Groklaw parses the arguments in Microsoft v. i4i on invalidating patents

Read the whole transcript. I impressed myself!

I think MS has a tought road to climb on this one. But one thing that did catch my eye was this,

"Now Congress now has it before it legislative proposals, one of which has passed the Senate, one of which has been voted out of committee in -- in the House, and is currently pending before the court -- the full -- full House of Representatives, that would expand the availability of post, what we now call post-grant review proceedings, where for a limited window of time after a patent is issued, people who oppose the issuance of the patent can come in and object on any ground. And that wouldn't be limited to the - the grounds that are specified in the current re-examination proceeding."

If this passes, it would be great to have a site dedicated to tracking SW/UI patents where we could submit prior art and objections.

The author displays ignorance of the topic in alleging that no one has addressed whether mere algorithms per se should be patentable. Case law has discussed this repeatedly and made clear that a mere algorithm per se can't be patented. See e.g. Gottschalk v. Benson, a U.S. Supreme Court case from 1972.

Do you suppose that there is a chance that one (or more) of the clerks for the court reads Groklaw?