Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Lawyers' Media Comes to Grips With the End of Software Patents

The Federal Circuit always says "no" to software patents (this year at least) and the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) rejects any petitions for it to deal with such matters

Will Any Software Patents Survive?



Summary: The reality of the matter is grim for software patents and the patent microcosm, 'borrowing' the media as usual, tries to give false hopes by insinuating that the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) may overturn Alice quite soon

THE battle in the courtroom is over. Software patents are pretty much over. So the battle has been taken to the press, where the patent 'industry' places its lies and marketing on an almost daily basis. We keep track of all this.



"So the battle has been taken to the press, where the patent 'industry' places its lies and marketing on an almost daily basis."Yesterday/today, using the word "survive" in the headline (inverting narratives, wherein the aggressor merely "survives" or is "attacked" by the defendant), the high-factor media of lawyers speaks of Alice and asks, "Will Any Software Patents Survive?"

Here is the outline:

In his Patent and Trademark Law column, Robert L. Maier writes: In recent weeks, the Federal Circuit has continued to affirm district court decisions finding software-related patents invalid for failure to meet the patentable subject matter requirement of 35 U.S.C. €§101. At the same time, a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court was filed seeking to challenge the availability of this very defense—a petition that, if heard by the Supreme Court, could have dramatic implications for U.S. patent litigation.


They have been saying things like these for a number of months, but it never materialises. SCOTUS won't be revisiting the subject of software patents any time soon (if ever). We wrote about this dozens of times before. The above is one of those "real soon now" prophecies/narratives (akin to Team UPC's); they just try to give a glimmer of hope to clients and convince them to carry on pursuing software patents.

What does all this say about the patent law firms? Or about the media? Watch this new example of marketing disguised as a report. There are lots of these. Is the media engaging in any real journalism of just PR/advertising?

"What does all this say about the patent law firms? Or about the media? "Going back to the subject of patents, TiVo has just won an ITC battle against rivals [1, 2, 3] and Uber got a patent on something which sounds like marketing and/or placebo effect (lots of these around, this time motion-induced sickness prevention for Uber's "own self-driving software"). This whole article is like an advert based on a patent and there are also press releases bragging about software patents this week. This particular one says:

StorONE is the first company in the last decade to invest a six-year period of massive research and development, covered by more than 50 awarded and pending patents, prior to its first software release.


What's worth noting here is that at least some of the above pertain purely to software, even if used in conjunction with something like a car, a set top box, or storage device.

It seems safe to say, based on people who studied a large number of patents, that hundreds of thousands of granted US patents are software patents and are thus 'dormantly' invalid. They just haven't been challenged yet; if they had, they would evaporate. Such is the profound impact of Alice and precedential decisions it led to.

Recent Techrights' Posts

IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 30, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 30, 2025
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 29, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Google News, and Other LLM Slopfarms
Why does Google News keep promoting these fake articles?
Links 29/10/2025: Amazon Kept "Data Center Water Use Secret", "Abuse of Power" Against Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/10/2025: "My Hardware Specs" and "Goodbye Debian…"
Links for the day
EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?