This week seems to be bigger than most for software patent news. Earlier in the week we had Google's announcement they are buying Motorola Mobility to acquire defensive patents. Now we have what could be a landmark ruling against the validity of a software patent on the basis that it describes a mental process.
The decision came from the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal ... [ read the full article ]
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Good! But does this actually effect Google, or any other companies? What they're being sued for by all of these companies doesn't have much to do with mental process in the first place, does it? I thought it had more to do with things like touch-screen technology, or how tablets were too closely resembling each other. That doesn't seem like it would be considered mental process.
This looks to me like the court still needs to do more to prevent people from creating very general patents with the intention of suing companies or people who "infringe" upon them.
Quote:Good! But does this actually effect Google, or any other companies?
Yes and no. It doesn't necessarily affect things like the multitouch patents because those are specifically related to computer hardware. On the other hand, if you look at the patent suits from non-practicing entities (ie patent trolls) you will find that most of them are like this patent. For example, the ad related patents pretty much all fall into that category.
This good for small developers. There are so many basic functions which have been broadly patented that you can violate certain patents just be adding two variables together in your code. Obviously these patents are just ignored most of the time because it is the only way to make a program...but then small firms risk getting sued by patent trolls.
Originally posted by Notcow: Good! But does this actually effect Google, or any other companies? What they're being sued for by all of these companies doesn't have much to do with mental process in the first place, does it? I thought it had more to do with things like touch-screen technology, or how tablets were too closely resembling each other. That doesn't seem like it would be considered mental process.
This looks to me like the court still needs to do more to prevent people from creating very general patents with the intention of suing companies or people who "infringe" upon them.
You can't patent an idea which is a mental thing, it's not a real object or an action you can apply to a real object.
There's lots of these patents and they don't get contested until it hits a court otherwise it will stand and it's up to the patent holder to sue someone about it, they have X amount time to sue otherwise they have agreed to the free use of the patent.
What your talking about is mainly controlled by patent departments well meant to be but I guess you can know and force things through.
