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Groklaw Says Microsoft Patent Portfolio Now Worthless
twitter writes "P.J. concludes her look at the Bilski decision: 'you'll recall patent lawyer Gene Quinn immediately wrote that it was bad news for Microsoft, that "much of the Microsoft patent portfolio has gone up in smoke" because, as Quinn's partner John White pointed out to him, "Microsoft doesn't make machines." Not just Microsoft. His analysis was that many software patents that had issued prior to Bilski, depending on how they were drafted, "are almost certainly now worthless." ... He was not the only attorney to think about Microsoft in writing about Bilski.'"
Does Turning Machine counts as a machine?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Linear bounded automaton, AKA Joe Six-pack
Basically, the argument is if you have a nail that isn't patentable and a hammer that was specifically designed to hit nails with then hitting the nail with the hammer is obvious and not patentable
OTOH, patent lawyers' heads are also not patentable, but hitting them with a hammer is not obvious, and might in fact be patentable.