Supreme Court to Rule on 'Obvious' Patents

Very narrow ruling by ryants · 2006-06-26 15:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm not a Supreme Court expert (I'm not even an American), but I can't imagine a ruling that would allow people to start challenging patents on "obviousness". I imagine the ruling will be very narrowly confined to just the circumstances of this particular case.

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Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"

Re:Very narrow ruling by stubear · 2006-06-26 15:51 · Score: 1, Insightful

The Supreme Court does to rule on narrow issues. If a case makes it to our Supreme Court, prepare for a shift in our legal system.
Re:Very narrow ruling by happyemoticon · 2006-06-26 15:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

I didn't RTFA, but supreme court rulings can often have very far-reaching implications. For example, the case "Marbury vs Madison" established the tradition of judicial review. In some other legislative systems, all laws are automatically in harmony with the constitution. However, due to that one case and a really ballsy Chief Justice, courts in general and the Supreme Court in particular can essentially say that a law is bogus and strike it from the law. Then there's Brown vs Board of Education, which (after much fighting, ignoring, pain, suffering, and tribulation) paved the way for equal access to education and public services regardless of ethnicity.

If I had to guess, whatever the outcome, a hard battle is still ahead for those opposed to stupid patents - but depending on how it's worded, this could be a turning point.
Re:Very narrow ruling by mattmacf · 2006-06-26 16:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

I can't imagine a ruling that would allow people to start challenging patents on "obviousness"
Really? I thought that by definition a valid patent must satisfy the requirement of being non-obvious. The problem ATM isn't with the judicial system. Generally the patents that make it into court are ruled on appropriately, but the cost of challenging a meaningless patent in court is much more than having to license the "obvious" patent. What KSR is looking for is a change in the definition of what consitiutes an obvious patent. From the CNET article:
In a brief supporting KSR's arguments (click for PDF), Microsoft and Cisco charged that the current test applied by the Federal Circuit "hurts innovation" because it establishes "far too lenient a standard for patentability." Cisco has even built up a portfolio of patents for "defensive purposes" in order to "neutralize" a proliferation of trivial patents, the brief said.
Hopefully the Supreme Court will adjust the definition of "obviousness" and these changes will make their way into the patent system itself. What we really need is a system that will routinely reject patents that are blatantly obvious, negating the patent trolling mess we have now.

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Re:Very narrow ruling by Vengie · 2006-06-26 16:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

Please start your posts with IANAL instead of ending it with IANAL. That way, those of us that actually went to law school don't have to get angry when you miss the mark. Thanks. It's not your fault, but in all honesty, I don't pretend to understand things I dont understand the finer mechanics of. SCOTUS rules on major issues all the times, and regularly re-interprets precedent.

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Re:Very narrow ruling by Internet+Ronin · 2006-06-26 16:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

Obviousness is very strictly constructed. In fact, a patent infringer that obtains personal success from their infringing item makes the patent non-obvious. RIM found this out when they argued obviousness against NTP. They claimed NTP's patents were too obvious to be patented (such so that a person reasonably strong in that field would be able to do it on their own). NTP argued, with supporting precedent, that because the Blackberry Service was so successful the concept was non-obvious.

Much of the clamoring for patent reform can be solved by loosening standards that maintain entrenched patents. One way that can be achieved is to open up the definition of obviousness, thus allowing some patents to be more easily overturned. There are hundreds of standards that can be lowered, or opened if you prefer, allowing for more entrenched patents to be overturned.
Re:Very narrow ruling by Ohreally_factor · 2006-06-26 19:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

That would still send it back to Congress, if a patent law were found unconstitutional. It would be up to Congress to pass a new law that was constitutional. It is possible that it could happen this way, but it's highly improbable, due to the nature of the claim. The appeal itself is fairly narrow, and is not claiming that the law itself is unconstitutional. Rather, the grounds for the appeal are that a lower court did not use a proper test to determine the validity of a patent, i.e., the test for obviousness. In this case, the defendant is claiming that using off the shelf parts to create a brake pedal is an obvious idea to someone in the trade, and therefore not patentable. If they prevail, this will have far reaching implications, to be sure. But it's highly doubtful that the court will rule broadly on this issue, especially because the claim itself is fairly narrow. Don't expect the patent system to be turned on its ear.

