This line of thought echoes the logic of Thurman Arnold while he was for awhile a judge on the DC Court of Appeals. But Arnold used the idea that a patent must reflect the "flash of genius" doctrine to uphold the Commissioner of Patents at the time. The Patent Commissioner had rejected patent applications of Bell Labs technically on the grounds that it reflected prior art but on a sort of policy basis that patents that were generated by "patent factories" like the corporate Bell Labs were inherently suspect in meeting the "flash of genius" requirement. I have little doubt that this opinion was somehow related to the Dept. of Justice decision that year to file an antitrust suit against AT&T to require divestiture of Bell Labs for "monopolization" using this manufacture of patents theory.
Anyway, Lemley is looking at problems with the patent law that doesn't require legal theory to fix. Just as with the terrible US Supreme Court decision a few years ago that refused to invalidate the Copyright Law extensions to Mickey Mouse a few years, there was a very valid constitutional and policy basis to invalidate these extensions as law. A majority of the Court, which is politicized of course, wouldn't bite.
Thanks for the glimpse into the fail mechanism in this evil and corrupt organization. I look forward to the day when the corpse of News,Inc. is handed over to his heirs and they try to preserve or change his maggoty legacy.
I haven't read the link but I suspect some IP lawyers are just having a bit of fun. IP truly is a strange area of law. Calling ideas of one kind or another "property", particularly "intellectual property", strikes me as ridiculous and ironic because it's so brain dead and lame, ideawise and intellectually.
I agree with the lawyers who are representing myTrigger that Google might have been in violation of the antitrust laws. Google might be trying to rely on a precedent in the patent law where the US Supreme Court in the last 15 years has basically gutted a similar defense in a patent misuse action. What Google may not understand is that deision where the Supremes overruled an antitrust "misuse of patent monopoly" defense was based on the express language of an amendment to the Patent Act that precluded antitrust claims from being raised as a defense to a patent misuse action.
The problem for Google might be that the same provision was never added to the copyright laws. Google, Microsoft and for that matter the entire industry rely on protections under the copyright laws (for the most part)rather than the patent laws (because the Supreme Court some years ago held algorithms could not be patented) so upholding this defense could be very big.
BestNetTech has not posted any stories submitted by jonerik.
Patent myths
This line of thought echoes the logic of Thurman Arnold while he was for awhile a judge on the DC Court of Appeals. But Arnold used the idea that a patent must reflect the "flash of genius" doctrine to uphold the Commissioner of Patents at the time. The Patent Commissioner had rejected patent applications of Bell Labs technically on the grounds that it reflected prior art but on a sort of policy basis that patents that were generated by "patent factories" like the corporate Bell Labs were inherently suspect in meeting the "flash of genius" requirement. I have little doubt that this opinion was somehow related to the Dept. of Justice decision that year to file an antitrust suit against AT&T to require divestiture of Bell Labs for "monopolization" using this manufacture of patents theory.
Anyway, Lemley is looking at problems with the patent law that doesn't require legal theory to fix. Just as with the terrible US Supreme Court decision a few years ago that refused to invalidate the Copyright Law extensions to Mickey Mouse a few years, there was a very valid constitutional and policy basis to invalidate these extensions as law. A majority of the Court, which is politicized of course, wouldn't bite.
Murdoch
Thanks for the glimpse into the fail mechanism in this evil and corrupt organization. I look forward to the day when the corpse of News,Inc. is handed over to his heirs and they try to preserve or change his maggoty legacy.
Superhero powers
I haven't read the link but I suspect some IP lawyers are just having a bit of fun. IP truly is a strange area of law. Calling ideas of one kind or another "property", particularly "intellectual property", strikes me as ridiculous and ironic because it's so brain dead and lame, ideawise and intellectually.
antitrust
I agree with the lawyers who are representing myTrigger that Google might have been in violation of the antitrust laws. Google might be trying to rely on a precedent in the patent law where the US Supreme Court in the last 15 years has basically gutted a similar defense in a patent misuse action. What Google may not understand is that deision where the Supremes overruled an antitrust "misuse of patent monopoly" defense was based on the express language of an amendment to the Patent Act that precluded antitrust claims from being raised as a defense to a patent misuse action.
The problem for Google might be that the same provision was never added to the copyright laws. Google, Microsoft and for that matter the entire industry rely on protections under the copyright laws (for the most part)rather than the patent laws (because the Supreme Court some years ago held algorithms could not be patented) so upholding this defense could be very big.