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US Supreme Court Invalidates Patent For Being Software Patent
ciaran_o_riordan (662132) writes The US Supreme Court has just invalidated a patent for being a software patent! To no fanfare, the Court has spent the past months reviewing a case, Alice v. CLS Bank, which posed the question of "Whether claims to computer-implemented inventions ... are directed to patent-eligible subject matter." Their ruling was just published, and what we can say already is that the court was unanimous in finding this particular software patent invalid, saying: "the method claims, which merely require generic computer implementation, fail to transform that abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention," and go on to conclude that because "petitioner's system and media claims add nothing of substance to the underlying abstract idea, we hold that they too are patent ineligible." The End Software Patents wiki has a page for commenting the key extracts and listing third-party analyses. Analysis will appear there as the day(s) goes on. Careful reading is needed to get an idea of what is clearly invalidated (file formats?), and what areas are left for future rulings. If you can help, well, it's a wiki. Software Freedom Law Center's website will also be worth checking in the near future.
Please let this lead somewhere good.
We need someone who is familiar with the law to explain this to us techies. PJ we need you!
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
There's no way this happened on purpose, something must be wrong.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
A unanimous decision, authored by the most conservative voice on the court (Thomas) with a concurring opinion by one of the most liberal (Sotomayor). If this were the beginning of April, I would say this story was a prank. Yeah, it doesn't completely kill software patents, but it does seem to mortally wound the "business process + software = patent troll profit" problem that is plaguing software development. This is a good day for the judicial branch. It's a good day for the USA.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Sorry, all you've got is me.
If anyone can help, I've been building this wiki for five years now without a break:
http://en.swpat.org/
(And I'm working on campaigns against software patents since 2003.)
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
The old-school problem with software patents was patenting everything "on a computer". A known eigenvector transform to separate out sinusoid frequencies from a set of sample points would be written and patented "on a computer", because nobody had ever done it in software before.
People started calling method patents "software patents" at some point. That is to say: people would come up with a brilliant new way to analyze and encode data (i.e. compression, psychoacoustics), and folks would start screaming that it shouldn't be patented.
Hardware patents are really the same way: a system of gears, levers, and cams placed in a certain order create a pair of timed shuttles that can weave fabric at high speeds. Software just feeds a similar list of steps (mathematical transformations) into a computer and does something. Hardware patents are mechanical algorithms; software patents are computational algorithms. Hardware patents take substance in (thread, electrons, steel) and produce an organized substance output (cloth, signal, gears); software patents take data in and produce an organized information output.
There's nothing wrong with software patents. Our problem is patenting shit that everyone knew about for the past 500 years, or retard shit that doesn't mean anything but can be manipulated in court to apply to anything.
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the court was unanimous
How did that happen?
Most Supreme Court decisions are unanimous. In the last term, 52% of decisions were 9-0. Another 12% were 8-1.
While not an expert in this particular case, the holding seems pretty clear - you can't patent an abstract idea and the mere implementation of one does not violate an non-patentable solution. The analysis points out that there is not unique thought or design process involved to protect and the mere following of steps previous outlined does not make something patentable.
"Where is my mind?"
Using a computerto create and maintain “shadow” accounts amounts to electronic recordkeeping—one of the most basic functionsof a computer. See, e.g., Benson, 409 U. S., at 65 (noting that a computer “operates . . . upon both new and previously stored data”). The same is true with respect to the use of a computer to obtain data, adjust account balances,and issue automated instructions; all of these computer functions are “well-understood, routine, conventional activit[ies]” previously known to the industry. Mayo, 566 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4). In short, each step does nomore than require a generic computer to perform generic computer functions.
I think the above is one of the most important parts of the ruling. Basically stating that your patents stores data, or calculates something won't make it patent elligible if it wasn't patent elligible to start with. You could extend similer thinking to internet patents when talking about "well-understood, routine, convention activiteis"
It was invalidated because the process it describes is super super old. They only thing they added to the old process was using a computer. So if you invent something actually new. Then you can patent that. But "old idea + computer" is not patentable.
