Taking the Battle Against Patent Trolls To the Public 107
First time accepted submitter presspass writes "A group of technology and retail groups is beginning a national ad campaign targeting so-called patent trolls. The Internet Association, National Restaurant Association, National Retail Federation and Food Marketing Institute Patent trolls — a term known more among geeks than the general public — are about to be the target of a national ad campaign. Beginning Friday, a group of retail trade organizations is launching a radio and print campaign in 17 states. They want to raise awareness of a problem they say is draining resources from business and raising prices for consumers."
Re:They're not trolls (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a thought (Score:4, Interesting)
Any thoughts on how the following rule would help the patent system?:
Make patents non transferable.
Now if you are working for a company, or with someone, patenet ownership can be split how ever initially agreed on (I'm a 5% owner of a patent from a pervious job), but this stops a single company, with no product, history, or karma backing it, from buying up bunched of patents and suing major companies trying to sell their product.
Re:Software a special case (Score:5, Interesting)
So, in other words, patenting an algorithm is as simple as adding "on a computer" after it, thus making it a process.
It's not that simple. In Gottschalk v. Benson, the US Supreme Court considered a method for binary conversion, and said: "The mathematical formula involved here has no substantial practical application except in connection with a digital computer, which means that if the judgment below is affirmed, the patent would wholly pre-empt the mathematical formula and in practical effect would be a patent on the algorithm itself."
The idea is that the patent claim must "add “significantly more” to the basic principle, with the result that the claim covers significantly less." If the patent claim is co-extensive with an unpatentable algorithm, the claim is not eligible for patent.
What "significantly more" means, and what it means for an invention to be coextensive with an unpatentable abstract idea (mathematical formula, or algorithm) are points under contention at the CAFC right now. I expect this to reach the Supreme Court for clarification in the near future.