HD DVD May Finally Be Dead... Only Three Years Too Late

Patentability Of Business Model And Software Patents Comes Under Court Scrutiny

from the about-time dept

Fri, Feb 15th 2008 7:51pm — Mike Masnick

Nearly ten years ago, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) made its ruling in the State Street Bank case, effectively allowing patents on business models and greatly expanding the scope of software patents in one single move. While there are many problems with the patent system, this one decision made for a lot more bad patents very quickly -- and many of the ridiculous lawsuits you see today wouldn't even exist if this decision had gone the other way. While we've seen the Supreme Court suddenly get religion on fixing the patent system in the past few years, it hasn't really touched on the question of software or business model patents.

On one case that could have addressed the issue, the court dismissed the case on a technicality, rather than digging into the actual issue, though in the dissent, some Justices made it clear they weren't comfortable with the State Street ruling. Last year, some folks tried to sneak the issue of software patents into another Supreme Court patent case, but that seemed like a stretch, since the case really had little to do with software patents directly. The decision in that case did set things up, though, so that the Supreme Court later could reject software patents.

Now we have another important case to watch. As pointed out by the Troll Tracker, CAFC has agreed to a full court hearing to examine the scope of what can be patented. It may sound like a technicality, but it could be a very big deal. Going back on the earlier State Street ruling could effectively knock out many business model patents and software patents, restoring at least some (though, certainly not all) sanity to the patent system, especially in the technology world.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: business model patents, cafc, patents, software patents

23 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Ajax 4Hire, 16 Feb 2008 @ 7:49am

I would like to patent the business model
of buying patents and suing for un-realized damages.
The title of the Patent is "Patent Trolling as a Business Model", oh yeah, as a Software and Business Model.

Soon I will be singin:
And they moved to Beverly, Hills that is Swimmin pools and Patent Stars!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Feb 2008 @ 9:40am

Who's the toll tracker? Maybe you mean the troll tracker
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Prof_IT, 16 Feb 2008 @ 9:56am

Patents
As an academic scholar in Information Technology, I can say with a certainity that I can dig up prior ACADEMIC research for almost 90% of software or business patents that have been issued. The most ridiculous is the one-click by Amazon where cookies have been known and used in academic research prior to that for exactly similar purposes (retrieving browser stored information from servers). The patents that are difficult to crack the those that rely on prior research that was done within the company e.g., the telecommunication patents. The system is broken and needs to be fixed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Exiled From The Mainstream, 16 Feb 2008 @ 5:21pm

If they dismiss this one...
I'm gonna be pissed. I just can't understand how they let crap get this far gone. Its amazing that an entire business can be made on patent trolling and has for years now.

Not like I expect much though... America has one of the loopiest legal systems I've seen. Seems like long as you got the cash you'll get out scotfree even if it was capital murder.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
A. L. Flanagan, 17 Feb 2008 @ 5:48am

Re: If they dismiss this one...
The guy with the most money wins. What's loopy about that? It's simple and easy to understand. ;)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
BS, 18 Feb 2008 @ 7:02am

The people who made the original ruling
[b]Were obviously in the pocket of big business and should be removed from office for being the the allower of this travesty in the first place[/b]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 18 Feb 2008 @ 7:17am

Re: The people who made the original ruling
Don't accuse without evidence.

Don't assume malice where incompetence can easily be substituted.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 18 Feb 2008 @ 8:05am

The courts only make big decisions by accident. It's rare that they knowingly overturn a decisions that business are built upon -- they don't have that kinda backbone
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Software Guy, 18 Feb 2008 @ 8:17am

Software patents bad for the US
I hope the courts will stop the software and business patents before all of us who know how it all works leave and go low tech. I've been in the software business for 20 years with fear of getting sued over my creations for the last 5 or so years. I am already prepairing to exit the industry in the next two years if things don't change. If we all leave who will run the machines?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ravenshrike, 18 Feb 2008 @ 8:19am

The Supreme Court tends to like their cases to be as glitch free as possible, mainly so that people can't go back later and invalidate their ruling on the basis of a technicality.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 18 Feb 2008 @ 9:08am

Re:
it's SCOTUS. They are the final decision; there's not another court over them to overturn their rulings. The only way to overturn the Supreme Court is for Congress to pass a new law or for the Constitution to be amended.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 18 Feb 2008 @ 9:40am

Re: I would like to patent the business model
IBM already tried that patent.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Tony P, 18 Feb 2008 @ 12:50pm

Re: Patents
I wonder how the Verizon v. Vonage case worked out. Supposedly Vonage was violating a bunch of patents that Verizon supposedly owned.

In essence Verizon took RFP's and made them into patents and then using those tried to kill the competition.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 18 Feb 2008 @ 12:53pm

Re: I would like to patent the business model
Why stop there. Patent the business and software model of exchanging goods and services for goods and services.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Timothy Rue, 18 Feb 2008 @ 4:17pm

Abstraction Physics
Software simply doesn't fall into the realm of being of qualities supporting patent-ability, nor do business methods.
Abstraction Physics No Kidding.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 19 Feb 2008 @ 1:39am

Re: Re: The people who made the original ruling
I actually prefer to think of it as malice. Incompetence gets a bad rap too often. How many times have you heard someone say "I didn't know..." and know it was a lie?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
n/a, 19 Feb 2008 @ 6:45am

not everything can be owned
I believe one of the reasons software patents and similar ideas live in the US is because there is a firm belief in US that everything can be _owned_.

IMNSHO shared resources can not always be owned.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
vishal, 20 Feb 2008 @ 9:06pm

Patenteability
I would like to patent the business model by Anonymous Coward
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jay Chawla, 7 Mar 2008 @ 4:37pm

Patents and Corporate Welfare
Genetic and pharmaceutical patents are good for large corporations, so no one criticizes them. Software and Business Model patents are good for innovative thinkers, so big corporations hate them.

So follow the herd, you mindless lemmings, and criticize tech patents while you pay top dollar for patented, over-hyped drugs that don't do anything but kill you slowly and make the pharmaceutical companies rich quickly.

The mega-technology corporations and all of their copycat rip-off artist friends thank you.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
angry dude, 19 Mar 2008 @ 7:51pm

Re: Patents and Corporate Welfare
And don't forget China - they are very thankful too...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ViSalus, 13 Oct 2008 @ 11:23pm

Patents
The most ridiculous is the one-click by Amazon where cookies have been known and used in academic research prior to that for exactly similar purposes.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Martin Zwilling, 16 Jan 2009 @ 8:48am

Time for Change
This is a good article on software patent issues. I'm convinced that it's time to eliminate the software patent process, and simply use the existing copyright and trademark protection for software. See my article on blog.startupprofessionals.com titled "Software Patents: Time for a Change" for specifics.

Marty Zwilling, Founder & CEO, Startup Professionals, Inc.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Smarter Finances, 16 Mar 2010 @ 8:24am

Nice post!It was really informative. I have a little confusions about the said issue, but still I am balancing on what would be the best thing to do about this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]