“Abstract ideas, laws of nature, and mathematical formulas can’t be patented under US law, and both Google and Verizon want the US Supreme Court to better define the bounds of that legal tenet as it applies to Internet technologies. Google and Verizon recently filed a joint amicus curiae brief in the case of WildTangent v. Ultramercial, asking America’s highest court to formally clarify that an unpatentable abstract idea, such as a method of advertising, can’t magically become patentable subject matter by simply implementing it over the Internet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has also filed an amicus brief in the case similarly asking the court to assign understandable boundaries to patentable subject matter.” This should be fun.
Courts hate clarifying something when glossing over it will work.
Also, if everything would be clear, the courts would have much less work to do.
Courts don’t mind that. But lawyers do.
The only way to stop patent trolls is to sneak patents on patent trolling at the USPTO.
It won’t necessarily work, but at worst you may still get some easy money anytime someone patents GUI concepts or smileys
Edited 2012-04-17 07:12 UTC
Can you patent such an ancient idea as racket?-) That what patent trolling boils down to. So they’d reject it because of the prior art
Well, judges don’t care about prior art when it’s about scrolling in a GUI, why would they care when it’s about racket ?