If something's not new, it's invalid under 35 USC 102. If something is obvious, it's invalid under 35 USC 103. Both of these would apply to "old process + computer", and the patent should have been invalidated on those grounds...
But, you have to prove that it's an old idea with some evidence in the form of prior art. And because SCOTUS can't do their own prior art searches, even though they knew it was an old idea, they couldn't invalidate it under 102 or 103... So, instead, they turned to 35 USC 101, and said that this was not a patent eligible method because it was directed to an "abstract idea"... But what's an abstract idea? According to Thomas, anything super super old, like you said. But that's what the other statutes are for.
It's the right outcome - the patent was clearly invalid - but for the wrong reason.
Given the ubiquity of computers, see 717 F. 3d, at 1286 (Lourie, J., concurring), wholly generic computer imple - mentation is not generally the so rt of “additional featur[e]” that provides any “practical a ssurance that the process is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the [abstract idea] itself.” Mayo , 566 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8–9).
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
At least according to Ars this is much less. It's just about killing specific kind of SW patents. Crucially, it still allows patents that "improve the functioning of the computer itself".
Yes.
Similarly, assembling a wooden crate "with a nail gun" is not an inventive step over "the same way for thousands of years, but with a hammer."
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A summary of the decision:
1. [We have long held that] Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are “the basic tools of scientific and technological work.” and are not patentable.
2. Restricting such an idea and applying it in a particular domain also is not patentable, long established.
3. This is an abstract idea -- and a well-known one in your industry at that.
4. Applying it "on a computer" is trying to patent it in a restricted domain, and thus not patentable.
5. quo novus ordo et tu Brute seclorum GT 9-0 FO
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That would actually be fine, if nobody had ever thought to turn fiber into clothing. Once the broad "fiber becomes clothing" patents wear out, you have to look for ways people have made thread before. "PLANT fiber becomes clothing." "Novel way to process Flax and Hemp fiber into clothing by hybrid chemical wash and bacterial fermentation." "New method and device for spinning fibers into clothing." "New method and device for separating high-quality fibers from weak, short fibers to produce better thread." "Novel method for removing seeds from harvested cotton fibers." "Enhancing the yield of cotton, flax, and cannabis fibers through novel growing methods."
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You mean similar like the store charge accounts before everything became a chain? People would go in, pick what they wanted, a clerk would write it down, then the items would be pulled, charged to your account, and delivered to your door by some highschool kid looking for extra money- often by the end of the day.
The concept of one click is not new. Its just a return of yesteryear to todays stores.
The Supreme Court has held that "abstract ideas" can't be patented, but then has deliberately refrained from defining what an "abstract idea" is!
In the latest Alice decision, they write: "In any event, we need not labor to delimit the precisecontours of the “abstract ideas” category in this case. It is enough to recognize that there is no meaningful distinction between the concept of risk hedging in Bilski and the concept of intermediated settlement at issue here. Both are squarely within the realm of “abstract ideas” as we have used that term."
So you can't have "X", where "X" is undefined.
... Supreme Court has upheld the patentability of software concepts, while setting limits: Companies can't patent a mere abstract idea on a computer, but can patent software ideas that advance or improve upon existing ideas.
http://recode.net/2014/06/19/s...
Most Supreme Court decisions are unanimous. In the last term, 52% of decisions were 9-0. Another 12% were 8-1.
The decisions are not a closed ballot vote; this is not a test question, where each judge is asked to come up with their answer in private, without knowledge of the other judges' choice. The judges can discuss amongst themselves, weigh the matter, and come to their conclusion.
It will of course wind up being unanimous, unless there is pretty strong disagreement.
I know the headline is correct because Gene Quinn is hopping mad. Quinn makes a living by obtaining software patents and always says he can draft around any limits imposed by the courts, but here's what he's saying today:
"an intellectually bankrupt opinion ... will render many hundreds of thousands of software patents completely useless ... On first read I donâ(TM)t see how any software patent claims written as method or systems claims can survive challenge."
http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014...
