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IBM's Bilski brief spits in the face of the free software and open source movements
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/06/ibms-bilski-brief-spits-in-face-of-free.html
Decision about the Second Amendment Case to be Ruled Today
,----[ Quote ]
| After the decision of U.S. Supreme Court to
| regulate the Second Amendment case, Carl
| Bindenagel revealed the courtâs record on
| earlier gun rights cases.
`----
http://topnews.co.uk/27617-decision-about-second-amendment-case-be-ruled-today
Supreme Court Finale
,----[ Quote ]
| Tom Goldstein of scotusblog.com believes
| that the Constitution will win out, but
| isn't sure how far the Court will go in
| terms of raising questions about firearms
| regulations.
|
| That will be an important part of today's
| decision.
|
| Three other cases will be decided today on
| student religious organizations on college
| campuses, a major case on software patents
| and whether a key part of the Sarbanes-
| Oxley (post Enron) law is constitutional.
`----
http://blogs.ajc.com/jamie-dupree-washington-insider/2010/06/28/supreme-court-finale/?cxntfid=blogs_jamie_dupree_washington_insider
Will The Supreme Court Clean Up the Patent Mess?
,----[ Quote ]
| I did my original patent posts in 2008,
| shortly after the Federal Circuit heard
| oral arguments in In Re Bilski, a case
| involving a "business method" patent. There
| was a growing consensus that the patent
| system was broken, and high expectations
| that the court would use it as an
| opportunity to reform the rules for patent
| eligibility. The decision was released
| later in the year, and it did just that,
| overturning the extremely permissive
| standard for patentability that had applied
| for the preceding decade.
|
| The case is now before the Supreme Court,
| which is due to hand down its decison on
| Monday. Virtually everyone expects the high
| to affirm the Federal Circuit's rejection
| of Mr. Bilski's patent, but as always the
| important question is what's in the
| accompanying opinion. A narrow holding
| could simply rule out the most egregiously
| abstract business method patents (Mr.
| Bilski's "invention" consisted entirely of
| mental steps) while leaving the bulk of
| software and business method patents
| untouched. But if the Supreme Court is
| feeling more ambitious, it may try to draw
| a new line that invalidates many existing
| business method and maybe even deal with
| the sotware controversy.
`----
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/06/will-the-supreme-court-clean-up-the-patent-mess/58717/
Patent Litigation Weekly: With Bilski, the Waiting Is the Hardest Part
http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202463051679&Patent_Litigation_Weekly_With_Bilski_the_Waiting_Is_the_Hardest_Part
Patent law: Exclusions from patent protection
http://www.helium.com/items/1874173-patent-law-exclusions-from-patent-protection
Pre-Bilski Survey: Software Patents
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/06/pre-bilski-survey-software-patents.html?cid=6a00d8341c588553ef0133f1e5a5a8970b
Bilski v. Kappos and the Anti-State-Street-Majority
,----[ Quote ]
| The result is that the scope of patentable
| subject matter is certainly narrowed from
| its 1998 high-water-mark.
`----
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/06/bilski-v-kappos-and-the-anti-state-street-majority.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PatentlyO+%28Dennis+Crouch%27s+Patently-O%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Bilski v. Kappos: The Supreme Court Declines to Prohibit Business Method Patents
,----[ Quote ]
| In short, the ruling has done little to
| clean up the mess the CAFC helped created
| in 1998, when it decided State Street Bank
| & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group,
| and opened the doors to patents for novel
| methods of doing business. That ruling
| knocked patent law loose from its
| historical moorings and injected patents
| into business areas where they were neither
| needed nor wanted. The results had been
| nothing short of disastrous: a flood of
| patent applications for services like
| arbitration, tax-planning, legal
| counseling, charity fundraising, and even a
| âsystem for toilet reservations.â In its
| Bilski opinion, the CAFC tried to fix the
| problem by effectively overruling State
| Street. Yesterdayâs ruling eroded the
| CAFCâs limits on process patents, and thus
| missed an opportunity to fix some of the
| problems with those patents.