It wouldn't necessarily apply to any patents that we might think of as obvious, unless those patents were the subject of litigation before a court, and it might only apply to patents that involve off the shelf components. Yes, this is important, but even if the defendant wins, it's just one chip out of many we need to reform the patent system. It would be a great victory, but it's effects will still be limited.

In any case, I believe that the court is going to rule narrowly. Chief Justice Roberts spoke recently on the subject of broad and narrow rulings, and said he preferred narrow rulings. One reason for this was that narrow rulings tend to get greater consensus among the Supremes rather than split decisions. Consensus implies validity while a divided court implies controversy, i.e., the matter isn't settled with finality.

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It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Re:Very narrow ruling by bytesex · 2006-06-26 21:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm not from the US either, but I understand that the power of 'precedent' is very strong in the US legal system (ruled like so-and-so once for this law under these circumstances, must rule like so-and-so forever for this law under comparable circumstances) above a certain level of court. This is not so much the case in countries not based on anglo-saxon common law, where judges are much more free to judge based on the circumstances of a particular case.

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Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Re:Very narrow ruling by TheKnightWhoSaysNi · 2006-06-27 01:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

Whoosh!
Re:Very narrow ruling by Russ+Nelson · 2006-06-27 03:27 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you read the filing with the court, you'll see that they merely want the Supremes to rule that using two devices together, as the devices were designed, is not an invention. "Obviousness" goes way beyond that. There are many many problems whose solution is obvious once the problem is posed. These solutions ARE inventions, are currently patentable and should not be.

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Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Re:Very narrow ruling by bigpat · 2006-06-27 04:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

Had some company gone to the government and said "I want that person's land", and the government tried to seize that land to force that sale, that would have been a Very Very Bad Thing. That would have been Unacceptable. But this really was a case of the government taking the land to itself for a public purpose, without being for the benefit of any identifiable predetermined private party. While the case still makes me uncomfortable, I think that key point makes it an acceptable and correct ruling.

What? You seem to be going through some hoops not to see this for what it was. So as long as the local politicians don't actually say who they are going to give the property to, whether it be some wealthier individual or corporation, until 10 minutes after they take it from you, then it is all well and good as long as the deed is actually held by the town for a moment? The Connecticut case was little more than government forcing a sale. The Supreme court redefined public purpose to mean that the public would benefit (as defined locally) rather than simply that the land would be used by the public.

But as angry as I am about that particular case. I think it does open up interesting possibilities. One of the biggest reasons for the property tax has been to keep land from being aggregated by individuals and families and not put to economic use. But if land can be taken (with compensation still) for the explicit purpose of reselling it for private development, as long as it serves the public purpose of bettering the economy or some other publicly defined purpose, then there is no legitimate fear of a landed class developing. So, the property tax can now be safely eliminated (with eminent domain laws that allow for seizure in the case of disuse) in favor of income and sales taxes which tax actual economic activity rather than an arbitrary perceptions of wealth.

Also, state laws could give renters the right to apply for eminent domain against the owners after a period of time, to support the public purpose of having more people own their own homes. Really the possibilities are intriguing.
Re:Very narrow ruling by mrchaotica · 2006-06-27 05:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

Exactly how does "science and useful arts" not include Intellectual Property?

You're entirely misunderstanding the thing. You seem to be trying to directly substitute the two phrases, and read it as "To Promote the Progress of [Intellectual Property]." Well, that's wrong.

First, the term "Intellectual Property" did not exist when the Constitution was written. It didn't even enter their minds that ideas could be considered property in the same way that land or objects were; they thought of copyrights and patents as "monopolies." So you can't make that word substitution to begin with.

