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

Father of GNU Giving Keynote Talk Today, Father of Linux Collaborating With Linus Tech Tips (LTT)
Some time soon we can expect Linus Tech Tips (LTT) / Linus Media Group / Linus Gabriel Sebastian to produce something with Torvalds
LLM Slop is an Addiction One Can Quit
Sites that crossed over to "the dark side" (slop) can still return, and even fully regain the trust lost by betraying people with 'botspew'.
BILD is Apparently Covering Up Cocaine Use at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, the European Patent Office, as It's Based on Germany
Journalist contact details
 
German Media and German Politicians: Working for the Public or Manipulating the Public?
The "common person" does not have printing presses
Informing the Public of Suppressed Facts
We are all in this together
Canadian Linus Meets Finnish-American Linus
LTT does have a very large audience, which it can steer away from Microsoft and Windows
The UK's Online Safety Act (OSA) Discourages Technological Entities, Including Free Software Projects, Being Based in or Near the UK
When it comes to IRC hosting, we never had any serious speech restrictions imposed upon us by the UK
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 15, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, November 15, 2025
Gemini Links 16/11/2025: Emacs Font Fun and UI x TUI x CLI
Links for the day
Flagging or Labelling LLM Slop Meaningfully to Discourage the Practice
We're still refining the annotation for better contrast
Techrights Site Search Pushed to 'Stable'
we've just added it to the navigation menu and footer
Situation Publishing's DevClass (Sister Site of The Register MS, Run by MS Tim) Has Been Abandoned, Microsoft's MS Tim Now Interjects Anti-Linux Directly Into The Register MS
Not only does this sell Microsoft; it's also googlebombing - as before - the real "maui" (or "MauiKit" in Linux).
Many IBM Workers to Become Unemployed a Few Weeks - Maybe Just Days - Before Christmas
as one last humiliating exercise IBM pimps/trots them out in social control media, telling "happy" stories
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, WebProNews, and Linux Journal (Slopfarms)
More fake articles about "Linux"
Links 15/11/2025: Openwashing of Kubernetes and Austerity Planned for Canada
Links for the day
Links 15/11/2025: "Small Web, Big Voice" and China Cracking Down on Slop
Links for the day
Links 15/11/2025: Science, Conflicts, and International Politics
Links for the day
Annus Horribilis at the European Patent Office (EPO)
The article explains how the EPO "Cocainegate" scandal is turning 2025 into an Annus Horribilis for Campinos
Links 15/11/2025: Latest in "Component Abuse Challenge" and Qt Keeps Promoting LLM Slop
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/11/2025: Egoism, Misunderstood Universe, DeX, and "Why desktop Linux is growing"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 14, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, November 14, 2025
Richard Stallman Talk Tomorrow in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress 2
It's not clear if a livestream of some kind will exist
Many "Last Days" at IBM on Allegedly the "Last Day" for IBM to RA People This Quarter
"Last day" is "social media code" for "got laid off", more so at IBM because they compel people to act like it's a happy departure with gratitude, photos and so on
Slopwatch: Almost a Majority of Google News is Now Slopfarms (Fake Sites, Fake Articles)
Google News is noise
Gemini Links 14/11/2025: Boredom, "Twenty Percent Cooler", and Moving From Windows to Artix
Links for the day
Links 14/11/2025: YouTube's Trap for Publishers, Lack of Accountability a Growing Legal Matter/Concern
Links for the day
Many Times in the Past We Said That Microsoft Lunduke Was Becoming a Spokesperson/Voice for - and Occasionally Weaponising - 4Chan. He's Proving Us Right This Week.
Stay away
The Register MS is Profiting From Pyramid Schemes Run by Americans
We cannot help but feel disgusted by what this publisher became
IBM: Hiring, Then Disposing of, Unpaid or Low-Paid European Staff to Spread or Play Up Buzzwords and Hype
Like Google With "Summer of Code", this seems like a low-cost marketing stunt more than anything substantial
Casual Reminder That We Also Publish GNU/Linux Stories and News Coverage in Tux Machines
Without trust in our robustness (including fearlessness, not just success in protecting stories and sources) we'd not have come this far, nor would I devote my life to it
The Europe Conversation: The EPO Has Cocaine at the High-Level Management and Isn't Denying It
Now we plan to ensure the matter is properly documented in European press
Links 14/11/2025: Goddard Space Center Abused by the White House, Jeffrey Epstein Scandal Expands (Cheetos Need Distraction)
Links for the day
Corporate Media Helps IBM Relay Vapourware (Misinformation/Fake News)
They compensate with words for a lack of compelling products
Hacking on Recipes
Maybe, in due course perhaps, we can also release some of our own cooking recipes or "forks"
Web Searches Far Too Polluted, Gamed by LLM Slop and "Plagiarised Information Synthesis Systems" (PISS)
old articles are already getting difficult to find in mainstream search engines, even if they are still online
Privacy-respecting Metasearch Engine SearX/SearXNG Still Jailed by Microsoft
The official site and code still sadly controlled by Microsoft
"AI" is a Lie. It Always Was. What They Call "AI" Is Not.
This MSM does no favours to the economy
Our First Week of Our Twentieth Year
My wife and I have had a very productive week here and in Tux Machines
Links 14/11/2025: Sleep Research, France to Suspend Pension 'Reform' Law, and Linux Foundation's Latest Openwashing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/11/2025: KDE vs XFCE and Leaving the Web
Links for the day
Google Admits It Lost Control of Slop (While Google Itself is Selling Slop, Currently Under the Name "Gemini" Instead of "Bard")
Slop is nothing to be celebrated
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 13, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, November 13, 2025
Mozilla Handed Over Control Over Firefox to Microsoft, Now Firefox is Preloaded With Microsoft Spyware and It's Proprietary
Who would still want to download Firefox?
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Brian Fagioli, and WebProNews
becoming a slopfarm is a site's suicide
"Sponsored Posts" in The Register MS
That's The Register MS in 2025
IBM RAs in India (Apparently)
IBM is a bad place to work
Another Richard Stallman Talk in Two Days
His talk will be a remote talk, as he won't be travelling to Argentina