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One more judge gets it | 195 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
One more judge gets it
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Saturday, June 01 2013 @ 10:29 PM EDT
Nice. Perhaps IBM was hasty to settle.


---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

One more judge gets it
Authored by: Gringo_ on Saturday, June 01 2013 @ 11:09 PM EDT

Whyte ruled that Acacia's patent, which relates to a process of compressing digital data, is an abstract idea. Abstract ideas are categorically excluded from patent-eligibility under Section 101 of the Patent Act, along with "laws of nature" and "physical phenomena."

Wonderful news you bring us. A few more of these and it's game over!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

One more judge gets it
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 02 2013 @ 02:44 AM EDT

In his view, even Morse code (invented in 1837) would run afoul of Acacia's patented process.
If this is so, then it surely would have been prior art and so prevented the patent in the first place, making it another incorrectly issued patent.

Perhaps the USPTO would do a better job if the examiners were all History graduates.

cm

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

One more judge gets it
Authored by: dio gratia on Sunday, June 02 2013 @ 11:56 AM EDT

I couldn't help but think of i4i v. Microsoft when reading the decision.

The ‘449 Patent claims a “computer system for the manipulation of the architecture and content of a document . . . by producing a first map of metacodes and their addresses of use in association with mapped content.” ‘449 Patent, col. 15:35–49; see also id. at col. 16:18–39 (claiming a “method for producing a first map of metacodes and their addresses of use in association with mapped content”); see also id. at col. 16:50–65 (claiming a “method for producing from a document made up of metacodes and content, a map of metacodes and their addresses of use in association with mapped content of the document”). The computer system comprises a “means for compiling said metacodes of the menu by locating, detecting and addressing the metacodes in the document to constitute the map and storing the map in the metacode storage means.” Id. at col. 15:35–49; see also id. at col. 16:18–39 (claiming method step of “compiling a map of the metacodes in the distinct storage means, by locating, detecting and addressing the metacodes”).
Wherein apparently Microsoft preferred to pay hundreds of millions of dollars rather than make the point that this is something a person could do as a mental process with aide-mémoire, potentially upsetting the entire basis for software patents.

If the idea that mental processes map readily onto execution of algorithms on computers catches on Microsoft may find they made a bad investment toward the future of innovation limiting intellectual property rights. They didn't go after prior art either, in this case for example TROFF's manuscript (ms) macros, the compiled map a table of contents with header macros supplying the metacodes.

How many people reading a document couldn't generate a table of contents using pencil and paper as a memory aide noting page numbers and header precedence?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

One more judge gets it
Authored by: PJ on Sunday, June 02 2013 @ 07:40 PM EDT
Thanks! Nice article. I put it in News Picks.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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