MS vs AT&T Case Stirs Software Patent Debate

Stormwave0 writes "A Microsoft appeal against a decision for AT&T and their speech recognition patent has reached the Supreme Court. AT&T has argued that they did not license software using the patent for sales overseas. Microsoft, in the original case, argued "that it wasn't really liable for infringing on AT&T's licensing rights because it only supplied the golden disk to the replicator one time, and that disk did not really contain software in a usable form anyway." With that argument rejected, the case has moved in an unexpected direction. The court is now debating whether or not software is actually patentable."

Comments

Support.

[kraemate]

Well, i know whom i'm supporting in this case. C,UNIX,C++ vs. Clippy and Vista seems like a no-brainer to me. Yes, like the next slashdotter, i know software patents are evil, etc . But that doesn't mean i can't root for the good guy, right?

the "European stance" is rather inferior, sorry

[finlandia1869]

We Americans focus on the profit issue because we live in a market economy. Here's the reasoning: 1. Innovation can lead to a product that people find useful 2. People will pay for useful products 3. Other people see this, and try to innovate in that same area 4. Competition forces more innovation, or at least lower prices 5. Society gets better stuff at a lower price, and innovators make money The "European stance" (not applicable in more market-oriented states like Ireland, I suspect) ignores this reality, thus chopping incentives for innovation off at the knees. Your stance will restrict innovation to large, established, conservative companies, and create a disincentive for the entry of small businesses (which often are founded around a single, innovative idea or product and are the primary drivers of employment and economic dynamism). What causes you to look down your nose at us is the fact that some established market participants have found ways to game the system thanks to the general uselessness of our federal government. But this happens everywhere. Consider that our market economy continues to innovate despite this, compare the results to your own, and marvel.

usable form?

[AlgorithMan]

that it wasn't really liable for infringing on AT&T's licensing rights because [...] that disk did not really contain software in a usable form anyway.

now I finally understand, why MS never had to pay big time to apple or xerox ;-)