise these enough to rule them invalid

THE number of software patents at the USPTO is hundreds of thousands. And these are the ones that aren't expired yet. It's a bubble. It's madness. No way any software developer (or even software firm) can keep track of this many patents, which is one of many reasons such patents aren't desirable.



Suffice to say, software patents are being 'dressed up' as something they're not. As this news article from South Africa put it four days ago, it's widely known that the "existence of patents may actually stifle innovation in key sectors, for example in software..."

This article is about patents on life-saving medicine -- an area in which prominent US lobbyists (including the Podesta Group) bully South Africans, on behalf of large US corporations, obviously. From the article:

In the case of medicines, the mere existence of patent protection may lead to the high price of lives being lost, as in our recent history, when millions of South Africans could not afford antiretroviral treatment for HIV, and as in the present day, when few can afford the impossible burden of new, life-saving treatments for cancer.


The other day we also saw this article about Singapore, noting correctly that they may need to limit "patent regime to spur innovation and improve the quality of patents granted..."

"What sort of loopholes exist? We already named words like "device", "car", "phone" and phrases like "over the Internet" or buzzwords such as "cloud", "AI" etc."Because patent quality matters. Not the number of patents. It should be about quality, not quantity. Singapore should stop issuing/granting software patents and patents on business methods, not just on genome (or anything about DNA). To quote: "One of the package’s most important steps is to follow decisions in the landmark cases of Association for Molecular Pathology v Myriad Genetics, from the US, and Australia’s D'Arcy v Myriad Genetics by clarifying that Singapore believes isolating DNA" is not patenable.

Only the crazy EPO has decided to become the world's laughing stock by granting patents on genome. As we said earlier today, the EPO also gave a green light/loophole to software patenting -- something which examiners we heard from vehemently object to but are pressured (from above) to accept.

What sort of loopholes exist? We already named words like "device", "car", "phone" and phrases like "over the Internet" or buzzwords such as "cloud", "AI" etc.

These are the new tricks.

Buzzword overload and media hype, accompanied by marketing from large companies, brought back an old buzzword from the dead. Now it's "AI" everywhere; for whose benefit? It's not a new concept and it's a broad area which pertains to statistics and maths (at the lower level). I did my doctorate on it.

"It’s a shame the above companies/people don’t know that software patents are a waste of time and mere paper, mostly because these are worthless in courts."It's disturbing to see just how often these days patents get painted as "AI" to hide the fact that they're on software and maths. Here is a new example [1, 2] (only days old) which speaks of an "AI techniques to identify individual attacker behavior and to judge the severity of combinations of such behaviors."

There's an illusion of novelty and illusion of it not being abstract, but courts in the US repeatedly reject such patents (the USTPO continues to grant them, under the assumption a buzzword like "AI" can bypass tests). It's all just software. How about this other example from last week's news? Malicious patents that are not only on software but also for surveillance? Surely Alice makes these patent-ineligible. Here's another new one, which speaks of "pioneer[ing] in patented physical, cyber and biometric technologies..."

"Will examiners learn to stop all these tricks and loopholes? They’re being ambushed and bamboozled by law firms whose main skill (or so-called ‘service’) is confusing examiners into granting what they should not."Well, biometrics are software. There's a device for scanning, sure, but much of the work is done by maths. Is "biometric" another one of those buzzwords that are now being used to disguise software patents? It's a shame the above companies/people don't know that software patents are a waste of time and mere paper, mostly because these are worthless in courts. Maybe some dishonest lawyers talked them into it. Here is another example, this one saying that "BOS GLOBAL Holdings PLC managing director hailed as a “remarkable achievement” the granting of two Australian patents protecting its workplace productivity software."

Well, as we noted here earlier this month (citing an Australian law firm), the Australian courts don't tolerate software patents, so this too is a waste of time and money.

Will examiners learn to stop all these tricks and loopholes? They're being ambushed and bamboozled by law firms whose main skill (or so-called 'service') is confusing examiners into granting what they should not.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
The Week to Come
Planning ahead
LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
 
Nonfree Software in My Bank, by Richard Stallman
Updated 8 hours ago
Links 28/07/2025: Science, Health, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Healthy Self-Image With Autism and a "New Life"
Links for the day
Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
Links for the day
LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
Time will tell. How much time though?
Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025
We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
Links for the day
Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
Unlike so many other sites
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
days ago they hired a new US editor
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
I myself know, from personal experience
Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
Links for the day
Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol