by methTICALman
SCOTUS makes patent holders happy, upholds $290M Microsoft verdict
[Via Ars Technica]
The United States Supreme Court has ruled against Microsoft in a $290 million patent infringement case related to Microsoft Word. Microsoft had argued that a patent examiner’s decision to grant a patent should be given less deference when a jury is considering evidence that had never been considered by the examiner. The high court unanimously rejected this argument, holding that a century of precedents had specified a high standard of proof for invalidating a patent.
In a New York Times op-ed supporting Microsoft, UCLA law professor Doug Lichtman had argued that changing the standard of proof would “give relief to the countless businesses that today find themselves vulnerable to patents that shouldn’t have been issued in the first place.” A wide variety of companies and public interest groups, including Google, Red Hat, Walmart, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Apache Software Foundation, filed briefs echoing that point. But the Supreme Court decided that whatever the merits of these policy arguments, they couldn’t overrule the text of the patent law and the courts’ long history of employing the higher standard.
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IP laws, particularly in the high tech arena, more often kill innovation than support it. In the old days, patent examiners could make sure that the highest standards were met in giving a patent.
Now, they simply do not have the time or expertise to do it right. So often they simply rubber-stamp and let the courts decide.
But here, the Supreme Court is relying on cases from 50-80 years ago. Things are different today.
For example, one of the key aspects of Microsoft’s case was that the technique patented had been used in software by the very company more than a year before they submitted the patent. Yet, the source code for this early software no longer existed.
Convenient and expert, eye-witness testimony did not convince a jury.
The software industry is full of half-assed patents given for minimal innovation and often for outright obvious ideas. Every day brings another ludicrous suit by a patent troll who never actually reduced to practice their patented idea.
When you have whole companies whose only reason for existence is to sue or otherwise extort money from other companies who can not afford a full blown legal battle, things are out of whack regarding the social contract that are patents.
