Google and Facebook join forces against software patents (The H)

A brief has been submitted to the US Court of Appeals; signed by Google, Facebook, Red Hat and several other companies; stating that the combination of an abstract idea and a computer should not be eligible for patent protection. The H takes a look. "The companies argued that such bare-bones claims grant exclusive rights over the abstract idea itself with no limit on how the idea is implemented, and that granting patent protection for such claims would impair, not promote, innovation. In their 30-page brief to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the signatories explain that this often grants exclusive rights to people who haven't themselves contributed significantly to a development, punishing those who later create innovation and cannot market the concrete applications of these abstract ideas unless they pay royalties."

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