Bonum Certa Men Certa

Where the USPTO Stands on the Subject of Abstract Software Patents

The Office hands out fool's gold

Some gold



Summary: Not much is changing as we approach Easter and software patents are still fool's gold in the United States, no matter if they get granted or not

THIS is a very quick update regarding the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The gist of it all? Well, nothing is changing, certainly not at the courts. We have been watching closely all sorts of case outcomes; all have them bar few have reached the predictable kind of outcome.

Watch out as patent maximalists aren't telling the whole story. They habitually ignore or hide everything which doesn't fit their agenda.

Robert Schaffer and Joseph Robinson over at Watchtroll have nitpicked or cherry-picked a Federal Circuit (CAFC) case regarding the patent troll PersonalWeb 'Technologies' because it is a rarity; it is a high court's reversal after a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) after a successful inter partes review (IPR). We also noticed (yesterday) that patent maximalists hope to compel SCOTUS to reconsider a case that resembles Alice (basis of 35 U.S.C. €§ 101) while cherry-picking a CAFC case similar to Mayo. We said we'd not cover pertinent American patent cases, so for the time being we're just observing and adding those to our daily links. It is very much possible if not highly likely that nothing at all will change; the US government was simply asked to comment about a pending appeal and there's no guarantee SCOTUS will go ahead; even if it does, this might simply serve to double down on Alice, even further strengthening the precedent.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Amutable Already Reveals That Its Focus Is Not Linux, It'll Promote "Remote Attestation"
This is basically an attack on Software Freedom, even if they toss around the brand "Linux"
More People in Chad Move to GNU/Linux
Last year we began to see GNU/Linux rising there - a trend which continues this year
Dr. Andy Farnell on How Universities and Culture of Education Got Crushed by "Technofascist Nightmare"
Farnell says he "already soft-quit in [his] mind"
Debt of Broadcom Grew by More Than 50%, Broadcom is Deeper in Debt Than Google
Expect many more cuts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 15, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, February 15, 2026
Links 15/02/2026: Slop, Politics, and Gemini
Links for the day
Small is Beautiful (in Cascading Style Sheets/Inheritance Rules)
If done correctly, pages can take a tenth of a second to fully load
Microsoft Has Fallen to New Lows in Hong Kong This Year
That Windows "market share" falls there is perhaps expected
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Raised About 1.5 Million Dollars This Winter, Almost 50% More Than in All of 2024 Combined
Verbal advocacy goes a long way
Spread the Word About EPO Strikes and Patent Injustices in Europe
Corruption in Europe is a real thing
The Register MS is Promoting Slop, Promotion Connected to Microsoft (Trying to Replace Judges With Microsoft)
marketing spun as "science"
He Did Not Have Enough Souls
A lot of the subjects we cover here no other site dares touch
When It Comes tom Rust, Keep All the Eyes on the Ball (Technical and Legal Perils, Sustainability Questions)
It's not about security or politics
"Mix Vale" is a Slopfarm
3 "articles" about "ubuntu"
Links 15/02/2026: Roy Medvedev Dead at 100, Rise of "YouTube Politicians"
Links for the day
Links 15/02/2026: How Alexey Navalny Was Executed by Putin, Erdogan Helping Iran
Links for the day
IBM Fedora Keeps Promoting Slop, Red Hat Has Been Turned Into Chaff and Trash to Help IBM's Stock (With "AI" Storytelling)
Red Hat's Fedora is an old brand (20+ years). It no longer stands for what it meant to people in the Fedora Core days (I was a Fedora user back then).
What IBM Said About 2026 Layoffs and What's Happening in Practice
t'll leave IBM at the very bottom, in due course (customers will notice something profound has changed)
Gemini Links 15/02/2026: "Already Midway February" and Loadbars Remembered
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 14, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, February 14, 2026
Microsoft's Bing Down to 0.5% in Armenia
Microsoft does not want shareholders to see this
Libel by Bots: Unexplored Legal Area?
Liability can be traced back to the operator
Maybe Obvious, But Merits Repeating: A Lot of "Demand" for Slop is Faked, Manufactured, Fabricated by Dark Patterns, Bundling, Media PR (Deception/Hype) Campaigns
Over the past few years many products and services got rebranded as "AI"
xAI and X (Twitter) Live on Borrowed Time, It'll Get a Lot Worse Fast
Being associated with a child porn site formerly known as "Twitter" is odorous to say the least
Microsoft is Lobbying Brussels via Opensource.org and OSI
The new (GAFAM) management at OSI is not serving the OSI's original mission
Will Lockett's Newsletter: Microsoft became Microslop and Windows users are "flocking" to GNU/Linux "to escape the mess"
"Users are fed up and jumping ship from Windows to Mac or Linux. In fact, it appears that Windows has lost 400 million users since 2022!"
Photographic Collections
There are going to be over 100,000 JPEG, PNG, and GIF files by the time we turn 20
Norway Curbs Social Control Media as It Harms Norway's Society
A decrease from 11% to just 1.87% is possible to reason about
Accomplishments of Our Community
Why I enjoy writing in Techrights
Microsoft Invented a Slop CEO ("AI CEO") Because Real Interest in Slop is Waning, So It's Just Faking Its Prominence
It's noise
Google Promoting Slop, Not Journalism
The truth of the matter is, Google is part of this problem and it doesn't seem to care
Another IBM Company (Spawned by IBM) is Hiding the Scale of Layoffs, Just Like Red Hat and Kyndryl
Why is the scale of the layoffs there shrouded in secrecy?
Links 14/02/2026: Financial Woes in Hong Kong and "Hong Kong Journalists Face ‘Precarious’ Future After Jimmy Lai Jailed"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/02/2026: Fish Shell and Meta Slash-commands
Links for the day
Links 14/02/2026: "Bias and Toxicity in" Slop, Microsoft's Vista 11 System Update Breaks Systems Again
Links for the day
Links 14/02/2026: "Suppression of Free Speech" and "Climate Change Puts Winter Games on Thin Ice"
Links for the day
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part I - Getting the Word Out About What the 'Alicante Mafia' Did to Europe's Second-Largest Institution
Can't everyone in the European media agree that letting cokeheads run Europe's second-largest institution is a terrible idea?
Richard Stallman in the United States - Part I - Huge Audience (Offline and Online), 'Cancel Culture' Attempted and Failed
the comeback of Richard Stallman (RMS) in the United States
GitHub Cannot Survive for Much Longer
Microsoft is trying to just hide the debt
Ed Zitron: Microsoft Is A Decaying Empire That Bet The Future On Making In Excess Of $500 Billion In New Revenue Within The Next 4 To 6 Years From AI — And It Hasn’t Made A Dime In Profit Yet
Microsoft bets its future on a bunch of nothing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 13, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, February 13, 2026
Gemini Links 14/02/2026: "Throwback VR Headset" and OFFLFIRSOCH 2026
Links for the day