Supreme Court Rules Software Patents Invalid-Without Ever Mentioning Software Once In the Decision
"What this means is that companies like Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Google and others have had the value of their patent portfolios nearly completely erased today. If they wish to remain compliant with Sarbanes Oxley and other laws and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission they will need to level with their shareholders and tell them that their patent portfolios have been decimated."
db is on a plane headed to the Atlas Summit to give a talk about Galt as Inventor. When he gets off the plane, this news will greet him. Imagine a MODERN patent system understanding the manufacturing age but not the information age....
db is on a plane headed to the Atlas Summit to give a talk about Galt as Inventor. When he gets off the plane, this news will greet him. Imagine a MODERN patent system understanding the manufacturing age but not the information age....
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This is the basis of today's computers and today's software.
"What Rights Does A Patent Grant?
The grant confers "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States" and its territories and possessions for which the term of the patent shall be 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or (if the application contains a specific reference to an earlier filed patent application) from the date of the earliest such application was filed. "
So, if not technically a monopoly, the ability to prohibit others from using the IP without a licensure agreement certainly has the effect of a monopoly.
"Ordinarily there is nothing which prohibits a patentee from making, using, offering for sale, or selling, or importing his/her own invention, unless he/she thereby infringes another’s patent which is still in force."
Blarman, myself, and others who have joined in this discussion do so mostly from a lay perspective. Taking obscure and very narrow technicalities and generalizing them to a point that you say totally disproves the point is dishonest and not worthy of the level of discourse expected on the board. The use of such tactics undercuts your own authority of the subject.
I have also told developers to trade the amount they will charge for the amount of IP they are willing to give up.
Software is a way of wiring an electronic circuit - it is NOT MATH.
You do not understand what a monopoly is. 1st of all a patent does not even give you the right to make or sell your own invention, so it cannot be a monopoly. Property rights can never be a monopoly.
All property rights are government sponsored. You either have not thought about this or you are being intellectually dishonest.
1) The Sup Ct. has failed to define what they mean by an abstract idea. This means the standard is arbitrary and just an excuse to steal people's property rights.
2) No where did Alice say "do it with a computer", so this rhetoric is going to be used to invalidate (steal inventions) patents.
3) This is going to eliminate investment software companies that create financial products, further entrenching big banks and Wall Street.
4) The Court has revived the discredited and logically incorrect idea that you can look to each element of a claim and if they are all known then the patent can be invalidated. This violates conservation of energy and matter.
5) This is just the start of the problems this decision will create
If you're going to argue that there must be a physical manifestation in order to classify something as patentable, you are going to severely undermine your own argument as to software patents...
Patents most certainly ARE monopolistic. When you obtain a patent, you are gaining exclusive rights to the use of a particular invention or process until the expiration of the patent, at which point it becomes general knowledge. In order for someone else to LEGALLY use your patent, they MUST obtain an agreement from you as to their use and/or resale of your ideas and those who do not have such an agreement are prosecuted in Federal court.
That sounds pretty much like the definition of a monopoly to me - and a government-sponsored one to boot.
Where do you see the problems arising from the limitations now established by the Supreme Court? Please cite specific instances so that I can better follow you.
As a fellow engineer you can appreciate the fact that some designs are not being designed for "manufacturability." Some new designers are enamored with the power of their CAD systems and are not engineers but are designing for pure aesthetics without regard for manufacture. Sometimes some of my customers get a job which I can produce a die/mold for, but they cannot cast with reasonable scrap rates. The parts are marginal as designed for metal flow and casting purposes. They can often be manufactured from billet, but they wish to save costs and try to cast the parts near net shape. If the foundry pays me to build a tool and then finds they cannot produce the casting as designed and the customer will not allow modifications, they occasionally refuse to pay and win in court. A judge will say that my customer did not produce what his customer ordered, end of story... the judge will not care how much effort and different methods my customer tried or how many suggestions of how to make the part more casting friendly, or that I will demand payment because my tooling was not at fault. My customer loses! The judge is ignorant of the process. Each time a new part is cast it is a unique challenge. It is a prototype so to speak the first time and it may not work. My customers are often willing to take on the challenges, the R&D, and will point out the limitations and the possibility that this may not work as designed, only to find out later of the inflexibility of the ultimate purchaser. This is when they lose all around. Some of the companies I serve are small outfits that only generate a few million in sales so an order of an hundred thousand that goes bad can ruin them and this is not an unusual sum. I have even seen when this occurs, that the judge will rule that the foundry must also pay legal fees for the winner who ultimately was a moocher.
Regards,
O.A.
I produce one offs. The tooling I produce is unique, it requires my ingenuity and creativity to produce. My customers go on using it long after I am paid, to produce wealth for themselves, while I receive no royalties. I produce mostly injection molds that may last indefinitely. I am not complaining, because I know what I am getting into in the first place. However sometimes my customers make unreasonable demands upon me and I will not comply. For instance; The other day a customer requested my die designs (CAD files) before proceeding with the build. He had already issued a P.O. and I have been a supplier for many years. This was new and quite disconcerting. I said I would not and he questioned why not? since he was paying for them... I told him to read my customer service policy which clearly states that my designs and data are proprietary and that he did not pay for my software or my designs that he has contracted for a tool and i was going to supply it and nothing more since this has been standard practice in this industry for longer than I can remember and I have in this business in some capacity for forty years. He was satisfied with some screen dumps, and I believe i will maintain their business, but I will not hand over CAD files. They are mine and they exist because of my investment and ingenuity. I could still be producing these dies with paper sketches, a pencil and a trig book of sine, cos, and tan, values. These files I keep are also sales tool and help me with die changes and engineering changes that make it more affordable for my customers to send dies I build back to me. additionally if I supplied the data up-front my customer could nit pick them to death and drive up the cost of the production, or cancel the order and use my files to have another mold-maker build from them.
Not Cool!
Regards,
O.A.
I am unqualified to judge on the merits, but it sure sounds like something from AS. Directive 10-289 ... "Point Three. All patents and copyrights, pertaining to any devices, inventions, formulas, processes and works of any nature whatsoever, shall be turned over to the nation as a patriotic emergency gift by means of Gift Certificates to be signed voluntarily by the owners of all such patents and copyrights. The Unification Board shall then license the use of such patents and copyrights to all applicants, equally and without discrimination, for the purpose of eliminating monopolistic practices, discarding obsolete products and making the best available to the whole nation. No trademarks, brand names or copyrighted titles shall be used. Every formerly patented product shall be known by a new name and sold by all manufacturers under the same name, such name to be selected by the Unification Board. All private trademarks and brand names are hereby abolished.It sounds as if the government is taking away patents that were previously held just like with Rearden. But, like I said, I am not qualified to judge so I will defer to the experts.
You may be interested in some further comments I shall write to db and to Robbie shortly.
Regards,
O.A.
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