When the Supreme Court heard the Bilski case earlier this year, it ruled that the specific business method patent at issue in the case was invalid and contended that the patentability of intangible methods should be reduced but not eliminated. The court declined to provide clarity on the scope of software patentability, however, which leaves a lot of important questions unanswered.

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?

An analysis by End Software Patents of what the Judges' statements at Monday's Bilski hearing say about patenting software ideas.

More intriguing Bilski briefs filed. The door is shut now, so there will be no more, I gather. Both the ABA and Patently O have them all listed, and the latter includes a helpful brief blurb giving an outline of the theme of each. So read them all if you wish.

FSF has now filed an amicus brief in Bilski, and they too ask the Supreme Court "to affirm that software ideas are not patentable":End Software Patents (ESP) executive director Ciaran O'Riordan explained, "Every software patent is a restriction on software developers and users of computers, and there are currently 200,000 software patents in the USA.

Red Hat, the FSF, and the SFLC submit amicus briefs for the Bilski case

Red Hat has filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court. In the brief, Red Hat explains the practical problems of software patents to software developers.

I'm getting a lot of email about Microsoft suing TomTom for alleged patent infringement, first reported by Todd Bishop on TechFlash. I've put lots of links in NewsPicks for you, and here are the two complaints, the regular complaint filed in federal court and the ITC complaint [PDFs]. I'll restrict myself for now to two quick words: Think Bilski