Supreme Court Orders Do-Over On Key Software Patents

Fluffeh writes "It seems that the U.S. Supreme Court has an itch it just can't scratch. A patent granted to the Ultramercial company covers the concept of allowing users to watch a pre-roll advertisement as an alternative to paying for premium content and the company is demanding fees from the likes of Hulu and YouTube. Another company called WildTangent, however, is challenging Ultramercial's 'invention' as merely an abstract idea not eligible for patent protection. Add to this a recent ruling by the Supreme Court restricting patents — albeit on medical diagnostic techniques — and you get into a bit of a pickle. The Supreme Court is now sending the Ultramercial case back to the lower courts for another round, which doesn't mean that the court disagrees with the original ruling, but rather that it thinks it is a patent case that is relevant to the situation and they want to re-examine it under this new light."

Comments

What else is there to say?

[LordNicholas]

This nonsense is crushing innovation. It's one more in a long line of examples of how we need to reevaluate how we govern ourselves.

Re:What else is there to say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents have never been an innovation incentive, hell look at what Alexander Graham Bell did with telecom, his company sat on patents and expanded glacially making sure to profit from a few key technologies in what would become backbone areas, it was only when patents started expiring that telephones started spreading, and even then his legacy is still apparent in monopolies across North America

Imagine if Nikola Tesla had defended the design of the electric motor as viciously as Bell had telecom, the mind boggles...

Re:What else is there to say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yes, that old chestnut, if the product is so great and you're first to sell it you'll recoup your costs.

"But what if someone steals your idea" you say, well that already happens and if that person makes it to the patent office first you're still fucked.

Again, who invented the telephone? Innocenzo Manzetti, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Elisha Gray, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison... ?

Bell was the only one awarded the patent so all those other guys lost out, had there been no patent system there would have been healthy competition between them potentially leading to more innovation in the field as it developed.

Re:What else is there to say?

[Rob Y.]

...except on deciding that 'money == speech'. They were quick as bunnies deciding that. Faster than you can say "money also == bribery".

Re:What else is there to say?

[subreality]

Patents were never intended to be an incentive for innovation. They're incentive to document and disclose the invention so that after the patent expires everyone gets to benefit from it instead of it remaining a trade secret forever.

Unfortunately they've never done a good job of that either. Most things that are patented are either sufficiently obvious once you see them that no documentation was really necessary (eg, the cotton gin), or for non-obvious things (like a process to manufacture a chemical economically) the patents tend to be sufficiently obfuscated to make them essentially impossible to follow.

Re:Patents that cover concepts?

[KermodeBear]

Someone already has won a patent on the concept of online auctions. All you have to do is take anything people do anyway, add "but do it online!" and you have your new patent. It's pretty awful.

Isn't sponsored advertising prior art?

[avgjoe62]

Isn't the concept of an advertisement running before you see content as old as radio and TV? Didn't I have to watch Timex commercials to see the TV shows they sponsored?

I think this is just another example of "Same old stuff, but now on the Interwebs!"

Unless there is an actual physical product. patents are inappropriate. Copyright a presentation of an idea, but patenting a thought is a path to policing thought... and wasting time having the courts arbitrate such.