Dev.SN

Blackmoore writes:

Joe Mullin at Ars Technica writes that the US Supreme Court is keen to get a legal grip on patent trolling. "The Supreme Court's decision in this case - or indecision - matters. The court is aware of patent trolls, and it seems to genuinely dislike them. The justices also seem aware that Bilski did not do the job, and they want to devise some legal means of executing patents they don't like. The question then becomes "how?"

In theory, the Court could go so far as to simply say software is not patentable. That's a very unlikely outcome, but it can't be ruled out entirely. The tiny possibility of such an outcome has spurred companies that favor software patents - including Microsoft, Adobe, and IBM - to file briefs focused on their importance. (While these companies extol software patents as a general category, no one defends Alice's patents.)

Internet companies, meanwhile, are trying to steer the court's attention to the harm caused by vague software patents. A pointed, 12-page brief filed by LinkedIn, Twitter, Yelp, Newegg, Netflix, Rackspace, and several smaller software companies does not go so far as to call for the abolition of patents on software, but it makes the signors' (sic) distaste for them crystal clear. "Innovation happens despite software patents, not because of them," states that brief, written by Stanford professor and patent litigator Mark Lemley.