League for Programming Freedom

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News

• 2008-02-15: Patentability Of Business Model And Software Patents Comes Under Court Scrutiny (techdirt.com): "[the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit] has agreed to a full court hearing to examine the scope of what can be patented. [...] Going back on the earlier State Street ruling could effectively knock out many business model patents and software patents"
• 2008-01-29: Software patent case defendant seeks support of FOSS community (Linux.com): "Barracuda Networks is actively seeking the support of the free and open source software (FOSS) community in its battle against a patent suit brought against it by Trend Micro. The suit revolves around Barracuda's distribution of Clam Antivirus (ClamAV), the well-known FOSS security software, with its firewall and Web filter hardware appliances."
• 2008-01-23: FTC & Negotiated Data Solutions (GTW Associates): "The Federal Trade Commission on January 23, 2008 announced a complaint and settlement with Negotiated Data Solutions LLC (N-Data), which allegedly violated federal law by engaging in unfair methods of competition and unfair acts or practices regarding its enforcement of certain patents against makers of equipment employing Ethernet, a computer networking standard used in nearly every computer sold in the U.S. The FTC contended that N-data refused to meet a commitment made by a former owner of the patent to license the patent covering the 'Ethernet' Standard Used in Virtually All Personal Computers in U.S."
• 2007-10-16: Amazon One-Click Patent Rejected by US Patent Office (IGDMLGD): "In a recent office action, the USPTO has rejected the claims of the Amazon.com one-click patent following the re-examination request that I filed on 16 February 2006. My review resulted in the broadest claims of the patent being ruled invalid."
• 2007-10-05: Court Puts Further Limits on Software Patents (Slashdot / The Wall Street Journal): "The court found that 'The routine addition of modern electronics to an otherwise unpatentable invention' isn't enough to get over the 'non-obvious' hurdle that every patent is supposed to clear. This is a huge step in the right direction and one of the first admissions from the court system that perhaps software and business model patents have gone too far."