software patents

The law of software patents took an interesting, and ultimately encouraging, turn a little more than a week ago. In the CLS Bank case, ten judges of the Federal Circuit issued five separate opinions, without any single legal theory gaining a majority. Their debate showed that the scope of the subject matter requirement for patenting software is far from settled. It also makes it more likely that the Supreme Court will speak to the issue, and get it right.

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In the latest evidence of the growing recognition that our patent system needs reform, last week the House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet held an informative and well-attended hearing on "Abusive Patent Litigation".

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte set the tone for the hearing: » Read more

It bothers many of us everytime we hear about yet another non-obvious, overreaching, and abusive patent—particularly a software patent that is getting in the way of innovation and creativity. Additionally, there is an overwhelming sense of frustration when a regular citizen can't do much to change the current, sad state of affairs. » Read more

Looking back over the law channel posts of 2012, I was not surprised to see that software patents were a major concern. The high volume of significant patent lawsuits of competitors and rising levels of NPE (aka patent trolls or patent assertion entities) suits has been the subject of both open source community and mainstream media interest.

There were new ideas on patent reform, and an increasing recognition by the public at large that software patents can hinder innovation. We also saw interesting developments in the areas of internet privacy and freedom and copyright law. I'll go out on a limb and make a prediction: » Read more

This morning the New York Times published a front-page story on software patents. My wife got to the paper before I did, and as I got coffee she told me the story would make me happy. She also said it was too long for a normal busy person to read in its entirety. It is long, but I am happy to see that the closest thing we have to a national newspaper of record is getting the word out about the dysfunction of the patent system. » Read more

There's an old saying that everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it. The open source community maintains an active voice of indignation when it comes to the harms flowing from bad software patents. So it's worth noting when a leading patent law scholar proposes a potential solution to the software patent problem, as Mark Lemley recently did in a new paper entitled "Software Patents and the Return of Functional Claiming." » Read more

Now the that the jury has given Apple almost everything it asked for in its infringement suit against Samsung, what should we expect to happen next? I think it's a given that Samsung will appeal. Given the damages awarded and the obvious determination of Apple to defend its patents, Samsung has little choice but to press forward wherever it can in court. » Read more

Open Source for America launched a petition Thursday to "Free the Code," an effort to encourage the U.S. federal government to release custom-developed, taxpayer-funded software as open source by default.

"Free the Code is an initiative to start a national conversation on taxpayer investments in software and information technology," said John Scott, co-chair of Open Source for America's steering committee. "Specifically, we’re interested in how publicly-funded software code developed by the government, which isn’t already covered by a proprietary license, should be made available to the wider public."

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Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation launched Defend Innovation, a campaign to end software patent abuse, promote seven alterations to the United States patent system, and initiate dialogue about the ways software patents actually hinder the inventors they are designed to protect.

"The software patent system is broken," said EFF Staff Attorney Julie Samuels in a statement released last Tuesday. "Patents are supposed to help promote new inventions and ideas, but software patents are chronically misused to limit competition, quash new tools and products, and shake down companies big and small." » Read more

On May 23rd the jury in the closely-watched Oracle v. Google case returned a verdict for the patent phase of the trial in Google's favor. The jury unanimously found that Oracle failed to meet its burden of proving direct patent infringement by Google through Android and the Android SDK.

By the time of the trial, the set of patent claims asserted by Oracle had been reduced to » Read more