Supreme Court Review of Bilski Heats Up

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Supreme Court's review of In Re Bilski (discussed here numerous times) is heating up, having attracted no less than 44 friend-of-the-court briefs from almost everyone with a stake in the patent system. Patently-O provides a nice summary of who is arguing against Bilski. The two questions before the Supreme Court are whether or not a process must satisfy the particular machine or transformation test, and whether this test improperly excludes many business methods in spite of the wording of 35 U.S.C. 273, which specifically allows business-method patents. So far, the case has attracted legal filings from nearly every large company or group whose patents might be threatened. You can read briefs from Yahoo, IBM, Borland, Dolby Labs, the BSA, and many others, even one from some guy claiming to speak on behalf of the State of Oregon."

Comments

Yeaaa. and we independent developers get to see

[unity100]

who's the enemy of innovation, open source, new participative pluralist internet culture and freedom, and who is a friend.

the verdict of the masses are silent, but irreversible. and no court can make innumerable developers who can make or break a new web/it tech your friend by force.

Re:Best quote

[slashqwerty]

The Accenture brief states:

Machine or transformation test is not a reliable indicator of anything relevant. The standard for patentability should usefulness as set forth in the Constitution, in the patent statute, and by the Court.

But this ignores the constitutional requirement that it promote progress:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

Teles AG says:

Further, the global nature of todays economy strongly recommends that the United States patent system be harmonized with robust patent systems of other nations wherever possible.

This is the same argument used in favor of the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act yet at the time the United States was one of very few nations to actually extend copyright to such a length. In this case the U.S. is one of very few nations to support software patents.

Re:Best quote

[jedidiah]

> It is not obvious that business method patents hinder the progress of the useful arts

You declare ownership of a new business process. Because of this you can prevent
EVERYONE ELSE WHO DOES BUSINESS from benefiting from that new process. Alternately
you can FORCE EVERYONE to waste money licensing your process. Alternately, companies
lose the motivation to innovate because they might be sued by some jerk like you.

Every patent allows the patent owner to cause trouble for everyone else for the next 17 years.

It's far better that Dell can't patent build to order rather than being prevented from
inventing it in the first place because a bunch of bogus process patents choked him when
he was a startup.

Software patents are a clear counterexample to your rubbish idea that the other side
of the argument is just making empty claims.

Patents exist to encourage inventors to disclose useful information, not to enable large
corporations to be bridge trolls.

The most frightening idea in all of those amicus briefs is the idea that medical procedures
might be patented. That's about the most horrific and destructive idea you could possibly
come up with. Doctors invent because they take their oath to Hypocrates seriously, not because
they identify with Crassius Maximus.