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Symbian Legal Appeal Throws UK Software Patents into Confusion
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| Following a recent legal appeal by mobile phone OS vendor (and now Nokia
| subsidiary), Symbian, the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has just
| issued a practice note relating to software patentability that, according to
| patent attorneys, still does not bring the UK fully in line with Europe, in
| spite of a recent court case that suggested the IPO should change its
| previous practice.
`----
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/35181.php
Surprises Found in Data on IP Suits
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| It's not true that patent infringement suits are going through the roof --
| filings have held steady for eight years -- but there are a whole lot more
| defendants out there looking for lawyers.
|
| While many IP litigators have been busier in the past few years, the actual
| number of infringement suits has hovered between 2,300 and 2,800 a year. But
| in 2007, the number of defendants named in these cases jumped from around
| 6,000 in 2006 to 9,000 (see PDF chart; registration required).
|
| That's just one of the facts revealed by Stanford Law School's Intellectual
| Property Litigation Clearinghouse, a searchable online database unveiled
| Monday evening that tracks all patent cases since 2000. Offering hard
| statistics on trends, from how many suits have been filed to how plaintiffs
| fare in front of a particular judge, the clearinghouse is being greeted
| enthusiastically by lawyers.
`----
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202426615621&rss=newswire
Recent:
Nokia seeks India patent for multimedia sharing technology
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| New Delhi, Oct 12: World's largest mobile phone maker Nokia has filed a
| patent application in India for its networking solution which allows a user
| group to share multimedia contents during a group communication.
`----
http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=475627&sid=BUS&ssid=54
Patenting strategies and the value of European patents
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| No matter what the degree of adequacy or inadequacy of the system to today’s
| technology markets, a situation that is based on deliberate abuse of the law
| cannot be desirable. Therefore, either the law as it is should be more
| strictly enforced, or it should be adapted to better fulfil its economic
| purpose.
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http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/2365
Symbian's Patently Terrible “Triumph”
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| Although I've written elsewhere about the recent court case of Symbian v
| Comptroller General of Patents, noting that it was bad news, I hadn't
| realised quite how bad the news was until I went through the complete
| judgment.
|
| It's plain that the judges in question, who to their credit tried their level
| best to understand this mysterious stuff called software, failed to grasp the
| central issue of what software is. As a result, they have passed down a
| judgement that is so seriously wrong it will cause a huge amount of damage in
| the future unless it is revoked by a higher court.
|
| [...]
|
| Basically, the UK patent office appealed against an earlier appeal against
| its own refusal to grant a patent to Symbian for a programming technique.
| Yes, you read that correctly: the Patent Office was trying to get an appeal
| against its refusal to grant a patent struck down, because it didn't believe
| that the original patent application should be allowed. Through its own
| appeal, the UK Patent Office was trying to establish what could and could not
| be patented in the world of code.
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http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/green-computing/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=1395&blogid=14
Bad News on the UK Software Patent Front
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| Well, no more unfair than not allowing physicists to patent the laws they
| discover, or the theorems that mathematicians prove. The point is, software
| is not "closer to a mathematical method", it is a mathematical method, or
| rather a concatenation of them.
|
| All this juridical "on the one hand" and "on the other" in the interests
| of "balance" does not change this. The current decision is seriously bad
| news, because it opens the door to even more weaselly patent applications
| that contort themselves into the magic position to gain the favour of
| whichever Jesuit is on duty that day.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2008/10/bad-news-on-uk-software-patent-front.html
Court ruling strengthens patent protection for UK software
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| Technology companies will find it easier to safeguard their innovations in
| the UK after a court ruled that software should receive wider patent
| protection.
|
| The Court of Appeal said today that complex software such as programmes
| designed to make mobile phones and computers work faster can be patented in
| the UK.
|
| Previously, manufacturers could claim commercial exclusivity for their
| products under copyright laws but had less legal protection for underlying
| technical processes.
|
| As a result of the ruling, developers are likely to find it easier to secure
| approval from the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO), which has
| traditionally been reluctant to grant patents to cover software.
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http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article4907993.ece
Latest Decision on UK Software Patents Rejects UK-IPO Interpretation
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| Today’s Court of Appeal decision on the Symbian case has affirmed that the UK
| and European approaches to software patentability are fundamentally
| compatible. This upholds a High Court decision which had overturned the
| rejection by the UK-IPO of an application to patent “Mapping dynamic link
| libraries in a computing device”.
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http://www.marks-clerk.com/attorneys/news_one.aspx?newsid=220
Court of Appeal delivers a software patent boost in the UK
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| Companies looking to obtain and enforce software patents in the UK received a
| boost today when the Court of Appeal ruled against the UK IP Office in its
| appeal against a decision of the High Court in the Symbian case. The High
| Court had overturned a UKIPO decision not to grant a patent to Symbian for an
| accelerator relating to iPods, mobile phones and computers.
`----
http://www.iam-magazine.com/blog/Detail.aspx?g=74ecc083-2eae-4b75-a64c-499c9e873f65
Some learning to do?
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| Companies like Nokia need to learn the open source way of working. This means
| not only fulfilling the letter of GPL, LGPL etc. but also the spirit. In my
| mind this means integrating the corporate work with the open source
| community, participating, contributing back the code, building the code in
| open projects and not only releasing it when mandatory, not forking, etc.
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http://jaaksi.blogspot.com/2008/06/some-learning-to-do.html
Nokia does not get it
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| You better start playing by the rules because else the other companies might
| do it faster than Nokia and you will lose the opportunity. Oh: And just as a
| remind: when you go open source, you must play by the rules by honoring the
| license of the software.
|
| Really, it’s sad to listen to things like this from someone controlling the
| company who owns Trolltech I am sure that the vice-president of companies
| like Red Hat wouldn’t say nonsense like the above. But it’s no surprise
| coming from someone in a company that seems to be absolutely in favor of
| software patents in Europe according to FFII.
`----
http://edulix.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/nokia-does-not-get-it/
Oh please, educate me, Nokia.
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| Nokia: “We want to educate open-source developers."
|
| Oh please, educate me, Nokia. Actually, never-mind. Kiss my ass instead. BTW,
| I call it free software, not "open source".
|
| Nokia: "There are certain business rules [developers] need to obey, such as
| DRM, IPR [intellectual property rights], SIM locks and subsidised business
| models.”
|
| You think I need obey? I prefer civil disobedience. DRM? Why would I obey
| your plan to steal my freedom? "Intellectual property"? What's that? There is
| Copyright law and Patent law but to my knowledge, there is no "intellectual
| property" law.
|
| It's a good idea to Boycott Nokia. They have an exceedingly imperious and
| arrogant attitude. Didn't they just buy Trolltech? Whichever pinhead from
| Nokia wrote this garbage just did a disservice to Trolltech. It makes
| Trolltech look like obedient "open source" developers who are in the process
| of being re-educated by Nokia.
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http://www.fsdaily.com/Community/Nokia_does_not_get_it#comment-3323
Ari Jaaksi of Nokia Wants to Educate the Linux Community
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| But perhaps the community has some education for Jaaksi and Nokia. Jaaksi
| hosted me at a Nokia dinner in 2000, he's a nice guy and has been interested
| in Linux for a long time. But Nokia's barking up the wrong tree this time,
| because Nokia can do everything it wants with DRM, IPR, and SIM locks without
| bothering the Linux developers about it - and both Nokia and the Linux
| developers will like it better that way. It's surprising that Nokia doesn't
| understand that at this late date.
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http://technocrat.net/d/2008/6/11/43198
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