Bonum Certa Men Certa

Almost Six Months After Iancu Said He Would Make Software Patents Great Again Nothing Has Actually Changed

A hoax like the person who gave him the job (after he had worked for him)

Trump and Iancu



Summary: We're just a fortnight away from the ludicrous plan of Iancu celebrating 6 months (without accomplishing anything)

AT THE beginning of January there was a now-infamous (and unsuccessful) attempt to bring back software patents. There's plenty of 35 U.S.C. § 101 and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) news in our next daily links and it's still good news because nothing has changed. They can't quite bring these patents back; courts keep rejecting these; new rejections can be found in Federal Circuit cases and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes reviews (IPRs). The patent maximalists have just about given up. They hardly even write anymore.



"The patent maximalists have just about given up. They hardly even write anymore."Watchtroll wrote as recently as yesterday (in headlines) that “After Alice: IP Stakeholders Comment on Alice’s Impact Five Years On” (they only quote parasites, as one can expect) and John Vandenberg is trying to revive that staged 'debate' from about a fortnight ago. Watchtroll must be rather upset that even Coons, with over a million dollars in bribes from law firms, could not overturn SCOTUS on Alice. These people are still incredibly sore and largely pessimistic because they cannot defeat or even water down 35 U.S.C. § 101/Alice. They've even just published "Perspective: Weakening Alice Will Weaken the U.S. Patent System’s Second Engine of Innovation" and all sorts of other nonsense. No programmers ever write there; it's a parade of law firms and trolls.

Michael Borella has just shown that the Trump-appointed Iancu and his judge-bashing flunkies (he used to work for his company!) are trying to come up with other names/misnomers for abstract patents (e.g. “Computer-Implemented Functional Claiming”) and "there is a growing likelihood that Congress will strengthen § 112 in an attempt to disambiguate § 101". From Borella's post: (promoted in this tweet of theirs)

On June 11, 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office held a public presentation -- a patent quality chat -- regarding the interpretation of computer-implemented claims using functional language under 35 U.S.C. § 112. Mostly, this presentation was an overview of the USPTO's January 7, 2019 Federal Register notice on the same topic. But, there is a growing likelihood that Congress will strengthen § 112 in an attempt to disambiguate § 101 (see the recent Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property testimony and the current draft bill). While most of the presentation was a reiteration of existing law and USPTO practice, taking another look at the current state of § 112 and where it may be going for computer-implemented inventions is a worthwhile effort.

The presentation begins with an acknowledgement that the Federal Circuit has raised issues with broad, functional claiming of software technologies without adequate support in the context of both § 112 and § 101. The USPTO's position is that these problems can be addressed by properly applying § 112.