Second, the important part is "promoting progress," and the rest of the clause only exists to clarify that they mean progress in terms of increase of human knowledge and culture, as opposed to some other kind of progress. It does not mean "promoting property."
"Science and the useful arts" refers to the ideas themselves, not any other issue attached to them.
In other words, you could rewrite this:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts,
to this:
"We want to encourage growth in scientific knowledge and culture,"
and this:
...by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
to this:
"...and this is the method by which we'll try to achieve that goal: by inventing temporary monopolies to people that create new works and ideas so that they'll be encouraged to create even more."
As you can see, the stated goal is progress, not monopoly rights and compensation. Those are only a means to the end and side effect.
Get it now?

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"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:Very narrow ruling by rrohbeck · 2006-06-27 06:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

One of the goals of our legal system is for it to be predictable.

With juries, and laws that are formulated in such a way that they have to be interpreted by courts, and the Precedent system to pin them down? You must be kidding.
If anything, it is designed to be flexible.

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thegodmovie.com - watch it
Re:Very narrow ruling by Alsee · 2006-06-27 06:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

Isn't that laundering, just applied to land instead of money?

I'm not certain I accurately understand what you mean by "laundering", but if you mean what I think you mean then the answer is No. An unconstitutional government purpose is unconstitutional and no amount of "laundering" or deception can remove that taint.

A government council may establish a variety of regulations reguarding school districts and student bussing. For example they may establish a regulation for saftey purposes that school districts and student bussing not cross railroad tracks. They may establish an arbtrary distance cap on bussing to minimize travel time. They may make arbitrary rules prohibiting bussing students across industrial or commercial zones. There is an endless rand of possible regulations with perfectly reasonable legitimate governmental purposes...

However... no amount of "laundering" and otherwise perfectly reasonable legitimate rules can legitimize rules that were selected and crafted for the purpose of racially segregating students. A supposedly saftey rule that busses not go through railroad crossings is unconstitutional if that legitimate purpose is a sham, is not constitutional if the intent was to keep black students on one side of the tracks out of white schools on the other side.

In this particular Eminent Domain case there does not appear to be any "laundering" going on. As far as I have seen... and as far as the Supreme Court has seen... it is a legitimate case of a government acting for a genuinely public purpose. If a government attempts to abuse Eminent Domain for the purpose of serving or enriching some favored private party, and that government tries to cloak that abuse in a sham of legitimacy, then the courts can and do look beyond that sham to strike it down.

I agree with your concern that such abuses can (and almost inevitably will) be attempted, and that leaves me with more than a little discomfort about the ruling. However I am ultimately forced to agree with the Supreme Court majority logic and their ruling, that they drew the correct line where it needed to be. Cases of this sort just need to be subject to close scrutiny and vigilance against abuse.

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Clogged Dockets by adageable · 2006-06-26 15:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

Certainly, someone needs to reign in the patents, but won't this lead to just more and more litigation? The real problem, it seems, is that too many patents are being issued! I suppose this helps rescind them, but could lead to a clogged docket, IMHO.

Ordinary Skill? by CodeBuster · 2006-06-26 15:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

It was my understanding that United States patent law contains a provision covering the patentability of devices, ideas, methods, or techniques from any body of knowledge that would be generally known to a skilled practitioner of the trade or art in question (i.e. the so called "skilled practitioner" test for obvious patents or prior art). If it is patently obvious then in effect it cannot be patented.

Person having ordinary skill in the art

Re:Ordinary Skill? by RowboatRobot · 2006-06-26 16:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

While that is true, the real concern here (as it is in any court case) is how the law is interpreted. By some recent actions of the patent office (especially in the biomedical industry) you'd think obvious clauses were non-existant, yet there are other fields (basic mechanics, for example) in which the patent office has been much more stringent. I'm not sure that in this case the supreme court has the power to do anything. Honestly, what power does it have to make sure the patent office enforces patents the way it sees fit? Have a judge breathing over every patent clerk's shoulder? Even if they overhaul and re-structure the entire department, the issue here is the need for a defined policy for each and every field, which is clearly not going to be laid out by the supreme court alone. Perhaps they could elect a committee to create better patent policy. (Surely more bureaucracy will fix this!)
Re:Ordinary Skill? by Mikkeles · 2006-06-26 23:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

'.... Have a judge breathing over every patent clerk's shoulder? ....'