`----
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/06/bilski-v-kappos-supreme-court-declines-prohibit
Study: Patents Not A Top Priority At Software and Internet Start-Ups
http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2010/06/study-patents-not-a-top-priority-at-software-and-internet-start-ups/
Supreme Court Rules Narrowly In Bilski; Business Method & Software Patents Survive
,----[ Quote ]
| As I expected it appears that the Supreme
| Court has ruled somewhat narrowly in the
| Bilski case (pdf), which many had hoped
| would end the scourge of business method
| and software patents. Instead, the court
| effectively punted the issue. Technically
| it affirmed the overall decision from the
| Federal Circuit that Bilski's specific
| patent was invalid for being way too broad,
| but much more importantly for everyone
| else, it rolled back the Federal Circuit's
| "machine-or-transformation" test, which
| many believed effectively ruled out pure
| software patents. Instead, the court said
| that the courts "should not read into the
| patent laws limitations and condi-tions
| which the legislature has not expressed."
| In other words, business method and
| software patents survive.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100628/0759029989.shtml
Supreme Court Throws Out Bilski Patent
,----[ Quote ]
| ciaran_o_riordan writes "The US Supreme
| Court has finally decided the Bilski case
| (PDF). We've known that Bilski's patent
| would get thrown out; that was clear from
| the open mockery from the judges during
| last November's hearing. The big question
| is, since rejecting a particular patent
| requires providing a general test and
| explaining why this patent fails that test,
| how broad will their test be? Will it try
| to kill the plague of software patents? And
| is their test designed well enough to stand
| up to the army of patent lawyers who'll be
| making a science (and a career) of
| minimizing and circumventing it? The judges
| have created a new test, so this will take
| some reading before any degree of victory
| can be declared. The important part is
| pages 5-16 of the PDF, which is the
| majority opinion. The End Software Patents
| campaign is already analyzing the decision,
| and collecting other analyses. Some
| background is available at Late-comers
| guide: What is Bilski anyway?"
`----
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/28/151228/Supreme-Court-Throws-Out-Bilski-Patent
Martin D. Ginsburg dies at 78; tax law expert, Supreme Court spouse
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/27/AR2010062703220.html?hpid=topnews
Here's Bilski: It's Affirmed, But . . .No Decision on Software Patentability - Updated
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100628100422167
Bilski decision a major disappointment: doesn't invalidate even one software patent
,----[ Quote ]
| The Supreme Court of the United States
| (SCOTUS) has finally handed down its
| opinion in re Bilski, a business method
| patent case. The patent application in
| question relates to a method for managing
| certain risks related to price changes in
| the energy market.
`----
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/06/bilski-decision-major-disappointment.html
Bilski v. Kappos
,----[ Quote ]
| Although Bilski's claims were held
| unpatentably abstract, the Supreme Court
| has re-affirmed that the door to patent
| eligibility should remain broad and open.
`----
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/06/bilski-v-kappos-business-methods-out-software-still-patentable.html
Farewell, Stevens: the Supreme Court loses its cryptographer
,----[ Quote ]
| In April, the Supreme Court's most senior
| justice, John Paul Stevens, announced his
| retirement. Since then, hundreds of
| articles have been written about his career
| and his legacy. While most articles focus
| on "hot button" issues such as flag
| burning, terrorism, and affirmative action,
| Stevens's tech policy record has largely
| been ignored.
|
| When Justice Stevens joined the court, many
| of the technologies we now take for granted
| âthe PC, packet-switched networks, home
| video recordingâwere in their infancy.
| During his 35-year tenure on the bench,
| Stevens penned decisions that laid the
| foundation for the tremendous innovations
| that followed in each of these areas.
|
| [...]
|
| The high court took a renewed interest in
| patent issues when John Roberts was
| elevated to Chief Justice, but the court
| hasn't squarely addressed the software
| patent issue. The closest they came was in
| today's Bilski decision, in which the
| majority handed down a narrow ruling that
| invalidated the specific patent at issue in
| the case but declined to articulate a clear
| standard for patent eligibility.
`----
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/06/the-supreme-court-loses-its-cryptographer.ars
Bilski analysis
http://endsoftpatents.org.nyud.net/#toc4
High Court Considers H&C Brief in Landmark Bilski Ruling
,----[ Quote ]
| Noted European patent expert Georg Jakob,
| who signed onto the amicus brief and
| coordinated retaining Hopkins & Carley to
| file the FFII amicus brief had this to say:
| "Todayâs Supreme Court decision highlights
| the fact that real checks and balances are
| needed in to stop the patent system from
| running Amok. We need substantial patent
| reform in Europe now and real Courts that
| control the patent office. It might be
| uncomfortable, but the European Court of
| Justice can not run away from this
| responsibility. The core rules of
| innovation must not be left to
| apparatchiks, as the U.S.A. has shown us."
`----
http://www.prweb.com/releases/bilski/ruling/prweb4198904.htm
Second Thoughts On Bilski: Could Another Case Get A Direct Ruling On Business Method Patentability?
