Home Messages Index
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index

[News] Software Patents on the Cliff Again, Knuth Wants Them Abolished

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Justice Sotomayor's Potential Cyberlaw Influence? Not Much 

,----[ Quote ]
| Bilski was up for discussion yesterday at the Supreme Court's private 
| cert-consideration conference, so we could know as early as Monday if Judge 
| Sotomayor will have that one facing her in the fall. I have no idea what 
| Judge Sotomayor's views are on the patentability of software-implemented 
| business method patents, and I don't think anyone else does either.    
`----

http://pblog.bna.com/techlaw/2009/05/justice-sotomayors-potential-cyberlaw-influence-not-much-.html

The pro-Microsoft Richard Waters:

Supreme Court to revisit patent system

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/68ed7306-4f01-11de-8c10-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=70662e7c-3027-11da-ba9f-00000e2511c8,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F68ed7306-4f01-11de-8c10-00144feabdc0%2Cdwp_uuid%3D70662e7c-3027-11da-ba9f-00000e2511c8.html&_i_referer=

Method Men? Handicapping Bilski at the Supreme Court

,----[ Quote ]
|       CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: I may not be a software developer, but as I read the 
|       invention, it's displaying pictures of your wares on a computer network and, 
|       you know, picking which ones you want and buying them. I -- I might have 
|       been able to do that.   
| 
| [....]
| 
| In the patent bar and at the Federal Circuit, software patents are the law of 
| the land. But during oral arguments in the 2007 AT&T v. Microsoft case, which 
| regarded damages for infringing copies of software distributed overseas, it 
| became clear that the at least a few Supreme Court justices haven't made up 
| their minds about whether software should be patentable.    
| 
| During oral arguments in that case, Justice Breyer went out of his way to 
| make it clear that despite the fact that software patents were issued widely 
| following the Federal Circuit's 1998 State Street Bank decision, he had never 
| gotten the opportunity to weigh in, and as far as he was concerned, it's not 
| a settled issue:    
| 
|       JUSTICE BREYER: “I take it that we are operating on an assumption that 
|       software is patentable? We have never held that in this Court, have we?” 
| 
| Later, Justice Stevens also asked a government lawyer point-blank whether 
| software is patentable. The answer: "Standing alone in and of itself, no." 
| 
| He likely said that because as it stands, software has to be tied to a 
| machine to get a patent—not hard to do. But it shows that for Stevens, like 
| Breyer, software patents are up for debate.   
`----

http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2009/06/handicapping-bilski-at-the-supreme-court.html

Donald Knuth: Mathematical Ideas, or Algorithms, Should Not Be Patented

,----[ Quote ]
| Donald Knuth, distinguished computer scientist, recipient of the Turing 
| Award, creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, and author of The Art 
| of Programming, which some call the Bible of computer programming, has 
| submitted a letter [PDF] to the European Patent Office for submission to the 
| EPO's Enlarged Board of Appeal considering the question of software patents 
| and whether they should be allowed in Europe.     
`----

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090603224807259

Knuth: Every Algorithm is Sacred

http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/06/every-algorithm-is-sacred.html


Recent:

Amicus letter of Donald E. Knuth

,----[ Quote ]
| Prof. em Donald E. Knuth, the algorithm pope, sent an Amicus Curiae letter to
| the European Patent Office in the case G03/08 and expressed his desire
| to “innovate in peace”...
`----

http://arebentisch.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/amicus-letter-of-donald-e-knuth/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAkooTgQACgkQU4xAY3RXLo6HeACeMAPGPNYKG1llPryWtJB1aJyL
tiAAn2R5oGtNt3Y9Y+YLLailPUzZJXyJ
=It5d
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index