Gene, and the case generally

Posted Jun 20, 2014 2:24 UTC (Fri) by louie (guest, #3285)
In reply to: don't get too excited by coriordan
Parent article: US Supreme Court rules against software patents

I'd love to agree with Gene, but his analysis here, like most of his analysis, is wrong. Perhaps this is his stopped-clock moment, but the court is pretty clear that there are plenty of software patents that should exist - it just doesn't say where the line is. But Gene and others will be back aggressively pushing the line soon enough.

(Which isn't to say it is a ruling that is bad for the open source community. It just isn't what we might have hoped for. As the court put it today: "In any event, we need not labor to delimit the precise contours of the 'abstract ideas' category in this case." Which means someone else will do that labor, expensively and over a period of years.)

Gene, and the case generally

Posted Jun 20, 2014 3:02 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

> the court is pretty clear that there are plenty
> of software patents that should exist

I don't read it that way. The Court saying a few times that "XYZ is invalid, but ABC is different". They don't say ABC would be patent-eligible. They just say it's not the same thing.

So that can mean the Court is just leaving that for another day. Maybe Thomas just couldn't get agreement this time, so it got punted.

I see nothing in this ruling that stops us from getting further victories next time.

(And yes, I think Gene just blew a gasket today. Still. They're fun quotes.)

Gene, and the case generally

Posted Jun 20, 2014 7:39 UTC (Fri) by Otus (subscriber, #67685) [Link]

> [T]he court is pretty clear that there are plenty of software patents that should exist - it just doesn't say where the line is.

That's not how I read it. To me is seems that all the hedging has to do with making sure they don't imply that all patents *on computers* are invalid. Just those moving an abstract idea into software.

Also, none of it says something is patentable, merely leaves it outside the area they mark "definitely not patentable".

But IANAL etc.

Gene, and the case generally

Posted Jun 23, 2014 21:03 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

> but the court is pretty clear that there are plenty of software patents that should exist - it just doesn't say where the line is

Is the court clear on that? As I understood from previous rulings discussed on Groklaw, the court couldn't get its head round "all software patents are patents on maths" (or didn't try) and as such was simply saying "some software patents MAY be valid, but ones like this aren't". It couldn't get its head round "all software patents are like these ones, therefore they are all invalid".

It wasn't (sadly) closing the door on software patents, but it wasn't legitimating them either.

Cheers,
Wol

Gene, and the case generally

Posted Jun 29, 2014 20:35 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (1 responses)

Sounds like the smart thing to do: rule on the cases before them and don't try to make decisions about issues for which no evidence has been provided.

Changing laws by court case is the long, slow method. The only way to get anywhere faster is to involve the (infamously dysfunctional US) legislature.

In the mean time, are there any running cases involving compression algorithms? Because they would get to the heart of the issue.

Gene, and the case generally

Posted Jun 30, 2014 2:06 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> Changing laws by court case is the long, slow method. The only way to get anywhere faster is to involve the (infamously dysfunctional US) legislature.

You might get the Congresscritters to *do* something, but it might have so many riders and loopholes so as to be ineffective. It could also turn on you and explicitly make the bad stuff legal (or the good stuff illegal) depending on lobbying. The courts may be slow, but I think I'd trust them more to get a better overall, long-term result.