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Analysis: The "Lorenzo Jones" case emerges (SCOTUS Blog)
The SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) blog has an analysis of the oral arguments heard in the Bilski case today. This is a case that many hope will reduce the scope of what is patentable in the US, and the justices seemed skeptical of the arguments made in defense of the Bilski patent on a "business method". "The largest question left unanswered when the one-hour argument was over was whether the Court would go forward and issue a major new ruling interpreting patent law, when the practical result here seemed so evident. Lawyers and judges have invested heavy resources in the Bilski case, and it does raise a fundamental question that may well need answering. But, when there may well be no formulation of patent law that would salvage the Bilski-Warsaw creation, why bother?"
(thanks to Rahul Sundaram).
(Log in to post comments)
Analysis: The "Lorenzo Jones" case emerges (SCOTUS Blog) Posted Nov 9, 2009 23:35 UTC (Mon) by yokem_55 (subscriber, #10498) [Link] From the oral argument transcript:MR. STEWART: And all we've said is that it might be enough; that is, hard questions will arise down the road as to where do you draw the line, to what extent must the machine or the transformation be central --I think we may have a friend in the Chief.
Analysis: The "Lorenzo Jones" case emerges (SCOTUS Blog) Posted Nov 9, 2009 23:53 UTC (Mon) by yokem_55 (subscriber, #10498) [Link]
Also in the transcript, pages 41-47 contain a bit of a side discussion of whether a new software program on an old computer "transforms" the machine sufficiently to make the new software a patentable invention. Justices Kennedy, Stevens, Breyer and Roberts are the main participants.
Analysis: The "Lorenzo Jones" case emerges (SCOTUS Blog) Posted Nov 10, 2009 4:09 UTC (Tue) by gmaxwell (subscriber, #30048) [Link]
It's helpful to consider the discussion in the light of the USPTO guidelines: http://www.uspto.gov/patents/law/comments/2009-08-25_inte...
Though as an engineer I'm not sure how to apply the criteria given: If a patents claims regarding the programming of a general machine "is so abstract and sweeping that performing the process as claimed would cover substantially all practical applications of a judicial exception, such as a mathematical algorithm, the claim would not satisfy the test as the machine would not be sufficiently particular." and "A field-of-use limitation does not impose actual boundaries on the scope of the claimed invention."
Channelling the Knuth argument: All computer software is a mathematical algorithm, and if applying it to a particular field ("Fourier transforms, on a computer, FOR DETECTING PORN") isn't enough then I don't know what could be.
In the oral arguments both the attorneys and the justices seemed a little uninformed from a computer science perspective, for example they seemed to view executing a (possibly complex) series of operations on a calculator to be categorically different from programming a computer.
Often in law these kinds of issues are resolved by using special domain specific meanings of words (like 'computer' and 'mathematical algorithm') which an engineer wouldn't find especially agreeable, but the purpose of law isn't to be consistent with mathematics or engineering... if it wants to equate π=2.0 then it can. But in those cases it actually has to have its own somewhat consistent definition, and as far as I can tell it doesn't have one here.
In the oral arguments it sounded like the government conceded that they don't have a solution, but that they think it's reasonable to hammer one out over time by working on a case by case basis.
The resulting uncertainty can only be a boon to attorneys and a burden on everyone else.
Analysis: The "Lorenzo Jones" case emerges (SCOTUS Blog) Posted Nov 11, 2009 0:34 UTC (Wed) by dmk (subscriber, #50141) [Link]
hm the patent defender argues, that the previous court took an arbitrary test and rejected the patent on that ground. and that that is not right. ? somehow a substantial argument is escaping me there.
the other party says that this isn't some big case where there shouldn't be any new ruling. it's just about confirming given practice and that the transform-or-machine test for ''processes'' is a valid test which doesnot preclude busniss patents, nor includes them and it is thus safe to use without creating havoc in industry-world.
i find it really weird. both sides say something, the court would love to finish off business patents, but no one wants to come up with a rule on how to exclude business-patents (aka software-patents?) without damaging the valid side of the patent system.
so to me they really seem to talk at cross purposes. but it looks as if that patent would be killed. but why it gets killed is the last open question.
Analysis: The "Lorenzo Jones" case emerges (SCOTUS Blog) Posted Nov 10, 2009 8:16 UTC (Tue) by AlexHudson (guest, #41828) [Link]
I wouldn't read too much into the questions he asks; he's just testing the issue. The key is the responses.
Analysis: The "Lorenzo Jones" case emerges (SCOTUS Blog) Posted Nov 10, 2009 4:19 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]
I fear that the court will do what they often do, which is to issue a narrow ruling. They'll throw out this patent, with language that disallows a bunch of other "business method" patents. For example, Priceline has patented the concept of doing a reverse auction with a computer, if I understand correctly. That's probably dead. But the ruling will be narrow enough to leave software patents for future rulings (neither blessed by the court nor thrown out by the court).
<p> The reason they might go in that direction is that they are worried about the consequences of just doing what the SFLC is arguing for: they probably have so many friend-of-the-court briefings predicting disaster that the might try to avoid just killing all software patents.
Analysis: The "Lorenzo Jones" case emerges (SCOTUS Blog) Posted Nov 10, 2009 18:43 UTC (Tue) by Topaz (guest, #60130) [Link]
Small steps are better than no progress at all. A case against business methods should weaken all patents based solely on methods or ideas. Is software code a machine? The reasonable answer is 'definitely not'.
text/html version of transcript Posted Nov 10, 2009 4:26 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
I've html-ised the transcript here:
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