So basically they admit they cannot quite change § 101 and instead try to come up with a trick. But courts won't care. Moreover, judges can see exactly what Coons et al are attempting to achieve here and who funds them. This is more likely to further alienate courts, not sway their judgment. Deep inside the patent maximalists know it.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Let's Hope GNU Makes it to 100
Can GNU still be in active use in 2083? Maybe.
GNU is 40, Linux is Just 32
Today it's exactly 40 years since Richard Stallman sent a message regarding GNU
GNU/Linux and Free Software News Mostly in Tux Machines Now
We've split the coverage
Links 27/09/2023: GNOME Raves and Firefox 118
Links for the day
Links 27/09/2023: 3G Phase-Out, Monopolies, and Exit of Rupert Murdoch
Links for the day
IBM Took a Man’s Voice, Pitting Him Against His Own Work, While Companies Profit from Low-Effort Garbage Generated by Bots and “Self-Service”
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Links 26/09/2023: KDE, Programming, and More
Links for the day
Mozilla Promotes the Closed Web and Proprietary Webapps That Are Security and Privacy Hazards
This is just another reminder that the people who run Mozilla don't know the history of Firefox, don't understand the Web, and are beholden to "GAFAM", not to Firefox users
Debian More Like an Exploitative Sweatshop Than a Family
Wiltshire is riding a high horse in the UK, talking down to Indians who are "low-level" volunteers in his kingdom of authoritarians, guarded by an army of British lawyers who bully bloggers
Small Computers in Large Numbers: A Pipeline of Open Hardware
They guard and prioritise their "premiums", causing severe price hikes due to supply/demand disparities.
Microsoft Deserves a Medal for Being Worst at Security (the Media Deserves a Medal for Cover-up)
There are still corruptible/bribed publishers that quote Microsoft staff like they're security gurus
Real Life Should be Offline, Not Online, and It Requires Free Software
Resistance means having the guts to say "no!", even in the face of great societal burden and peer pressure
10 Reasons to Permanently Export or Liberate Your Site From WordPress, Drupal, and Other Bloatware
There are certainly more more advantages, but 10 should suffice for now
About 200,000 Objects in Techrights Web Site
This hopefully helps demonstrate just how colossal the migration actually is
Good Teachers Would Tell Kids to Quit Social Control Media Rather Than Participate in It (Teaching Means Education, Not Misinformation)
Insist that classrooms offer education to children rather than offer children to corporations
Twitter: From Walled Gardens to Paywalls and/or Amplifiers of Fascism
There's moreover a push to promote politicians who are as scummy as Twitter's owner
The World Wide Web is Being Confiscated From Us (Like Syndication Was Withdrawn About a Decade Ago) and We Need to Fight Back
We're worse off when fewer people promote RSS feeds and instead outsource to social control media (censorship, surveillance, manipulation)
Next Up: Restoring IRC Log Pipelines, Bulletins/Full Text RSS, Wiki (Archived, Static), and Pipelines for Daily Links
There are still many tasks left ahead of us, but we've progressed a lot
An Era of Rotting Technology, Migration Crises, and Cliffhanging
We've covered examples from IBM, resembling the Microsoft world
First Iteration of Techrights as 100% Static Pages Web Site
We want to champion another decade or two of positive impact and opinionated analysis
Links 25/09/2023: Patent News and Coding
some remaining links for today
Steam Deck is Mostly Good in the Sense That It Weakens Microsoft's Dominance (Windows)
The Steam Deck is mostly a DRM appliance
SUSE is Just Another Black Cat Working for Proprietary Giants/Monopolies
SUSE's relationship with firms such as these generally means that SUSE works for authority, not for community, and when it comes to cryptography it just follows guidelines from the US government
IBM is Selling Complexity, Not GNU/Linux
It's not about the clients, it's about money
Birthday of Techrights in 6 Weeks (Tux Machines and Techrights Reach Combined Age of 40 in 2025)
We've already begun the migration to static
Linux Foundation: We Came, We Saw, We Plundered
Linux Foundation staff uses neither Linux nor Open Source. They're essentially using, exploiting, piggybacking goodwill gestures (altruism of volunteers) while paying themselves 6-figure salaries.
Security Isn't the Goal of Today's Software and Hardware Products
Any newly-added layer represents more attack surface
Linux Too Big to Be Properly Maintained When There's an Incentive to Sell More and More Things (Complexity and Narrow Support Window)
They want your money, not your peace of mind. That's a problem.
Modern Web Means Proprietary Trash
Mozilla is financially beholden to Google and thus we cannot expect any pushback or for Firefox to "reclaims the Web" a second time around
Godot 4.2 is Approaching, But After What Happened to Unity All Game Developers Should be Careful
We hope Unity will burn in a massive fire and, as for Godot, we hope it'll get rid of Microsoft
GNU/Linux Has Conquered the World, But Users' Freedom Has Not (Impediments Remain in Hardware)
Installing one's system of choice on a device is very hard, sometimes impossible
Another Copyright Lawsuit Against Microsoft (or its Proxy) for Misuse of Large Works by Chatbot
Some people mocked us for saying this day would come; chatbots are a huge disappointment and they're on very shaky legal ground
Privacy is Not a Crime, Reporting Hidden Facts Is Not a Crime Either
the powerful companies/governments/societies get to know everything about everybody, but if anyone out there discovers or shares dark secrets about those powerful companies/governments/societies, that's a "crime"
United Workforce Always Better for the Workers
In the case of technology, it is possible that a lack of collective action is because of relatively high salaries and less physically-demanding jobs
Purge of Software Freedom and Its Voices
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
GNOME and GTK Taking Freedom Away From Users
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer