Search
Federal Circuit Reins in Business Method Patents - Via Freedom to Tinker:
This has been a big year for patent law in the technology industry. A few weeks ago I wrote about the Supreme Court's Quanta v. LG decision. Now the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has jurisdiction over all patent appeals, has handed down a landmark ruling in the case of In Re Bilski. The case dealt with the validity of patents on business methods, and a number of public interest organizations had filed amicus briefs. I offer my take on the decision in a story for Ars Technica. In a nutshell, the Federal Circuit rejected the patent application at issue in the case and signaled a newfound skepticism of "business method" patents.
The decision is surprising because the Federal Circuit has until recently been strongly in favor of expanding patent rights. read more »
Federal Circuit Reins In Business Method Patents - Via EFF.org Updates:
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit yesterday issued a decision that imposes firm limits on business method patents. The ruling effectively overturns a key part of the court’s decision in State Street Bank and Trust v. Signature Financial Group, which opened the door to an explosion of patents on "methods" of doing business so long as the methods involved use of a computer and produced a "useful, concrete, and tangible result." read more »
Sun's OMS Video codec project is a means to an end - Via Linux.com :
Sun Microsystems is setting out to create an open source, royalty-free video codec. Given the considerable head start of well-known, royalty-free video codecs like Dirac and Theora, you might ask why the world needs another. The answer, according to Sun, is the process the company will use to develop it -- starting with a full-on, careful examination of the patent situation.
I spoke with Gerard Fernando and Rob Glidden about the project, which was unveiled in April. Fernando is a senior staff engineer at Sun, and Glidden is the company's global alliance manager for TV and media.
Fernando says the video codec idea dates back to 2005, when the Open Media Commons (OMC) initiative was launched by Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz. It just took a back seat to OMC's first large-scale project, the DReaM digital rights management (DRM) system. read more »
minilinks for 2008-08-14 - Via EFF.org Updates: read more »
- Oops! FBI Sorry For Spying on Journalists FBI Director Robert Mueller called the NY Times and the Washington Post to express regret for a breach of reporters' phone records.
- Google Comes Clean On Targeted AdvertisingThe Internet giant confessed to using DoubleClick cookies to deliver targeted advertising to users.
When the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Principle Doesn't Apply - Via EFF.org Updates:
When I was a kid, it seemed that every third commercial I saw was for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. In these commercials, a chocoholic would collide with a peanut butter lover, quickly followed by the memorable exchange of "you got peanut butter in my chocolate" and "you got chocolate in my peanut butter." But then something amazing happened. Each of them sampled the combined treats, and their faces lit up with delight as they unexpectedly discovered "two great tastes that taste great together."
The converse is also true: When you combine previously known concepts and the result is utterly mundane, that's not a new invention. Moving peanut butter from glass jars to plastic tubs, for instance; it may be a new combination (peanut butter and plastic, hooray!) but it’s not a novel end product. A year ago, in the case KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., the Supreme Court reminded everyone of just this fact. As the Court explained, "The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious [and thus unpatentable] when it does no more than yield predictable results." At the time, a lot of people wondered whether this spelled the end for many lame patents that did little more than claim well-known business models recast as novel inventions by requiring that they be done on the Internet.
Less than two weeks after the KSR decision, the Federal Circuit picked up on the Supreme Court's hint in Leapfrog Enterprises, Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc. [PDF], invalidating as obvious a patent that simply applied modern electronics to old fashioned devices. read more »
Rick Falkvinge - Copyright Regime vs. Civil Liberties - Via IT Conversations:
Rick Falkvinge is a Swedish politician who recently founded a new party. Its values include freedom, upholding laws, and rights to privacy. These may sound like safe and just laws - things that are constant and don't need defending; so what's jeopardizing them? According to Falkvinge, that would be copyrights and patents.
(Read Original Article - Via IT Conversations.)
ACLU Introduces First Amendment Argument In Key Patent Law Case - Via American Civil Liberties Union:
Patenting Abstract Ideas Violates The Constitution, Group Says
WASHINGTON - Introducing a rare argument applying the First Amendment to patent law, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend of the court brief today urging a federal court to uphold the denial of a patent that would, if awarded, violate freedom of speech. In the brief, the ACLU argues that Bernard L. Bilski is seeking a patent for an abstract idea, and that abstract ideas are not patentable under the First Amendment. read more »
Reexamination Improves Patent Quality: A Look at the Latest USPTO Filing Data - Via EFF: Deep Links:
Coauthored by Policy Intern Raeanne Young
The latest statistics [PDF] from the Patent and Trademark Office prove what EFF has been saying for years: third party challenges to patent validity provide an invaluable check on improper and overbroad patents. According to these records, in the 25 years since ex parte reexamination became possible, the PTO has granted the vast majority of reexamination requests. In other words, the PTO found that the third party challenge raised substantial new questions of patentability. Thus, rather than overburdening the examiners, reexamination requests are helping the PTO separate the wheat from the chaff, fix mistakes and meet its stated goal: to promote innovation. read more »
Canon Files For DSLR Iris Registration Patent - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:
An anonymous reader writes "Canon has filed for a patent for using iris watermarking (as in the iris of your eye) to take photographer's copyright protection to the next level. You set up the camera to capture an image of your eye through the viewfinder. Once captured, this biological reference is embedded as metadata into every photo you take. Canon claims this will help with copyright infringement of photos online."
TiVO Patent Upheld, Dish May Have to Disable DVR - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a ruling by a lower court that Dish Network DVRs infringe upon TiVO's patent on a 'multimedia time warping system'. According to some analysts, this could not only make Dish liable for damages, it could force them to shut down their DVR service, harming their customers. read more »
Slashdot | EFF Busts Bogus Online Testing Patent - Via Slashdot YRO :
Panaqqa writes "It's taken some time, but the EFF's Patent Busting Project is making progress. In the latest news, the USPTO has now officially rejected one of the 10 awful patents targeted, making the world safe again for administering tests over the Internet. read more »
You Bought It, You Own It: Quanta v. LG Electronics: "
Earlier this week, EFF filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Quanta v. LG Electronics, a case that asks whether patent owners can impose restrictions on what you can do with a product after you buy it. The brief, filed on behalf of EFF, Consumers Union, and Public Knowledge, makes a simple point: when a consumer buys a patented product from an authorized seller, the patent owner is not entitled to use patent law to restrict the purchaser's subsequent ability to use, repair, or resell the product.
In other words, you bought it, you own it. read more »
EFF Supports Consumer Right To Repair, Resell Patented Goods: "
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to protect consumers' traditional right to use, repair, and resell the products they own, even if those products are patented. At stake is the enforceability of 'single use' and 'not for resale' labels on patented products. read more »
- Podcast: EFF's Cindy Cohn on Telecom ImmunitySalon blogger Glenn Greenwald's interview with EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn.
- U.S. Voters Oppose Warrantless Wiretapping
read more »
EFF Challenges Bogus Patent on Internet Subdomains: "
Illegitimate Patent Used to Threaten Website Hosting Companies
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is challenging a bogus patent on Internet subdomains that has been used to threaten small businesses and innovators.
Ideaflood, a self-proclaimed 'intellectual property holding company,' used this illegitimate patent to demand payment from website hosting companies that offer virtual, personalized subdomains -- like 'action.eff.org' for the parent domain 'eff.org.' But in a reexamination request filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) today, EFF and Rick Mc Leod of Klarquist Sparkman, LLP show that the method Ideaflood claims to have invented was well known before the patent was issued. In fact, website developers were having public discussions about how to create these virtual subdomains on an Apache developer mailing list for more than a year before Ideaflood made its patent claim. read more »
Pay-For-Visit Advertising: "theodp writes 'US patent office documents released Thursday show that a startup named Pelago is seeking a patent covering Pay-For-Visit Advertising, which uses GPS, Bluetooth, or RFID on your mobile devices to track your travels to see if you wander into a place of business that appeared in an ad shown earlier on your cellphone, PDA, or laptop. read more »
DRM for Chargers: Possibly Good for Users: "
Apple has filed a patent application on a technology for tethering rechargeable devices (like iPods) to particular chargers. The idea is that the device will only allow its batteries to be recharged if it is connected to an authorized charger.
Whether this is good for consumers depends on how a device comes to be authorized. If ‘authorized’ just means ‘sold or licensed by Apple’ then consumers won’t benefit — the only effect will be to give Apple control of the aftermarket for replacement chargers.
But if the iPod’s owner decides which chargers are authorized, then this might be a useful anti-theft measure — there’s little point in stealing an iPod if you won’t be able to recharge it. read more »
Patent Reform Bill Approved by House Committee: "Alex Forster pointed us to this PC World story that opens, 'The House Committee on the Judiciary approved far-reaching legislation to reform the nation's patent system Wednesday. The Patent Reform Act of 2007 largely reflects the IT sector's lobbying effort to curtail lengthy, expensive patent infringement lawsuits, but Wednesday's committee deliberations centered on finding compromises acceptable to opponents — namely the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, manufacturers, and large research universities — so that the bill could win approval. read more »
Microsoft Patents May Hint At The Future Of Windows -- Microsoft Patents -- InformationWeek: "One patent application details advertising software that uses applications and data on a computer to provide context for and trigger advertising.
[...]
The first patent application, filed on July 5, details advertising software that uses applications and data on a computer, rather than the Web, to provide context for and trigger advertising. read more »
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Google
Yahoo
Technorati