Supreme Court Throws Out Bilski Patent

ciaran_o_riordan writes "The US Supreme Court has finally decided the Bilski case (PDF). We've known that Bilski's patent would get thrown out; that was clear from the open mockery from the judges during last November's hearing. The big question is, since rejecting a particular patent requires providing a general test and explaining why this patent fails that test, how broad will their test be? Will it try to kill the plague of software patents? And is their test designed well enough to stand up to the army of patent lawyers who'll be making a science (and a career) of minimizing and circumventing it? The judges have created a new test, so this will take some reading before any degree of victory can be declared. The important part is pages 5-16 of the PDF, which is the majority opinion. The End Software Patents campaign is already analyzing the decision, and collecting other analyses. Some background is available at Late-comers guide: What is Bilski anyway?" More analysis of the decision is available at Patently-O.

Comments

Apostrophe's

[ceswiedler]

Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?

Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business signs to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: SUPREME'S THROW OUT BILSKI PATENT. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand- lettered small-business signs is that you should put quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S.
                -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"

And the supreme court...

[russotto]

punted.

Bastards. Bilski is invalid, machine-or-transformation is thrown out, but the court explicitly provides no further guidance either way.

Software Freedom Law Center reaction.

[kfogel]

The Software Freedom Law Center has a great response up. From SFLC chairman Eben Moglen: "The confusion and uncertainty behind today's ruling guarantees that the issues involved in Bilski v. Kappos will have to return to the Supreme Court after much money has been wasted and much innovation obstructed."

(I hope they'll be providing a deeper analysis later on; the above came out like ten minutes after the decision, so obviously it's just based on the summary of the decision.)

-Karl Fogel

Don't let the headline fool you (this IS Slashdot)

[AtlantaSteve]

While Bilski lost, the Supreme Court did not throw out software or method patents. The Supreme Court actually re-opened the door just a bit after the Federal Circuit had left it cracked.

The actual majority opinion is only 16 pages long, and really doesn't say much. They more or less like the "machine or transformation" test that the Federal Circuit had come up with... wherein a method patent must tie any abstract ideas to a "particular" machine or transformation of matter, such that the abstract idea may be combined with other machines or transformations not protected by the patent. However, the Supreme Court now says that while this test may get the job done most of the time, it is not necessarily the only possible test (and they don't say what the other tests might include.

Most important for software patent watchers, the Supreme Court completely ignored In re Alappat and the impact of "Beauregard claims" on the Federal Circuit "machine or transformation" test. That older Alappat decision opened the door for patentee to write claims for software as being articles of manufacter. This "Bearegard" format is basically a sneaky trick... saying that you haven't invented software on a hard drive (which should be analyzed as a method), but rather you've invented a hard drive that has software on it (which should NOT be treated as a method). This is how most software still gets in the door, as the PTO gives it a wink and a nudge doesn't treat it as being "software" at all! This was the issue that software patentees were watching mostly closely, and Supreme Court was completely silent and left the status quo untouched.

Nice headline, but it does not reflect the total picture. This opinion is NOT a victory whatsoever for the anti-software patent crowd.

"Patentable process" like "hardcore pornography"

[NZheretic]

The patent in question was effectively denied, but the court would not impose further limits on patenting.

No. 08-964. Argued November 9, 2009--Decided June 28, 2010

Today, the Court once again declines to impose limitations on the Patent Act that are inconsistent with the Act's text. The patent application here can be rejected under our precedents on the unpatentability of abstract ideas. The Court, therefore, need not define further what constitutes a patentable "process," beyond pointing to the definition of that term provided in 100(b) and looking to the guideposts in Benson, Flook, and Diehr.

Which is about the same as saying ( Justice Potter Stewart, concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964)),

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."

Bilski doesn't invalidate even one software patent

[FlorianMueller]

Here are some quotes from my analysis (I'm the founder and former director of the NoSoftwarePatents campaign):

• "Unfortunately, the Supreme Court delivered an opinion that doesn't help the cause of partial or complete abolition of software patents at all."
• "[T]he court's majority position is about the most liberal reasoning that it could have been. Only a decision to uphold the Bilski patent could have been any less restrictive.
• "The decision announced today makes it clear that a majority of the Supreme Court wanted to give the abolition of even only a small percentage of all software patents the widest berth possible."
• "This US decision is even more disappointing when taking into account the global trend." [then mentions political process in New Zealand and court decision in Germany]
• "The position that software patents should be abolished isn't nearly as popular among judges and politicians as it is in the free and open source software community."
• The upcoming Defensive Patent License (DPL) is recommended at the end of the blog posting.

Again, here's the full text.

Re:Neither funny nor accurate

[logjon]

You'g. I'o wha'nt.

Re:Don't let the headline fool you (this IS Slashd

[Myopic]

not necessarily the only possible test (and they don't say what the other tests might include.

You just made all Lisp programmers very, very nervous.