Justices Question Microsoft's Vision of Patent Law

angry tapir writes "US Supreme Court justices on Monday questioned whether they should side with Microsoft and weaken the legal standard needed to invalidate a patent, with some justices suggesting there are alternatives to changing established law. The issue arose as part of the case involving Redmond and i4i."

Comments

Re:I'm confused

[Arguendo]

Yup. You don't get to release a product to the public and then 20 years later try and go patent it. You've got one year from the release of the product to file for a patent. If not, you are out of luck.

Re:... and Microsoft will pay for its own success

[ozmanjusri]

Microsoft don't generally have a habit of being a Patent troll

Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033867/index.htm

Why Did Microsoft Sell Off 22 'Linux-Related' Patents?

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Why-Did-Microsoft-Sell-Off-22-LinuxRelated-Patents-618335/

TomTom gets allies in Microsoft Linux patent lawsuit fight

http://blogs.computerworld.com/tomtom_gets_allies_in_microsoft_linux_patent_lawsuit_fight

Microsoft's Linux patent bingo hits Google's Android

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/29/microsoft_htc_linux_patents/