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

Re:One lawyer for sure out of job, more might foll

[Yvanhoe]

it takes approximately $150,000 to make an international patent. And a legal service to defend your rights costs a lot more.

We have to get used to this world anyway : more and more intelligent people have access to a good education. That means more and more people have great ideas. The corollary is that several people come up with the same great idea at approximately the same time. If you go further in the reasoning :
Adam, Barbara and Conrad live in different parts of the world but come up with the Great Idea X that will change the way we use wireless networks. Adam lives in US and has a lot of cash. He patents the idea, barring Barbara and Conrad of a revenue they would be (in some economico-ethics theories) entitled to.


Please allow me to take an arrogant European tone :
You americans always focus on the "who is making profit ?" aspect of the law. Is this the lil' guy ? is this the big corporation ? is it the state ? Is it the "good" person ? (That is, according to an unwritten law of ethics and morals)
The European stance on the patent system is "What system favors the exchange of ideas and the development of innovative industries ?". It is rooted in the belief that good ideas are too precious to be kept solely by an individual seeking profit.

Now the world has evolved so much that patents still allows someone to make profits from them, but does it still helps the propagation of ideas ? I am not sure of it...

Re:One lawyer for sure out of job, more might foll

[TheRaven64]

Microsoft lost around a billion dollars to patent trolls last year. How much did they make by licensing software patents (or indirectly by looking as if they might)?

Should software be patentable?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the most important difference of software compared other tangible products is, it doesn't cost to duplicate once a software product is developed. The other major difference is, it doesn't even cost to distribute even if to the whole world thanks to peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

A minor, student or single person can easily infringe one or many software patents by writing a small computer program. That is, you don't have to be a company to violate Software Patents.

Software Patents are the single most danger faced today by the students, end users, software developers, scientists, companies especially small ones, etc.

Therefore, Software Patents strongly discourage if not completely stop innovation and advancement of science and technology.

Software Patents allow few big companies to earn money with following two dangers to the public:
1. Software Patents holder has no obligation to give a license to others.

2. Even if Software Patents holder agrees to give a license to others, there is no obligation for them to give at price affordable for others.

By using either or both above points they can simply cutoff others from implementing a technology or advancement of a technology. Please note, the technique used is cutoff, not compete.

Today I'm sitting on a product that I developed by advancing the technology using innovative ideas, but I cannot release it to the world either free or at fee unless I violate one single patent owned by a large company.

I wrote to that company asking how much royalty do I have to pay, there is no reply from them. They want us to violate the law and sue us later. They do not want to compete with us, they simply want to cutoff us from competition.

By being a victim of Software Patents, my suggestion is software should be managed by Copyright laws, not by Patent laws. If somebody does not want to given me a license for a software product, I can still sit and develop a functionally equivalent one as if I'm writing a new book without violating law.

This is how major industries such as music, movie, book publishing operates.

Sagara W

Following links may give you a better understanding of this Software Patents issue:
1. Public Patent Foundation ( http://www.pubpat.org/ )
2. http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
3. Software Patents vs Parliamentary Democracy ( http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html )
4. Petition for a Software Patent Free Europe ( http://petition.eurolinux.org/index_html )
5. Software Patents Gone Bad ( http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1666755,00.as p )

Re:One lawyer for sure out of job, more might foll

[TemporalBeing]

Having said that, and assuming you meant what you almost said, I think you are wrong. I seriously doubt anyone at Microsoft was stupid enough to turn this into a software patents debate. It was almost assuredly the lawyer. How he screwed up that majorly, I cannot imagine.

I am not familiar with what was made before the oral arguments - though I read the oral arguments last night. Here's the transcript. (Thanks to Groklaw for the link.) As Groklaw points out, the issue is taken up on both sides (AT&T - Waxman; Microsoft - Olson; Assistant to the Solicitor General (Joseffer) - aiding Microsoft). According to Groklaw, page 27, line 17 (Joseffer) says something to the effect that software is not patentable, and so does Waxman (page 29, line 10 and page 38, line 25).

From the actual transcript (P.22, lines 6 to 10):

JUSTICE BREYER:I take it that we are operating under the assumption that software is patentable? We have never held that in this Court, have we?
MR. JOSEFFER: No,...

So, while IANAL and not familiar with things prior to these oral arguments, it is my suspicion that the issue of patentability was raised from the bench. Why wouldn't they raise that issue? If its not patentable, then the case is moot - they issue a ruling saying that software patents are invalid, and thus the case is dismissed; it's a waste of their time to go any farther. If they are patentable, then they rule on the case and back up the lower courts. However, as quoted above, the Supreme Court has not yet held that software patents are actually patentable, and this is highly reflected in the whole transcript where the Supreme Court keeps referring to software as a Blueprint and does not see how it is any different, despite AT&T and Microsoft and the Assistant to the Solicitor General say.

Personally, I think it is highly likely that (a) the Supreme Court will rule that software patents are not valid patents and that software cannot be patented (thus the case is moot), and (b) that it is possible - even likely - that AT&T and Microsoft are pushing this to the Supreme Court to get a verdict - either way - on patents. Of course, they'd be happier if software is patentable, but either way a verdict comes from the highest court of the land which can only be overturned by itself, or a change in the Constitution by Congress or the States.
That's my take on the transcript. Read it yourself and see what you think.