,----[ Quote ]
| So, I already wrote one initial post on the
| Bilski ruling, where the court basically
| seems to punt on the larger questions of
| the patentability of business methods by
| focusing very narrowly on whether or not
| Bilski's specific patent is valid. However,
| as you read through the "concurring"
| rulings (pdf), it does seem like many
| members of the court want, very badly, to
| outlaw business method patents, but weren't
| able to do so this time around. The court
| really had one clear question to look at
| here: whether or not the Federal Circuit's
| "machine or transformation" test for
| patents made sense. The court ruled that
| this was not the only test, so the Federal
| Circuit erred on that part, even if there
| were plenty of other reasons to reject
| Bilski's specific patent. The majority
| opinion by Kennedy makes it clear that the
| court is not making any statements on what
| is "excluded" from patentability. But the
| concurring opinions seem to have a serious
| problem with this. There are two concurring
| opinions and both express concerns about
| business method patents.
`----
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100628/0945579990.shtml
Botching Bilski
,----[ Quote ]
| It is truly tragic that this view narrowly
| failed to prevail â four judges were in
| agreement, but five wanted the weaker
| result that became the main opinion - since
| it encapsulates all that is wrong with the
| US patent system's approach to business
| method and software patents.
|
| Unfortunately, in the wake of Bilski, it
| will probably be some years before the
| Supreme Court addresses this issue again,
| with the result that many more billions of
| dollars will be wasted on US litigation
| around software patents. Worse, the botched
| opportunity to bring some sense to this
| area is likely to have knock-on effects
| around the world, which means that we will
| all suffer its negative consequences.
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=14&entryid=3046
Bilski & Warsaw Share Insights
,----[ Quote ]
| As an entrepreneur/inventor/person who
| raises money for my companies, the patent
| system is a rich manâs game, and as I
| learned not to play poker with millionaires
| because they will simply raise the stakes
| until I canât keep up, large corporations
| will eventually raise the litigation stakes
| until I lose.
`----
http://www.awakenip.com/?p=381
Who lost Bilski vs. Kappos besides Bilski & Warsaw? Ten answers
,----[ Quote ]
| The notion of Free Software is
| fundamentally incompatible with software
| patents. CiarÃn O'Riordan, the director of
| the EndSoftPatents.org campaign, made a
| statement at a European Commission hearing
| four years ago where he accurately said
| that software patents and free software
| don't mix whether you cut the price of a
| patent in half or double it.
|
| But the other part of FOSS, the open source
| community, is equally affected. While it
| doesn't emphasize the concept of freedom as
| much as Richard Stallman and his followers,
| I know many open source advocates who are
| no less opposed to software patents than
| RMS is.
|
| I venture to guess that the Bilski ruling
| will represent an obstacle to GPLv3
| adoption. I wish the whole world could
| accept the patent clause in GPLv3, which is
| meant to counter patent licensing deals by
| FOSS companies and other entities, but
| under the circumstances it will be very
| hard to convince businesses and other
| contributors to FOSS development that this
| our-way-or-the-highway approach works in
| the world we (currently) live in.
`----
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/06/who-lost-bilski-vs-kappos-besides.html
Breaking: Biotech and the Supremes: Prometheus Follows Bilski to Highest Court (For Just a Moment)
,----[ Quote ]
| Yesterday the Supreme Court issued its
| decision in the highly anticipated patent
| case, Bilski v. Kappos. Contrary to some
| expectations, the Court decided Bilski on
| narrow grounds, leaving the state of
| biotechnology patents largely untouched.
`----
http://www.genomicslawreport.com/index.php/2010/06/29/prometheus-to-supreme-court/
Justice Scaliaâs Indecision a Victory for the Patent Bar
,----[ Quote ]
| Bilski v. Kappos was the most-anticipated
| Supreme Court patent case in a generation.
| And when it was finally handed down on
| Monday, it turned out to be the most
| anticlimactic.
|
| Thereâs been a raging debate about software
| and âbusiness methodâ patents since an
| appeals court gave the green light to them
| in 1998. Many people, myself included,
| hoped that the Supreme Court would place
| new limits on such patents this term.
|
| But Bilski turned out to be a bad test
| case. The applicant, one Bernard L. Bilski,
| tried to patent a âmethod for managing the
| consumption risk costs of a commodity.â If
| that doesnât sound like the sort of thing
| patents are supposed to cover, thatâs
| because itâs not. Almost no one other than
| Bilski and his attorney believed that he
| should get his patent.
