Slashdot Mirror
US Supreme Court Skeptical of Business Method Patents
Trepidity writes "The US Supreme Court held oral argument Monday in Bilski, a business-methods patent case that might also have important implications for software patents (We have previously discussed the case several times). The tone of the argument appears to be good news, as the justices were very skeptical of the broad patentability claims. They even brought up a parade of absurd hypothetical patents quite similar to the ones Slashdotters tend to mention in these kinds of debates. Roberts surmised that 'buy low, sell high' might be a patentable business method, Sotomayor wondered if speed-dating could be patentable, Breyer questioned whether a professor could patent a lesson plan that kept his students from falling asleep, and Scalia brought up the old-time radio soap opera Lorenzo Jones, featuring a hare-brained inventor with delusions of getting rich." Patently O has good blow-by-blow coverage of the day's proceedings. Official argument transcripts will be up soon, they say.
There are some justices who are clearly in the tank for big business patents (e.x. Clarence Thomas/Monsanto food patents), and I'm sure the other ones can be bought.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
And what if the big corporations go on patenting sprees and start patenting anything imaginable?
What if this is already occurring? Have you been asleep for a long time?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I think you read too much into that exchange. A short while ago the Washington D.C. gun ban fell after having stood for over 3 decades. Why did it take so long? Because the pro-gun lobby was waiting for a case that was favorable to their cause. They didn't want to bring just any case - they wanted the "perfect" case where they could be certain of the outcome (i.e. SCOTUS sides with the gun owner).
The NRA was petrified about Heller and didn't want to go for it because they thought the risks were too great. It took a non-gun-owning lawyer to actually start the case, and the NRA tried to torpedo it. Of course they took credit for it after it passed.