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(Highly Divided) Federal Circuit Opinion Finds Many Software Patents Ineligible
ais523 writes "The Federal Circuit has divided CLS Bank vs. Alice Corp., a case about various sorts of patents, including software patents. Although the judges disagreed, to a lesser or greater extent, on the individual parts of the ruling, more than half decided that the patents in question — algorithms for hedging risk — were ineligible patent matter, and that merely adding an 'on a computer'-like clause to an abstract algorithm does not make it patentable. Further coverage is available at Groklaw, or you can read the opinion itself (PDF)."
And I completely agree. Software should be treated like a recipes. People who put the time in to figure out how something is cooked can easily make a generic version. People still pay for the good versions of things because everything else that goes into the product is better.
at least patents, unlike copyright, still have reasonable expiration dates.