{"id":127030,"date":"2014-07-01T00:18:27","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T00:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=127030"},"modified":"2014-07-01T00:18:27","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T00:18:27","slug":"supreme-court-sends-stupid-software-patent-back-federal-circuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/sicence-technology\/supreme-court-sends-stupid-software-patent-back-federal-circuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Sends Stupid Software Patent Back To Federal Circuit, Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is\u00a0adding \u201cdo it on the Internet\u201d enough to make an abstract idea patentable? That\u2019s the question for the Federal Circuit when it considers,\u00a0for the third time<\/i>,\u00a0Ultramercial\u2019s idiotic patent<\/a>\u00a0on showing an online advertisement before a \u201cmedia product.\u201d The\u00a0Ultramercial\u00a0<\/i>case is the first big test for the Supreme Court\u2019s landmark\u00a0ruling<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Alice v. CLS Bank.\u00a0<\/i>If the patent stands, the Federal Circuit will be insisting on business as usual. If it falls, many other abstract software and Internet patents should soon fall with it.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Ultramercial<\/i>\u00a0case has been bouncing around the federal courts for years. In 2010, a trial court\u00a0held the patent invalid<\/a>\u00a0on the grounds it claimed an abstract idea. On appeal, the Federal Circuit\u00a0reversed<\/a>, finding the patent non-abstract because it \u201cclearly require[s] specific application to the Internet and a cyber-market environment.\u201d The Supreme Court then\u00a0sent the case back<\/a>\u00a0to the Federal Circuit for reconsideration. In a remarkable decision by\u00a0former Chief Judge Randall Rader<\/a>, the lower court\u00a0thumbed its nose<\/a>\u00a0at Supreme Court authority and upheld the patent for a second time. The defendants returned to the Supreme Court. EFF filed anamicus brief<\/a>\u00a0urging the Court to take the case and find the patent abstract.<\/p>\n

While the second\u00a0Ultramercial<\/i>\u00a0petition was pending, the Supreme Court decided\u00a0Alice v CLS Bank<\/i><\/a>, holding that adding \u201cdo it on a computer\u201d does not make an otherwise abstract idea patentable. Today, rather than issue a ruling on the merits in\u00a0Ultramercial<\/i>, the Supreme Court issued what’s known as a “GVR order<\/a>,” sending the case back to the Federal Circuit (again) for reconsideration in light of its\u00a0Alice\u00a0<\/i>ruling.<\/p>\n

In a sane world,\u00a0Ultramercial\u00a0<\/i>would be an easy case. Tying an abstract idea to the Internet (or even a \u201ccyber-market environment\u201d) should not render it patentable. Also, courts must not be conned by the\u00a0faux-complexity<\/a>\u00a0of the claims. The Supreme Court cautioned in\u00a0Alice<\/i>\u00a0that patent eligibility should not \u201cdepend simply on the draftsman\u2019s art.\u201d The techno-babble in Ultramercial\u2019s patent, and the Federal Circuit\u2019s credulous treatment of it, is a good example of exactly the opposite.<\/i><\/p>\n

Patents like this one, which are the favorite weapon of patent trolls, should never have been granted in the first place. But since the USPTO has already\u00a0flooded the system<\/a>\u00a0with thousands of similarly vague and abstract patents, we need courts to strike them down before they do any more damage. And we need judges to rule early in litigation (like\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>) so that defendants\u2013especially\u00a0small businesses and startups<\/a>\u2013don\u2019t have to spend millions to defeat a bad patent.<\/p>\n

Back in 2010, after the original trial court decision, Mike Masnick of\u00a0Techdirt<\/i>\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0that theUltramercial<\/i>\u00a0case would be \u201cworth watching.\u201d Since then, the patent has become a poster child for stupid software patents. Nearly four years later, we\u2019re still watching to see if the courts will protect innovators from a patent that should never have issued.<\/p>\n

This piece<\/a> was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is\u00a0adding \u201cdo it on the Internet\u201d enough to make an abstract idea patentable? That\u2019s the question for the Federal Circuit when it considers,\u00a0for the third time,\u00a0Ultramercial\u2019s idiotic patent\u00a0on showing an online advertisement before a \u201cmedia product.\u201d The\u00a0Ultramercial\u00a0case is the first big test for the Supreme Court\u2019s landmark\u00a0ruling\u00a0in\u00a0Alice v. CLS Bank.\u00a0If the patent stands, the Federal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-127030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-sicence-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}