See the request from the Free Software Foundation:
http://www.fsf.org/news/uspto-bilski-guidance
Here are comments from a recent thread on HN:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1723904
Reminder: Today is the deadline to tell USPTO to end software patents
1–10 of 44 posts
Re: Reminder: Today is the deadline to tell USPTO to end software patents
#2Send your email to: Bilski_Guidance@uspto.gov
The FSF's suggested text is:
Software patents hurt individuals by taking away our ability to control the devices that now exert such strong influence on our personal freedoms, including how we interact with each other. Now that computers are near-ubiquitous, it's easier than ever for an individual to create or modify software to perform the specific tasks they want done -- and more important than ever that they be able to do so. But a single software patent can put up an insurmountable, and unjustifiable, legal hurdle for many would-be developers.
The Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled in favor of the patentability of software. Their decision in Bilski v. Kappos further demonstrates that they expect the boundaries of patent eligibility to be drawn more narrowly than they commonly were at the case's outset. The primary point of the decision is that the machine-or-transformation test should not be the sole test for drawing those boundaries. The USPTO can, and should, exclude software from patent eligibility on other legal grounds: because software consists only of mathematics, which is not patentable, and the combination of such software with a general-purpose computer is obvious.
Re: Reminder: Today is the deadline to tell USPTO to end software patents
#3I would personally like the see the end of software patents, as I feel they are bad for the country, but I don't see that happening. Perhaps we should consider something else, like allowing software patents to continue, but limiting them to a far shorter duration (in recognition to the speed of software development)? Say four or five years?
Re: Reminder: Today is the deadline to tell USPTO to end software patents
#4There are some big companies out there with a lot of their on-the-books valuation existing in the form of software patents. If they suddenly have to mark that stuff down to zero, imagine the crash...
Re: Reminder: Today is the deadline to tell USPTO to end software patents
#5I would personally like the see the end of software patents, as I feel they are bad for the country, but I don't see that happening. Perhaps we should consider something else, like allowing software patents to continue, but limiting them to a far shorter duration (in recognition to the speed of software development)? Say four or five years?
The point of this campaign is that the Supreme Court has recently said, "Software patents go too far."
This is an opportunity to tell the USPTO that software patents are not sensible, as they are currently being granted. It is not about "ending software patents" per se, but making them harder to obtain...and now is the best possible time to say something about it, because the supreme court has said, "Yeah, this whole software patent thing probably doesn't exactly make sense."
Re: Reminder: Today is the deadline to tell USPTO to end software patents
#6There are some big companies out there with a lot of their on-the-books valuation existing in the form of software patents. If they suddenly have to mark that stuff down to zero, imagine the crash...
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Re: Reminder: Today is the deadline to tell USPTO to end software patents
#7There are some big companies out there with a lot of their on-the-books valuation existing in the form of software patents. If they suddenly have to mark that stuff down to zero, imagine the crash...
I assume they would have to continue enforcing patents for some years to come, but stop granting new ones.
Re: Reminder: Today is the deadline to tell USPTO to end software patents
#8There are some big companies out there with a lot of their on-the-books valuation existing in the form of software patents. If they suddenly have to mark that stuff down to zero, imagine the crash...
Only patent trolls would crash, which is almost entirely private equity. Let them crash. In fact, I'd argue that it would be a great good for the market in general to knock the wind out of the parasites who live off of software patent trolling.
Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, etc. companies that make money from legitimate sources would be barely effected at all (and many tech companies who have huge patent portfolios have spoken in favor of ending software patents or making them less broad). And, startups could breathe a sigh of relief and stop worrying about being the subject of extortion the day they turn a big enough profit to be a target of patent trolls.
Besides, this is about how the USPTO grants software patents. It's not about revoking them or abolishing existing patents, though lawsuits to break some of the more pernicious ones probably would follow.
Re: Reminder: Today is the deadline to tell USPTO to end software patents
#9There are some big companies out there with a lot of their on-the-books valuation existing in the form of software patents. If they suddenly have to mark that stuff down to zero, imagine the crash...
There were some folks who owned a lot of slaves back in the day, too. Not a good argument, by itself, sorry.
Re: Reminder: Today is the deadline to tell USPTO to end software patents
#10There are some big companies out there with a lot of their on-the-books valuation existing in the form of software patents. If they suddenly have to mark that stuff down to zero, imagine the crash...
There were some folks who owned a lot of slaves back in the day, too. Not a good argument, by itself, sorry.
not really a fair comparison. Obviously in the case of slavery most people would believe that matters of economic stability play second fiddle to the overarching concerns of Justice and Morality. However, as evil as you may think software patents are, they are not on the same level.
The USPTO should consider economic ramifications of a decision to stop issuing software patents, or to invalidate patents. I'm not saying they should not go ahead and do it, but it would be irresponsible not to consider any potential negative effects.