Bonum Certa Men Certa

EFF Has Just Warned That Depending on Outcomes of US Supreme Court Cases, US Could Have Most Notorious Patents in the World

The US Supreme Court has been pushing back against patent maximalism, but will it carry on?

US in the world



Summary: While patent extremists and patent maximalists salivate over the growth in number of US patents, it is becoming clear that many are farcical at best and we already know why that might be

THE SHEER NUMBER of USPTO-granted patents is insane (compare it to Europe for instance). Many patent maximalists have been raving in recent days that there will soon be 9-digit long patent numbers (over 10 million in total). We don't want to entertain this senseless pseudo-jingoism with links; they obviously think it's some sort of "score" or a numbers "game". We don't. Patents are monopolies and granting them must therefore be a process requiring great care.



Earlier today the EFF published January's Stupid Patent of the Month. Vera Ranieri argued it could "effectively become stupid patents for the entire world." (the EFF ought to petition PTAB against such patents)

From the post:

For more than three years now, we’ve been highlighting weak patents in our Stupid Patent of the Month series. Often we highlight stupid patents that have recently been asserted, or ones that show how the U.S. patent system is broken. This month, we’re using a pretty silly patent in the U.S. to highlight that stupid U.S. patents may soon—depending on the outcome of a current Supreme Court case—effectively become stupid patents for the entire world.

Lenovo was granted U.S. Patent No. 9,875,007 [PDF] this week. The patent, entitled “Devices and Methods to Receive Input at a First Device and Present Output in Response on a Second Device Different from the First Device,” relates to presenting materials on different screens.


We have been writing about some other awful patents. Many were equally bad. The Supreme Court, we still hope, will tackle design patents [1, 2] (more on that later tonight), having already tackled business methods and software patents in Alice. So far this week we have also seen reports about Ford pursuing this Orwellian sci-fi patent, Amazon scheming to track workers using wristbands, attempting to replace workers and so on.

Apple has its share of worrying new patents as well [1, 2] and a day ago its EPO patent ventures were mentioned in this article:

Back in May, 2015, Apple filed a patent with the European Patent Office (EPO) covering a ‘multimedia-centric video headset’ – a device which, via a connected iPhone or iPad, was designed to provide users with a realistic viewing experience of live events.

Nearly three-years after it’s application was sent into the EPO, PatentlyApple reported that Apple was awarded a similar video display patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).


We have already learned (but promised not to publish) stories regarding Apple's rogue patents at the EPO. These get granted anyway (they should not).

Patents were also mentioned this week in a few other domains, e.g. [1, 2]. It's very hard to exhaustively cover these kinds of things because in addition to thousands of legal cases (patents alone) every single year there are about twice as many threats and millions of patents.

Recent Techrights' Posts

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually