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The Supreme Court already ruled against software patents in Gottschalk v. Benson. So much for what the Supreme Court says. If anyone is interested in the estab
by Jach 13y ago
The Supreme Court already ruled against software patents in Gottschalk v. Benson. So much for what the Supreme Court says.
If anyone is interested in the establishment's freakout that 2012's ruling caused, look no further than here: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2012/03/20/supreme-court-mayo-v-prometheus/id=22920/ http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2012/03/20/supreme-court-mayo-v-pr... Here is an excerpt:
How long will it take the Federal Circuit to overrule this inexplicable nonsense? The novice reader may find that question to be ignorant, since the Supreme Court is the highest court of the United States. Those well acquainted with the industry know that the Supreme Court is not the final word on patentability, and while the claims at issue in this particular case are unfortunately lost, the Federal Circuit will work to moderate (and eventually overturn) this embarrassing display by the Supreme Court. This will eventually be accomplished the same as it was after the Supreme Court definitively ruled software is not patentable in Gottschalk v. Benson, and the same as the ruling in KSR v. Teleflex will be overruled. I have taken issue with Chief Judge Rader’s statements that nothing has changed in Federal Circuit jurisprudence as a result of KSR, which is not technically true. What is true, however, is that the Federal Circuit continues to refine the KSR “common sense test,” narrowing the applicability in case after case and tightening the ability for “common sense” to be used against an application. We are almost 5 years post KSR and there is still a lot of work left to be done by the Federal Circuit to finally overrule the Supreme Court’s KSR decision. It took almost 10 years to overrule Gottschalk v. Benson, so we are likely in for a decade of work to moderate the nonsense thrust upon the industry this morning.
Indeed, Breyer’s decision is the most intellectually dishonest decision I have ever read, which is saying a lot given the utter contemptuous understanding of patent law displayed by the Supreme Court over the years. It is truly troubling that all 9 of the Justices concurred in what history will regard as one of the worst decisions in the patent space EVER!
Yes, Congress will be asked to step in and rectify this absurd ruling, and they should. Knowing how the legislative branch operates I cringe at the thought of Congress coming to the rescue. The only thing that gives me solace is that the industries summarily executed this morning have an A+ lobbying game, which in Washington, DC means everything.
(By the way, I remembered this from the comment and discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3732894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3732894)
- dctoedt 13y ago> The Supreme Court already ruled against software patents in Gottschalk v. Benson. That's not accurate; the statement is too categorical. (All categorical statements are bad, including this one.) The 1972 Gottschalk v. Benson case [1] involved claims to a particular type of software, namely a machine-executed mathematical algorithm for converting binary-coded decimal into pure binary. The Supreme Court ruled that those particular claims were unpatentable. Much the same thing happened in 1978's Parker v. Flook case, involving claims to a method of updating an alarm limit. As often happens, however, the Court later refined its analysis as new cases provided new fact patterns. In 1981 the Court ruled, in Diamond v. Diehr [3], that a claim to controlling an otherwise-conventional physical process by software was indeed patentable. More recently, in Bilski v. Kappos [4], the Court affirmed a rejection of claims to a particular software-implemented method of hedging against the risk of price changes in commodities trading, but it refused to impose a categorical exclusion of patentability for such claims. For what it's worth, I seldom if ever read IP Watchdog anymore (the source of the parent comment's long italicized quote). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottschalk_v._Benson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottschalk_v._Benson [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_v._Flook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_v._Flook [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Diehr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Diehr [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilski_v._Kappos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilski_v._Kappos
- foxylad 13y ago> The only thing that gives me solace is that the industries summarily executed this morning have an A+ lobbying game So don't worry, A+ lobbying beats supreme court. I understand that this is just the opinion of one guy, but it is deeply disturbing that no-one has called him on that.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]