Putting the cat among the pigeons

[unixronin]

The [US] 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.

The shouting's evidently far from over on this, but it's going to shake up a lot of things, and spell the deathknell for a lot of patents that should arguably never have been granted in the first place.  Hopefully it will also extend to some of the more stupid "business methods" patents.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That too. I've always thought the whole idea of being able to patent already-existing genes that you stumbled across by chance was completely stupid anyway — let alone just patenting swathes of different organisms' genomes on spec against the possibility that you might someday find a medical application for them.

Now, patenting a specific gene-based treatment that you have developed ... sure, I don't have a problem with that. But you shouldn't get to patent the underlying genes — or even medical use of the underlying genes — just your specific treatment and method. And if someone else subsequently comes up with a different method for treating the same problem based on the same gene, that's fine, they get to patent theirs too. Patenting genomes (or parts thereof) because they might have possible future medical utility is as absurd as patenting Silicon Valley because somebody who lives there might have a valuable idea some day. It's not about innovation or protecting investment, it's gene-squatting.