Red Hat Asks Supreme Court to Ban Practice of Patenting Software
Red Hat Asks Supreme Court to Ban Practice of Patenting Software
Posted 10/05/2009 at 5:41am
| by Paul Lilly
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Red Hat, the self proclaimed world's leading open source technology solutions provider, has a bone to pick with not just patent trolls, but shady software patents in general. As such, Red Hat has filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking to ban software patents.
"Red Hat continues its commitment to the free and open source software community by taking a strong position against bad software patents," Red Hat VP Rob Tiller said. "Our patent system is supposed to foster innovation but, for open source and software in general, it does the opposite."
Tiller went on to complain that software patents end up slowing and discouraging software innovation, arguing that "patent trolls" have exploited the current legal system by constructing lawsuits that further confuse the hundreds of thousands of patents that "cover abstract technology in vague and difficult-to-interpret terms."
Red Hat says oral arguments are scheduled for November 9, giving you plenty of time to read the full brief here (PDF).
Image Credit: Flickr Joe Gratz
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oider34
October 12, 2010 at 11:58pm
I don't think this is something that should be banned. Patenting system is great thing to make sure the world know about your efforts
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oider34
October 12, 2010 at 11:58pm
I don't think this is something that should be banned. Patenting system is great thing to make sure the world know about your efforts
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fullur
October 05, 2009 at 7:07pm
I am not saying that software patents should be upheld as a matter law. However, they currently are and the way to change that has nothing to do with the court system. This is an issue to be decided by congress (and not necessarily the federal congress). There are enough "spread the wealth around" types on "the hill" right now that if this was pitched as an entitlement program it could be pushed through in a week or so. Involving the supreme court who's role has nothing to do with deciding what a law should or should not say is no the right way to go about this.
Corfy
October 05, 2009 at 12:33pm
I got an email the other day about the FSF (Free Software Foundation) filing something with the Supreme Court in this same case, an I have seen a couple of references on the web here and there. Is their filing separate from Red Hat's, in conjunction with Red Hat's, the same as Red Hat's, or something else? No story I read about the FSF filing mentions Red Hat, and no story I have read about the Red Hat filing mentions the FSF, and not being a lawyer myself, I was kinda curious what the situation was.
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Trooper_One
October 05, 2009 at 11:15am
Kudos to Red Hat for having the balls to bring this out!
They elegantly summarized it: Patents were supposed to protect and foster innovations, yet it's done the exact opposite because of Patent Trolls taking advantage of the system.
I hope the Supreme Court sees it - the US Patent System is seriously broken and requires a major renovation. Trolls suing over ambiguous patents can break a company with legal delays and bankrupt a company who acatually invested a lot of money in research and development and producing REAL technology.
It would also help to change the system from 'each party pays their own lawyer' to 'loser pays' system.
1337Goose
October 05, 2009 at 5:47pm
Careful. I agreed with your post but I think we need to be careful about what we suggest.
A very wise mentor of mine told me that sometimes we have ideas that sound good on paper, then we present them to people who misinterpret them. Eventually our ideas no longer belong to us because someone else runs away with them and makes them into something completely different.
What am I saying here? I bet the guy who presented DRM wanted it to be a surefire way to protect the intellectual property of content creators. He presented his ideas to a bunch of executives and they ran off with it.
In short, if the legal system wasn't so full of loopholes and ambiguity, we could probably come up with a way to protect legitimate IP while still banning the patent trolls. However, I fear that the situation isn't that cut and dry...
Would you want to create something new and innovative if Microsoft could copy your creation and push it out to consumers faster than you?
[EDIT] By the way, this comment isn't to put you down, or call your ideas invalid. It pretty much applies to this entire thread. I just thought it'd be a good idea to tell the flipside. =)
~Goose
nekollx
October 05, 2009 at 11:55am
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