Thursday, October 30, 2008

The great patent thicket has been macheted

Software and business method patents are history, thanks to a decision by the the Court of Appeals to the Federal Circuit, except in those cases which happen to meet the general rule on patents, namely the machine-or-transformation test. Knock on wood. It's likely to be appealed to, but unlikely to be accepted by the Supreme Court. I feel the big mo. This is historic. Now the software economy can see the sky again.

Version 1.1

Update (Nov 1, 2008): It just occurred to me that any software written for a virtual machine is assuredly free now of any patentability.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Copyright - A primer on its history and its silliness

Karl Fogel presents at Google the essence of the abolitionist argument.



Fogel is my clone, my exact clone, on this topic, as presented here.