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Let's conclude our series of articles on In Re Bilski by looking at what the ruling may mean for Microsoft's threats against Linux. We can start by figuring out what kinds of patents Microsoft might think it owns.
Continuing our series on the In Re Bilski ruling [PDF], here is Judge Mayer's dissenting opinion as text, the one that points out how utterly damaging all business methods patents are. Also, a reader sent me this link to what I agree is the best overview of the ruling that we've seen yet, by the law firm of Ladas & Parry.
"End Software Patents (ESP) has filed an amicus curiae brief in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's (CAFC) rehearing of the In re Bilski case. The rehearing could lead to the elimination of patents on software.
Bilski gave us a wonderful opportunity to increase awareness to the harm caused by software patents. More scholars, more developers, more journalists, more politicians, and more patent attorneys than ever before have heard from our community on this issue. What's next?
Look at this, will you? The first decision from the Board of Patents Appeals and Interferences post-Bilski to reference that US Supreme Court decision, in In Re Proudler [PDF], a ruling rejecting HP's application for a software patent, setting forth a rule stating, as I read it, as saying software is not patentable because it's an abstraction...
This interview is part of a series following the Supreme Court's Bilski decision, which left the laws on what you can get a patent on largely as they are, after a four-justice minority failed to ban "business method" patents.