No, have the Patent Office cover the court costs of a successful obviousness challenger.

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Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.

Precent by EmbeddedJanitor · 2006-06-26 15:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

While the ruling is likely to be narrowly confined, it will establish a current precedent for the interpretation of "obvious". This could have significant implications for future rulings.

Generally, most recent patent attacks have been prior-art based. This potentially provides a new line of attack.

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Engineering is the art of compromise.

My prediction... by kcbrown · 2006-06-26 16:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

The Supreme Court will rule in such a way that the ruling does absolutely nothing to help with the mess that is now patents. They will claim that it's a problem for Congress.

There's precedent for this, namely the Eldred case, in which they basically ruled against Eldred on the same basis.

You can't count on the Supreme Court to rule well (that is, on the side of the People) on anything anymore.

Sigh.

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Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.

Re:My prediction... by Tablizer · 2006-06-26 16:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Supreme Court will rule in such a way that the ruling does absolutely nothing to help with the mess that is now patents. They will claim that it's a problem for Congress.

It's the courts job to interpret existing laws. The "common practitioner" clause is Congress's own law in writing. I cannot see how they can turn that back on congress, unless perhaps it conflicts with something else Congress enacted (which happens all the time).

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Table-ized A.I.
Re:My prediction... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-06-26 17:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm beginning to understand why people hate lawyers.

Re:Unsurprising. by 1ucius · 2006-06-26 16:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think you are misreading the patent-market. . . Big IT is the victim of crappy patents. Who to you think the patent trolls go after? It's not the one man IT shop with $450 in its bank account. It's Microsoft with $40 billion in cash.

Finally I can think about releasing my software by dino213b · 2006-06-26 16:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

Some reform is desparately needed; I suppose this is as good of a start as any. Software patents can severely diminish small companies and individuals from releasing software without fear and making some money out of it.

Imagine someone taking a patent out on a device that by means of a spring and plastic somehow disables and enables a machine by use of what is coined in the patent declaration as a "power" switch.

Talk about absurd! A similar analogy can be drawn from some software patents and as much as I hate to defend the borg, some of the recent Microsoft court loses seemed absurd at first look. Common procedures done in "office" software. Can someone really patent part of a document-database-exchange? See http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/17/06 38233&from=rss

#ifdef angry #include <standard_i_am_opinionated_and_ignorant_too_discla imer.h> #endif

Amazon's 1-click buy by punkguitarist · 2006-06-26 16:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

Personally I think they should all together be abolished, but this is a good start - people are finally realising how stupid some of them are. Amazon.com has the "1-click buy" patent... now every other company must sell things in a two-click buy or greater. This is an example of an obvious patent, which should be abolished (amazon also holds a couple more like this).

Waste of time by rucs_hack · 2006-06-26 16:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

If obvious patents aren't allowed, then IT companies will simply start burying the patent office in such detailed applications that they won't be able to declare them obvious.

We are talking money here, lots and lots of money. There is no way that IT companies will roll over and stop patenting crap.

It costs less to get a patent then can be made from hijacking some succesful yet unsuspecting developer several years later (especially if they just roll over and settle). So what if some don't make it through? They'll just turn around and try again after some patent lawyer has worked his expensive magic on it.

Re:Goddman it by AusIV · 2006-06-26 16:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yes, but just because a judge can't figure out how to make thumbnails on a web page that you can click to see a bigger picture doesn't mean it's not an obvious patent. I think it's hard to say what is an isn't an obvious patent. It would need some kind of definition to hold up consistently.

Re:Goddman it by Digital+Vomit · 2006-06-26 16:49 · Score: 1, Insightful

Someone has already posted that it was Columbus and not Edison who did this trick, but, used as an argument for the non-obviousness of certain patents, this example is terrible. A more modern variant might be to challenge people to come up with a better compression algorithm, then you presenting your "better" compression algorithm by smashing the HDD flat with a sledgehammer. Outside-the-box thinking!

