"The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc. In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bilski, the Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in § 101 of the Patent Act. In the most recent of these three—the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal—the Office takes the position that process inventions generally are unpatentable unless they “result in a physical transformation of an article” or are “tied to a particular machine.”[1] Perhaps, the agency has conceded, some “new, unforeseen technology” might warrant an “exception” to this formalistic test, but in the agency’s view, no such technology has yet emerged so there is no reason currently to use a more inclusive standard." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

The author of this blog clearly thinks that getting rid of software patents would be bad and would somehow hurt Google. However, I believe that the existence of software patents is a much greater risk for Google (and other innovators) than benefit. Google is about a lot more than Pagerank (and competitors already have comparable if not the identical algorithms). Meanwhile, the thousands of patents that they don't own effectively form a giant minefield that could hurt them at any moment (see RIM). - Paul Buchheit

(grabs papers, runs to patent office) - Karim

Like = trying to figure out the issue. Some software probably should be patentable, but the standards are too murky to sort out. Probably the PTO wants to wash its hands of the mess. - Sean McBride

Looks like it's time to go the 'trade secret' route instead of the 'patent' route. It's kind of nice: If it's something that's obvious from the user experience it should be harder to patent, but if it's something that, even when the service is public, can still be hidden, then third parties shouldn't just be able to copy it. One-click shopping shouldn't be protected, but O(1) search algorithms should be. (Wait, what? If there were an O(1) search algorithm it'd change everything! I contradict myself.) - Kevin Fox

I like the "physical transformation" argument. Computer technology has boomed in spite of software patents, not because of them. - Gabe

I admire the ironically pro-competition and social progress roots of patents. I also respect the efforts of many to equitably apply those antiquated laws on the violently innovative realm of software and the Internet. Nevertheless, I will be so happy to see the USPTO concede the futility of these patents and pull the plug. (Though, depending on what kind of plug and how they pull it, they may owe someone royalties.) - Christopher Sacca

Patents are a tax on small bazaar innovation in favor of big cathedral innovation. In some fields maybe that makes sense. But despite all the patents I've filed for, the things that had the biggest impact on the world weren't patentable (and shouldn't have been). Patents fetishize the "inventor" and the "invention" at the cost of actual progress. - Daniel Dulitz

I wonder if this will put those of us who work on "physical transformations" even further behind. Did you know it currently takes and average of about 15 months from the time an order is placed for a wind turbine (example large equipment) until it is operational? This is part of the argument for patents... you can eventually recoup the cost of this large equipment if it works enough better than your competitors during the protected period. - Clare Dibble

I still can't believe that Yahoo/Flickr tried to patent "interestingness" of social media. Does anyone know how I can find out the status of this patent request from 2006? http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi... The patent office's search sucks and I can't find it anywhere there. - Thomas Hawk

With equipment/ material costs rising, will this just make software even more attractive relative to say consumer goods or energy? - Clare Dibble

Many large corporations do not file their really key technologies. They just lock them up. This makes it impossible for market competitors to find out what they are up to. - Paul Denlinger

Chris, with respect to chord progressions, I think you are thinking of "copyright" and not "patent" ;-) - Karim

I am so happy to hear this. I want Blackboard to go out of business. O - Akshay Dodeja

was discussing this with a friend and he posited an interesting question: will this make it even more important to keep the employees who work on developing new technologies happy? - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

See also http://arstechnica.com/article... regarding the studies of innovation & patents in IT vs BioTech fields, and possible reasons - Nick Lothian

I also think the EFF is a great resource for this stuff. Their Patent Busting project is fantastic. http://w2.eff.org/patent/ I was on the wrong end of one of those Acacia patents once and it made me sick to my stomach. - Christopher Sacca

I think this is great news, especially for big companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. Larger companies have more to lose from potshot lawsuits than to gain. Very little of software business success comes from having a patent on a process - it's all about execution, and legal defense prevents those who are producing working software from doing what they do best. - Jon Galloway

Oh please let this mean that the one-click patent can be consigned to the garbage can of history. We demand easier shopping! - Earle Martin

So who would a decision like this be bad for? Besides patent trolls, and maybe patent lawyers... - nadim

i never end up reading the original article that these long response feeds are based on...so even here, the original writer gets no credit for stimulating this conversation. So who's to say people should own anything. The Fugees sampled Enya for "Ready Or Not" and gave her no credit, but I am sure Enya got the idea from somewhere. Again this is cyclical, or tangential rather. But where is the place for barter in this world then? I think the human instinct to barter is always going to trump giving stuff away - Rajesh

A follow-up from GrokLaw: "It's one lawyer's opinion and analysis, one with a stake in the outcome. Would you like to see what another lawyer says about the subject, in contrast?" http://www.groklaw.net/article... - Simon