Software Patent Sanity on the Way? 157
Ars Technica is reporting that the traditionally silent US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) may be starting to turn things around. It seems that in recent action the USPTO has started to make it much easier to invalidate software patents with some saying that the abolition of such patents may be in the distant future. "Duffy cites four recent cases that illustrate the Patent Office's growing hostility to the patenting of software and other abstract concepts. While the USPTO hasn't formally called for the abolition of software patents, the positions it took in these cases do suggest a growing skepticism. In the first two cases, decided last fall, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (which has jurisdiction over patent appeals) upheld patent rejections by the USPTO. They were not software patent cases, as such. In In Re Nuijten, the court considered a patent related to an algorithm for adding a watermark to a digital media file. The Federal Circuit did not invalidate the claims relating to the watermarking algorithm itself; everyone seemed to agree that the algorithm was patentable. Rather, the decision focused on whether a digital signal could be the subject of a patent claim. The court concluded that it could not. A victory for common sense, perhaps, but hardly a rejection of software patents."
Somewhat a dupe (Score:4, Informative)
A lot of the article is talking about another article that was on slashdot recently.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/24/1458215 [slashdot.org]
Re:Seems vaguely familar (Score:2, Informative)
Ack, messed up the link [slashdot.org].
Re:Provide the proof! (Score:5, Informative)
I can't resist replying to this comment. It is typical of many Slashdot comments particularly in relation to Patent Law.
I don't know how much the author actually knows about patent law but the comment illustrates a severe lack of understanding.
Patents must and do include "details on how to recreate such an idea". It's called the "description". While you no longer need to produce a prototype there is generally enough in the description for "someone skilled in the art2 to recreate it. In fact the whole reason you don't have to produce a working model is because you might not have the resources available but you want your idea protected while for example you get funding to set up a factory or what not.
I really don't know what you mean by a "secret patent". Since 2001 in the US and the rest of the world for approximately forever, pretty much all granted patents have been published twice. Once 18 months after filing and the second time after grant. Just because you don't know about a patent does not make it secret. All the patent databases are available for free online these days.
"secret patent" - aka submarine patent (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_patent [wikipedia.org].
Submarine patent is an informal term for a patent first published and granted long after the initial application was filed. In analogy to a submarine, its presence is unknown to the public; it stays under water, i.e., unpublished, for long periods, then emerges, i.e., granted and published, and surprises the relevant market. This practice was possible previously under the United States patent law, and is now not practical with present patent filings since the U.S. signed the TRIPS agreement of the WTO: since 1995, patent terms (20 years in the U.S.) are measured from the original filing or priority date, and not the date of issuance. A few potential submarine patents may result from pre-1995 filings that have yet to be granted and may remain unpublished until issuance. Submarine patents are considered by many as a procedural lache (a delay in enforcing one's rights, which may cause the rights to be lost).
Software/Math connection road to invalidation? (Score:1, Informative)
If algorithms/Computer programs can be proven to be correct or incorrect using mathematics, why are they not simply an extension of mathematics? They are almost entirely interchangeable to the point of in many cases being substitutable languages for one another-- f(x)= a+b, int f (int a, int b) { return a+b; } Thus if mathematical algorithms are not patentable and it can be shown that the "laws" of programming and logic are essentially the same as the laws of mathematical computation and proof, shouldn't that be enough to say that if Mathematical algorithms are not patentable, then mathematical algorithms expressed as machine instructions (programs) are not patentable?
Re:USPTO doesn't make legislation (Score:2, Informative)