I didn't want to trust my own reading, but I knew it was a big victory when I read Quinn's reaction.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
For anyone that wants to troll a patent autorny that has his feelings hurt over this, go here: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014...
In what can only be described as an intellectually bankrupt opinion, the Supreme Court never once used the word “software” in its decision.
Hahahahahahaha... had tears in my eyes reading that.
Since cryptographic and compression algorithms are mathematical in nature, would the "on a computer" apply to them so any cryptographic and compression related patent is invalid?
You are looking at it from the wrong point of view. Here is an unpatentable idea: "We take messages, mash them up in a way so that only the intended receiver can put them back together, and then the intended receiver turns it back into the original message, while anybody else can't read it". No patent. In this case, there is a huge gap between the idea and actually making it work. If that gap is big enough and solving the problem is not obvious and therefore inventive, then it can be patented. And that's the case here. Cryptography and compression can be patented.
The patent that this thread was about was an idea, and an implementation that didn't require any inventive step. No patent.
Rehnquist wrote a very interesting book The Supreme Court that not only talks about the history of the court and some of its important cases (he did not include any cases that were decided by any judges that he served with), but he also described very nicely the day-to-day workings of a case moving through the system. I found it to be very interesting reading.
"Hardware patents are really the same way: a system of gears, levers, and cams placed in a certain order create a pair of timed shuttles that can weave fabric at high speeds."
Sure. And the way patents were applied to physical machines, what you just mentioned is not patentable, while (at least before today) courts kept ruling the computer equivalent was.
There is no patent controlling high speed mechanical weaving machines. There are a number of patents on high speed mechanical weaving, but they tend toward very specific innovations, tricks that allowed manufacture of a comb or a reed or an electric motor or what have you that was superior for this specific application. And the disclosures are specific enough to allow someone to read the application and implement it.
In software, we do see patents that appear to cover much broader scopes, more analogous to what you said; "a system of gears, levers, and cams placed in a certain order create a pair of timed shuttles that can weave fabric at high speeds" and boom you own all mechanical weaving for the next 50 years. Without doing anything but combining the idea of weaving, which humans have been doing for thousands of years, with mechanical engineering, which only really took off a few centuries back and is much more recent.
Notice that disclosure here, the price you are supposed to be paying for the patent*, does not really help anyone trying to build such a device, not the way that for instance US2993130 will actually enable you to build a special kind of electric motor and also to understand exactly why that sort of motor is so much better for use in an electric loom than the ones everybody had been using before it.
The software equivalent to US2993130 is imaginable, and it's quite possible it exists, but I do not believe I or anyone I know has ever seen it in the wild.
"There's nothing wrong with software patents."
Well regardless of whether or not you believe they should be allowed, there's a huge problem with them legally, even if we appear stuck for another generation before the people that simply do not understand it finally die and are replaced.
And that's the fact that software is math and the law firmly and clearly states math is not patentable.
There are all sorts of slick and sophisticated arguments that very highly paid patent lawyers have come up with to try and deny this, but of course they are all completely full of crap.
Every bit of software that has ever existed, or ever will exist, is a number. A computer does absolutely nothing other than read a number from an input device and based on mathematical rules output a number to an output device in response. The complete contents of your hard drive is a number. The program that knows how to communicate with your videocard is a substring of that number, and that letter to aunt martha you saved and never sent is another substring of that number. When you turn the computer on, a number is read from a specific point on the hard drive, and input to the cpu, which in response sends out more numbers, which cause more numbers to be read from various devices and input in turn. This is all the computer does, all day, all night, it is all it is capable of doing.
*- Patent lawyers may want to think that their fees, and the fees of the patent office, are the price you are supposed to pay for patents, but in reality the price is supposed to be letting everyone else in on the 'discovery' of something you could have otherwise exploited as a trade secret.
Clearly not the case with software patents where people routinely file patents quietly and just wait for companies to independently invent what they describe so they can sue.
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