Red Hat asks US Supreme Court to bar software patents

Red Hat asks US Supreme Court to bar software patents

www.theinquirer.net

OPEN SAUCE software firm Red Hat has called on the US Supreme Court to ban software patents.

The company said in a legal filing (PDF) this week that the practice of registering software patents stifles the industry and leaves developers open to exploitation.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Such a change in the patent theater would rock the world.

There are elements now, concentrated conglomerates of mega-corporations whose exploitation of this industry cannot withstand losing the advantage they have relied upon for decades.

Should software patenting be reformed (as I personally believe it should be) I think we will see many more government bailouts.

We can't really say how seriously the courts will take the challenge; they are a willful lot.

"Red Hat continues its commitment to the free and open-source software community by taking a strong position against bad software patents," said Rob Tiller, vice president and assistant general counsel for intellectual property at Red Hat.

"Our patent system is supposed to foster innovation but, for open source and software in general, it does the opposite. Software patents form a minefield that slows and discourages software innovation. The Bilski case presents a great opportunity for the Supreme Court to rectify this problem."

I wish them luck!



www.theinquirer.net
(visit the link for the full news article)

Good for them. I hope they can push this S&F

Well... it's about time.

Redhat, IBM, Novell and a few others have been embroiled for years by ex-Linux distributor Caldera who bought the rights to SCO Unix, then the name SCO, and sued (unsuccessfully) for bogus "intellectual property" violations.

Somewhere along the lines, Microsoft "people" funneled money to the New-SCO to keep the lawsuit going and tarnish the reputation of Linux via a series of PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity) deals.

If you have a few months and a couple of tons of coffee, you can read up on it at Groklaw.

www.groklaw.net...

Chris Hatch figured centrally in representing New-SCO. Chris Hatch is one of the sons of son of Orrin Hatch (the Senator). You may remember Orrin Hatch...

...proposing that copyright owners should be able to destroy the computer equipment and information of those suspected of copyright infringement, including file sharing. In the face of criticism, especially from technology and privacy advocates, Hatch withdrew his suggestion days later, after it was discovered that Sen. Hatch's official website was using an unlicensed JavaScript menu from United Kingdom based software developer Milonic Solutions

en.wikipedia.org...


Other Lawyers sucking money up in this litigation were the law firm of David Boies, who was around long enough to give New-SCO a modicum of credibility.


Somewhere along the timeline... it turns out that New-SCO, in adopting Old-SCO's postion, became liable to giving Novell the license fees for SCO Unix, since Old-SCO had entered into thar arrangement with Novell many years back.

Needless to say.. it was a big ole stinking pile of a mess.







Edit: I removed a comma.


[edit on 5-10-2009 by RoofMonkey]

They'll never ban it. People make too much money and have too much power over this issue. I for one would love to see the slop that Microsoft uses as code for the operating system, but it will never happen.

reply to post by RoofMonkey


Thanks for sharing that. One of my favorite haunts Grocklaw!

It truly is "about time."

I am skeptical of the USSC giving it a fair shake though.

Let's see how they defeat it... assuming that is the forgone conclusion.

"Open sauce" LOL.
LOL.

Originally posted by 943002
"Open sauce" LOL.
LOL.

Yeah, they are an irreverent lot over at The Inquirer....