`----
http://timothyblee.com/2010/06/29/justice-scalias-indecision-a-victory-for-the-patent-bar/
Guest Post on Bilski: Throwing Back the Gauntlet
,----[ Quote ]
| Ultimately, Bilski v Kappos says more about
| how patent law is made in the United States
| than about patentable subject matter. By
| setting the clock back to 1982, the Supreme
| Court is telling the Federal Circuit to try
| again in devising workable rules for patent
| law. The Federal Circuit wrote an opinion
| that was goading the Supreme Court to
| address the issue of patentable subject
| matter after nearly three decades. The
| resulting opinion raises some fundamental
| and unsettled questions and, unfortunately,
| gives us the same, old answers.
`----
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/06/guest-post-on-bilski-throwing-back-the-gauntlet.html
Narrow Bilski ruling leaves all options open for the future
,----[ Quote ]
| The Supreme Court of the United States
| delivered its ruling on the Bilski landmark
| case yesterday. A split court issued a very
| narrow ruling, avoiding broad decisions on
| patentability. The Court explicitly refused
| to weigh in on the scope and limits of the
| patent system, stating that "nothing in
| this opinion should be read to take a
| position on where that balance ought to be
| struck".
|
| "We are pleased, but we feel the Supreme
| Court did not go far enough in banning all
| patents on abstract ideas such as software
| and business methods", comments Benjamin
| Henrion on the outcome. The President of
| the Foundation for a Free Information
| Infrastructure (FFII) has a 10 years record
| of promoting patent reforms in the European
| Union, often to prevent "deterioration to
| US patenting standards".
`----
http://press.ffii.org/Press%20releases/Bilski_-_Narrow_Bilski_ruling_leaves_all%20options_open_for_the_future
Bilski loses, but the patent madness continues
,----[ Quote ]
| Once upon a time, the U.S. patent system
| served a useful purpose. It was meant to
| encourage inventors and innovation. Ha!
| Boy, was that a long time ago. Now patents,
| especially software patents, serve only as
| bludgeons for patent trolls -- companies
| that do nothing but own patents and then
| threaten to sue companies that actually do
| something with ideas -- or they're used by
| big companies to beat up on smaller ones. I
| had hoped that the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of
| the United States) would do the right thing
| in the Bilski case and slap both business
| process and software patents down once and
| for all. SCOTUS didn't. While SCOTUS ruled
| against Bilski, the Court left the door
| open for IP (intellectual property) patents
| (PDF Link) to be granted.
`----
http://blogs.computerworld.com/16419/bilski_loses_but_the_patent_madness_continues
First thoughts on Bilski
,----[ Quote ]
| Iâm afraid that at the end of this brief
| train ride, my only firm conclusion can be
| that the real winners here are patent
| lawyers- this decision creates no new
| certainties, only uncertainties, which will
| encourage patenters to spend more money
| patenting things, and the rest of us to
| waste time and energy worrying about the
| problem- time and energy that should have
| been spent on innovating. But this is a
| long, multi-layered ruling, and will
| require a lot of time for the full
| implications to be truly understood, so
| take this one-train-ride blog post with a
| large grain of salt :) Hopefully more
| writing tonight/tomorrow.
`----
http://tieguy.org/blog/2010/06/28/first-thoughts-on-bilski/
US Supreme Court rejects Bilski patent but nothing else
,----[ Quote ]
| Reaction from the Software Freedom Law
| Center (SFLC) was immediate. Eben Moglen,
| Chairman of the SFLC, said "The confusion
| and uncertainty behind todayâs ruling
| guarantees that the issues involved in
| Bilski v. Kappos will have to return to the
| Supreme Court after much money has been
| wasted and much innovation obstructed".
| Daniel Ravicher, the SFLC's legal director
| said the court had missed an opportunity to
| "send a strong signal that ideas are not
| patentable subject matter" and that the
| rejection of the Bilski patent "got rid of
| a symptom, but failed to treat the real
| cause".
`----
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/US-Supreme-Court-rejects-Bilski-patent-but-nothing-else-1030381.html
Software Freedom Law Center Responds to Landmark Supreme Court Patent Decision
,----[ Quote ]
| Attributable to Eben Moglen: âThe landscape
| of patent law has been a cluttered,
| dangerous mess for almost two decades,â
| said Eben Moglen, Chairman of the Software
| Freedom Law Center. âThe confusion and
| uncertainty behind todayâs ruling
| guarantees that the issues involved in
| Bilski v. Kappos will have to return to the
| Supreme Court after much money has been
| wasted and much innovation obstructed.â
`----
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2010/jun/28/sflc-bilski-decision-response/
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