Bilski Patent Case Appealed To Supreme Court

An anonymous reader writes "The landmark ruling of a few months ago that limited patents to inventions which include a machine or which transform physical matter has been appealed up to the Supreme Court. 'On the one side of this controversy... are those... who argue that patents must be available to encourage innovation in devising new ways to conduct business in the global information-based economy, including encouragement for new ways of digitizing business methods. On the other side are consumer advocacy groups and free-market devotees who worry that patent monopolies could tie up methods of creative thought processes, including teaching, judging, creative writing, making medical judgments, or picking juries (some current, real examples of claims).' The Bilski decision has already had an impact on potential software and biotech patents, in addition to the obvious limitations on business method patents. The petition (PDF) argues that the 'machine-or-transformation' test conflicts with the broad language of the patent statute and with congressional intent. It's entirely within the Supreme Court's discretion to take the case or not, but for now it looks like the issue is far from decided."

Comments

Re:Riiiigghht

[jellomizer]

You are not thinking big picture. You see patents as a short term Consumer gets screwed as the people who may be best able to implement the patented invention cannot, although that isn't necessary true as the people who hold the patent could be the best able to implement it or have licensed it to people who can or have an overall patent sharing agreement with other companies. So in general Patents only suck for Open Source Implementers, or some small companies.
However R&D isn't cheap You could spend millions on R&D for a invention. If a Company cant have a guarantee that their R&D dollars will pay off then they won't have R&D. Patents insure that your invention give you the completive advantage for a time to make up the loss revenue in R&D. Without Patents right after your invention comes out within a couple months people will reverse engineer your product and make and sell a cheaper version of your idea (Because they don't have the high R&D overhead)

So in a world with no Patents there will be much less R&D and less innovation. Or people will hold onto their new ideas much longer as not having a mechanism to properly sell their ideas along.

I am not saying the Patent system isn't in need of reform. However it is not this pure evil. You only think that is so because unfortunately it conflicts with the Open Source Idea. But in reality you are just a fringe group who (I am not trying to insult you) really doesn't matter that much.