06.19.16
Gemini version available ♊︎Patent Lawyers’ Fantasy Land Where Software Patents Are Suddenly Resurrected Even When They’re Not
Ignoring the facts and insulting Supreme Court Justices instead
Credit: Bilski Blog chart
Summary: A quick glance at where the debate over software patents in the United States stands and how profiteers (such as patent lawyers) not only mislead the public but also bully the messengers
THE situation in the United States gives much hope for those looking to abolish software patents. The USPTO begrudgingly adopts Alice and makes it harder to attain software patents, irrespective of what the court (or PTAB) says about them. But make no mistake, the proponents of software patents fight hard to change this, using lobbying (misleading the decision makers), propaganda (misleading the public), and false marketing (bamboozling clients with false hopes).
Curiously enough, recently we learned that software patents and their injustice gave birth to the original Pirate Party (in Sweden). To quote Benjamin Henrion, “Pirate Party founder Falkvinge mentions software patents fight in 2005/2006 as one of the reason for starting” (that was around the time of the famous directive on software patents in Europe, after Falkvinge had worked for Microsoft and Microsoft had lobbied hard for software patents in Europe — a subject that Florian Müller wrote an entire book about).
“But make no mistake, the proponents of software patents fight hard to change this, using lobbying (misleading the decision makers), propaganda (misleading the public), and false marketing (bamboozling clients with false hopes).”To this date, proponents of software patents, notably large corporations and their patent lawyers, work hard to promote and cement a broken system. “A New Hope For Software Patents?” is the title of this new analysis, reusing even words after more than a month with many dozens of so-called ‘analyses’ (marketing for one’s services around software patents). Gordon & Rees LLP has just published “Is the Enfish Case “A New Hope” For Software Patents?”
Notice the question mark. They know the answer, but they create uncertainty in the hope of attracting customers. Isn’t it time to say “enough with this propaganda,” as not much has changed since the decision except the flood of pro-software patents ‘analyses’ from patent lawyers? We wrote many detailed articles to highlight this wave of misinformation.
“To this date, proponents of software patents, notably large corporations and their patent lawyers, work hard to promote and cement a broken system.”“Enfish for Alice: a software win”, says another so-called ‘analysis’ [via Bastian Best], as if patent trolls winning is “a software win”…
“Good news for software patents,” says the author. “The negative impact of the 2014 SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) “Alice” decision (invalidating some business method and financial software patents) has been somewhat mitigated by the recent “Enfish” court decision.”
No, not really. Barely. Nothing at all or not much has changed more than a month afterwards. In fact, how many other cases have been ruled in favour of software patents since? Anyone can count those on one hand if not zero hands. According to some number-crunching work from Bilski Blog (very informative blog by the way) and those who comment on it, “The Supreme Court Did Not Consider Alice v CLS Bank to Be a Software Patent Killer But the Dist. Cts and PTAB Do” (not CAFC).
“It’s increasingly amusing to see how patent lawyers squirm over Alice, simply not accepting that software patents should never have been possible in the first place.”That’s rather misleading an interpretation regarding the above as SCOTUS (the Supreme Court) did not express an opinion on software patents explicitly, so overall it’s a rather misguided/misleading claim to make. What the cited analysis shows is that the vast majority of patent cases involving software are unfavourable to software patents, much to the panic and horror of people like Patent WatchTroll (Gene), who is now trying to reach new lows, probably in grave frustration. Watch his latest effort to shame the Justices into approving software patents. “It is truly ironic,” he said, “even downright funny, how the Supreme Court can so clearly see that the Federal Circuit is not being true to the simple, easy to understand, straightforward terms of a statute but at the same time lack the capacity to similarly see that they are themselves doing the very same thing. If intellectual honesty means anything the Supreme Court would hold themselves to the same standard and stop applying judicial exceptions to patent eligibility that enjoy no textual support in the statute. I’m not going to hold my breath.”
Gene, being the software patents cheerleader he has always been (for his own profit), is mocking the intelligence of people who don’t agree with him (Gene already blocked me in Twitter, having lost the argument, perhaps fearing further debating), even when they’re Justices at the Supreme Court! It’s increasingly amusing to see how patent lawyers squirm over Alice, simply not accepting that software patents should never have been possible in the first place. Our next post will show some more pearls of ‘wisdom’ from Gene… █
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