I guess this might be good news for Google?
From my perspective, patents are a toxic drain on morale/intelligence/innovation that we have no hope of curtailing in my lifetime.
Imagine how many firms would lose millions if the major tech companies worked together
EDIT: (nothing against lawyers in general since they are obviously just doing their jobs)
Patent trolling is a pretty good example too. You buy some patent you find and then start suing anyone under the sun.
But this sort of competitor patent battle isn't easy to start by a lawyer. You'd have to convince your client to start it. But a huge F500 doesn't just have one lawyer, they have their own in house lawyers who make the choices. And then go find a firm to carry it out.
I haven't heard anything about patent trolls for a while but their entire existence is based on bullshit lawyers and wasting the courts resources. (kinda getting off topic I guess I am done here)
If you don't like what PTO says, you can always just go to your local federal courthouse to sue for your patent. And the PTO gets sued all the time.
The courts are split on the idea of software patenting because the Supreme Court doesn't understand what software is. Nobody alive can reconcile Benson, Flook, Diehr, Bilski, and Alice. There were four Supreme votes in 2010's Bilski that pure software logic was unpatentable but software that changed the hardware to make it work better was patentable and the example of eligibility was linear programming and compression. Only Scalia was smart enough to see the problem there and even he can't articulate why.
The CAFC -- the patent appeals court -- is relentless in overturning Supreme Court precedents against software patents. Known for being contemptuous of the law and harboring a deeply corrupt majority, the CAFC sees software patents as a gravy train for the patent bar and a permanent tax on a major industry for the benefit of the judges and their friends. Their opinions on the most awful abusive patents reflect a pirate's mentality deliberately ignoring cheating to reach the most harmful conclusions.
While technically true, it does not match reality. The PTO does update its processes to reflect recent cases:
http://patentlyo.com/jobs/2009/03/ptos-current-examination-s...
http://patentlyo.com/patent/2014/06/issues-examination-instr...
> The CAFC -- the patent appeals court -- is relentless in overturning Supreme Court precedents against software patents.
If this appears to be the case, it's mostly because as you said, the Supreme Court does not understand software, and has consistently made everybody's lives harder by issuing vague, non-concrete opinions about patent eligibility and validity, overturning well-established procedures. The SC's current stand is "we know an invalid patent when we see one and will make up arbitrary reasons to invalidate it", but that does not help the PTO or the lower courts clear guidelines that they can implement.
Also, it is not true that the CAFC overturns Supreme Court precedents, as can be seen in the spate of decisions following Alice: http://www.law360.com/articles/662776/a-look-at-everything-t...
Wouldn't the plaintiffs likely win? I fail to see the major difference.
It's hard to explain how exciting technology was back then - so many options. I remember learning about and trying to decide between DOS, Amiga, Commodore, Apple IIs/Mac, Atari. These were the OSes/PCs I focused on (not including Unix). Yet, this was nothing compared to the (healthy) competition among app developers. Very innovative times.
Nowadays, if you have even a smidgeon of success - you're either bought out by those who successfully gamed the system or sued into submission.
Law suits over look and feel have been happening since the 1980s, well before MS or Apple got big.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broderbund_Software_Inc._v._Un....
Lotus started look and feel lawsuits in 1987: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Software#.22Look_and_fee...
Apple tried to sue MS over look and feel in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Micros....
They've always aggressively used law.
You can disagree with rewarding it, but it's not totally insane.
- People will invent no matter what. Money is just one type of reward.
- If you don't want competitors copying immediately, don't announce or demo it before hand and keep it secret until you have all marketing in place. Or limit distribution and offer it in controlled, supervised environments.
The solution can't be "this idea is mine". Nobody must own ideas.
There is a reason companies like Qualcomm and most Internet companies are on opposite sides of the patent debate, and its not because Qualcomm is evil and Twitter isn't. It's because what it takes to make their respective products, and what it takes to protect their markets from copycats is fundamentally different.
Mind you, patents came about when the steam engine was a new thing.
Also, that they cover software is a very recent thing. Initially they covered mechanical systems (pistons, rods, cogs etc etc) set up to specific tasks, and chemicals (put X parts of Y into Z under boil).
What seemed to happen was that at some point software got involved as controlling these earlier items in a more precise manner than humans or mechanics alone could (monitor temperature, put stuff into other stuff when it hits the exact one, extract everything a precise number of seconds later etc).
This was then declared, by court, to be a distinct patent from the same process done via purely manual or mechanical means. A ruling that later lawyers built on to basically get de-facto software patents.
On the other-hand if you look at big companies like Apple, Facebook the amounts the are investing in genuine human progress is truly paltry compared to their net-worth, and what they are patenting is often ridiculous, generic and clearly not in any way conducive to human progress.