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Supreme Court Considers Software Patents
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| Those arguing that patent rights should be
| restricted say that "business method
| patents amount to a tax on Internet
| commerce." On the other hand, small
| software companies, financial services
| companies and others argue that their
| inability to protect software "cripples"
| the ability of smaller companies to
| compete.
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http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/bentley/supreme-court-considers-software-patents/?cs=37325
Software patents have tangible costs for innovation, and for you
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| One thing that I find extremely
| frustrating about many legal scholars' and
| economists' approach to patents is that
| they make two false assumptions. The first
| assumption is that transaction costs are
| acceptable, or can be made so with some
| modest reforms. The second assumption is
| that patent litigation is reasonably
| "precise"; i.e., if you don't infringe on
| something then you'll be able to build
| useful technology and bring it to market
| relatively unhindered. As my friend's
| story shows, both of these assumptions are
| laughably false. I mean, just black-is-
| white, up-is-down, slavery-is-freedom, we-
| have-always-been-at-war-with-Eastasia
| false.
|
| The end result is that our patent system
| encourages "land grab" behavior which
| could practically serve as the dictionary
| definition of rent-seeking. The closest
| analogy is to a conquistador planting a
| flag on a random outcropping of rock at
| the tip of some peninsula, and then saying
| "I claim all this land for Spain", and
| then the entire Western hemisphere
| allegedly becomes the property of the
| Spanish crown. This is a theory of
| property that's light-years away from any
| Lockean notion of mixing your labor with
| the land or any Smithian notion of
| promoting economic efficiency. And yet
| it's the state of the law for software
| patents. Your business plan can literally
| be to build a half-assed implementation of
| some straightforward idea (or, in the case
| of Intellectual Ventures, don't build it
| at all), file a patent, and subsequently
| sue the pants off anybody who comes
| anywhere near the turf you've claimed. And
| if they do come near your turf, regardless
| of how much of their own sweat and blood
| they put into their independent invention,
| the legal system's going go off under them
| like a land mine.
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http://abstractfactory.blogspot.com/2009/11/software-patents-have-tangible-costs.html
Recent:
U.S. Supreme Court set to hear Bilski v. Kappos
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| The United States Supreme Court will hear
| a patent case on Nov. 9 that has
| implications for both method and software
| patents, and it has gained widespread
| attention from industry groups, professors
| and businesses looking to influence the
| high courtâs thinking.
|
| But at least one lawyer expects that the
| decision made in this case will not fix
| anything at the United States Patent and
| Trademark Office (USPTO).
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http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=33871
Correcting Microsoft's Bilski Amicus Brief -- How Do Computers Really Work?
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| I have noticed something about PDF the
| amicus brief from Microsoft, Philips and
| Symantec submitted to the US SUpreme Court
| in the In re Bilski case. This amicus
| brief relies on a particular
| interpretation of the history of computing
| and on its own description of the inner
| workings of a computer to argue that
| software should be patentable subject
| matter. I argue that both the history and
| the description of the actual working of a
| computer is inaccurate.
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http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091029172602205
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