Are Google software patents on the skids?
p2pnet news view | Products:- “In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bilski, the Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in § 101 of the Patent Act,” says John F. Duffy on his Patent Law blog.
“In the most recent of these three – the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal – the Office takes the position that process inventions generally are unpatentable unless they ‘result in a physical transformation of an article’ or are ‘tied to a particular machine.’
“Perhaps, the agency has conceded, some ‘new, unforeseen technology’ might warrant an ‘exception’ to this formalistic test, but in the agency’s view, no such technology has yet emerged so there is no reason currently to use a more inclusive standard.”
Or, as Slashdot sums it up:
“The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc.”
Adds Duffy:
“The PTO Board’s reasoning in [Langemyr and ] Wasynczuk also reveals that the agency’s proposed new rule for patentable subject matter will not produce certainty but will instead open up software patents to new and previously unimagined litigation over the precise scope of the concept of a “particular machine.”
“Vast industries of modern innovation must now wait to see whether the courts will follow the agency’s lead.”
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.Stumble It!
Patent Law – The Death of Google’s Patents?, July 21, 2008
Slashdot – The Death of Nearly All Software Patents?, July 24, 2008
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July 25th, 2008 at 5:54 am
Hmmmm……I just had a thought….Bush is an idiot…now let me patent that ….ok….now anyone utters that phrase …lookout…I’ll sue.
Hahahahahaha
July 25th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Finally the patent office starts to have a hope of actually getting it. Patents are way out of hand!
July 25th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Notice how patents are being restricted and copyrights are being extended?
July 25th, 2008 at 9:03 am
They (Commerce Deparment) made the water too dirty for cunsumption, as aked by the big corporate pigs and are now trying to clean it up, just a little bit. The problem is that the water is now too dirty for most little programmers.
BTW, the Commerce Department also runs the Copyright Office. That explains a lot.
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A bunch of pigs didn’t like the water in the pond. It was too clean, tasteless. The pigs got together and got the pond owners to make the water dirty, in exchange for some bacon. The problem now is that the water is too dirty for all but the pigs, who love the pond the way it is. Also, the pond owners ate all the bacon and are always asking for more from the pigs. The pigs, that don’t even care if the water is fit for humans who own the pond are happy to comply.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:10 am
“Notice how patents are being restricted and copyrights are being extended?”
Notice how the Eupeans are concerned how it is that old (recording onl) artists are no paid for their work 50 years ago but no so for taxi drivers, music teachers, inventors for their (including patented) and opera singer’s work of 50 years ago?
My theory is that they, legislators, are on the take.
July 29th, 2008 at 6:22 am
“BTW, the Commerce Department also runs the Copyright Office. That explains a lot.”
Not so. While the patent office is run by the Commerce Department, the Copyright Office is part of the Library of Congress, part of Congress, a 100% political (thus lobbied) organization, the same organization that made the law for the cartels. By keeping the Copyright Office, Congress has full control of copyright matters without the intervention of the executive branch of government. That explains more.