It's a clever trick that belongs in a Mind Trap game; nothing more. If Edison really had used that egg trick as a patent defense, he would've been a complete asshat for doing so (although, from what I've heard of him, he was a complete asshat nonetheless).

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Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.

Re:Unsurprising. by Arker · 2006-06-26 18:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think you are misreading the patent-market. . . Big IT is the victim of crappy patents. Who to you think the patent trolls go after? It's not the one man IT shop with $450 in its bank account. It's Microsoft with $40 billion in cash.

Actually, both get smacked on occasion. But clearly, the deep pockets are the obvious target for the patent trolls. The smaller guys mostly get hit when they're competing with someone else... like the guy that makes free software to control model trains. His proprietary competitor apparently lurked on his mailing list awhile, then ran off to patent a bunch of stuff discussed there, then sent a cease-and-desist order. I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more of that in the future too.

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Re:Unsurprising. by TCM · 2006-06-26 23:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

like the guy that makes free software to control model trains. His proprietary competitor apparently lurked on his mailing list awhile, then ran off to patent a bunch of stuff discussed there, then sent a cease-and-desist order.

How can this possibly work? If that's not prior art, then what is?

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Re:Unsurprising. by acroyear · 2006-06-27 00:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

The point being that the guy making the free software can't afford the defense. Yeah its "obvious" he's in the right and has the prior art (theoretically in the form of the mailing list archives), but he's still got to hire the lawyer and (being a civil suit) deal with at least 2 rounds of appeals.

For someone making something that makes no money, shelling out $100,000 in legal fees to protect it doesn't seem all that smart.

(consider THAT, Mr. Gates... ;-) ).

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"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe

Re:Obvious by tjeffer · 2006-06-27 00:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

You are basically arguing that the SCOTUS should lower the bar on obviousness to make the Examiner's job easier. Not a particularily strong argument, IMHO.

Re:Obvious by mavenguy · 2006-06-27 01:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

That's a fair point to make, since, ideally, the law should set a standard from the point of view that considers only the respective positions of the patentee and everyone else (potential accused infringers, not to mention society as a whole). However it is a mistake to ignore the practial impact such a standard imposes on the function of the PTO in establishing the patent grant in the first place. Using a High standard results in either a flood of patents that, in the long run and with more resources available to it, get invalidated, or else more resources need to be given during the examination process (such as better search tools, and more time to gather and interpret the prior art) which boils down to a costlier PTO (they have a goal of reaching 4,000 examiners when I can recall a period during the Carter administration when there were less than 1,000). Part of a functioning patent system in a real world must include some degree of administrative convenience in setting standards like this as opposed to some theoretical perfect world.

Re:RTFA Very Carefully, It's poorly worded by Alsee · 2006-06-27 02:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

I believe (without much in the way of of evidence to back this up) that the costs of running the patent office are greater than the application fees... It really is disgraceful the way the patent office is forced to operate

Actually you have it backwards, and it's even more disgraceful then you thought.

The patent office is run as a patent mill with minimal review and minimal expenditures. The applications fees are not being used to fully review (and reject) applications. The fees are being diverted to fund congress's pork projects.

Patent clerks are expected to clear a certain quota of cases each week (either final approval or final rejection). Each time the patent clerk finds a problem and sends the application back to the applicant and the application is "fixed" and resubmitted... it effectively counts as a penalty against the reviewer. So long as the applicant persists in resubmitting "corrections", the patent clerk is prevented from clearing the case and moving on. The patent clerk is continually penalized for repeatedly rejecting the same invalid application.

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Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-06-27 08:54 · Score: 1, Insightful

No, the point is that it's not ok to make a determination of "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." If you start using that rationality, you'll decide it's ok for police to violate the rights of criminals by using things such as the case where they tried to use a recording of the religious confessional. The fact is, once you allow that line of thinking, it begins to warp from violating just a few for the majority's sake to being able to violate everyone "for the better good." No, communists may think "the better good" works, but, here in a real human society we know that it doesn't work unless you are unfeeling robots.

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Supreme Court to Rule on 'Obvious' Patents

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