Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Supreme Court Hears eBay Case Wednesday
siddesu wrote to mention an article on CNN Money about the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court patent suit involving eBay. We've previously mentioned the case. The SCOTUS will hear opening arguments on Wednesday, March 29th. From the article: "Lawyers for eBay and small e-commerce company MercExchange will square off over whether eBay should be barred from using its popular 'Buy it Now' feature, which infringes on two MercExchange patents. The case is being closely watched to see if the high court will scale back the right of patent holders to get an injunction barring infringers from using their technologies. Software companies complain they can be held for ransom by owners of questionable patents while drugmakers oppose any weakening of patent rights, which they say would chill their investment in new medicines."
Here is a patent that doesn't require an EE degree to see that it is
ridiculous. I hope these cases keep coming and coming so political
pressure mounts to reform a backwards intellectual property system.
It should not be forgotten when convenient that the Supreme Court's role is limited to combing through the constitutionality of a past ruling. Roe v Wade being the "Law of the Land" is a misnomer. In this case, it seems that one part of the government established by the legislature made a ridiculous choice that doesn't pass the laugh test, but that's the legislature's job to fix, not the Court's.
"Software companies complain they can be held for ransom by owners of questionable patents while drugmakers oppose any weakening of patent rights, which they say would chill their investment in new medicines."
Perhaps that's because, as we have been saying for years, patents on software impede innovation whereas patents increase (or so I am imformed - I don't work in the industry) innovation in the drugs industry.
Patents on software make as much sense as patents on books or music. Get rid of them now before they give patents in general a bad name.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Now, I'm the last guy that thinks drug companies are "nice guys" in the prices they charge, but in patent cases, I have to side with them.
They spend MILLIONS of dollars developing drugs. At least they have some right to patent what they created, because they actually created something. I'm not going into whether they SHOULD or not. That's what the law is right now, and it should probably be changed. I'm getting off track here.
Software companies with "patents" like these have spent little or no time "developing" anything. I mean..."One click"? "Buy It Now"? That's what you get when you have marketing people patenting things.
Geesh.
The only way for the proles to fight patents and copyrights is to ignore them. This is, of course, impossible if there are only a few printing presses or factories that exist. But now there are more than a billion printing presses (everyone can publish and discuss ideas on the web); there are a probably 500 million CD burners in the world (wild guess) to pass around music and video, and we can even do better than that just by sharing data directly over the net.
The Internet is like the next evolution of the printing press. Gutenberg's machine took away the power of the learned few to disseminate information. The Internet represents the natural evolution of that capability, and more.
The next step will be the dissemination of the ability to manufacture at the molecular level in your house, and then on your desktop. If you don't believe that's going to happen, consider the fact that anyone in the world with a net connection can read this posting seconds after I submit it, and how wildly that would blow your mind if you lived at the time of the invention of the printing press.
This temporary nonsense with patents and copyrights will be just that, temporary.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I was under the impression that patents were only supposed to be issued to innovative and original developments in technology. "Buy It Now" is not technology. It's a sales gimmick. Gimmicks should not be patentable. The patent system in the US is seriously broken. It seems that the patent office isn't even bothering to review patents anymore. They're just handing them out like tissues.
They really need to tighten the rules over what is patentable. Sales gimmicks, business plans, mother nature, etc. should not even be considered. There should also be a rule similar to trademark law for termination of patent rights for non-enforcement to prevent crap similar to the JPEG nonsense from popping up out of nowhere.
When all else fails, run.