Retardations in innovations are rapidly seen these days. Patent arguments continue to command much of the tech world’s attention and corporate resources. Group of prominent companies like Facebook, Zynga, Twitter and five other are taking stand against this practice by filing an amicus brief in the U.S. State Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on last Friday, asking the court to reject the patents central to a lawsuit between two financial institutions.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday asked the court to reject the patents central to a lawsuit between two financial institutions. CLS Bank sued Alice Corp for infringing on four patents covering a computerized method of having a third-party hold funds in escrow on behalf of two other contracting parties. However, the courts initially ruled that Alice’s patents were eligible and could be used to counter-sue CLS for infringement.
The 37-page brief (see below), also is signed by Dell, Intuit, Homeaway, Rackspace, and Red Hat. The brief also argues that combining phrases such as “on a computer” or “over the Internet” with an abstract idea doesn’t deserve a patent. The brief said the issue was crucially important in concern with high-tech companies and patents to such abstract ideas stump real innovations.
Nowadays copying is redefined as inspiration and the word inspiration has gone for a toss. The court has to reject such abstract patents for vague concepts instead of specific applications because they rack up costs and retard innovation. It feels good that these companies took away sometime to fight against these issues. Major reformations and excessive protection on patents has to be done, especially on sectors of IT and pharmaceuticals. Due to these adoption of vague ideas consumers are getting misused and guided towards duplicate brands. A steep licensing fee has to be forced on such activities.
While this is just pointing out the obvious fact that all abstract patents are harmful to society and the economy. Eventually, a majority will realize that this example can be extrapolated all the way up to the basic idea that, giving government granted monopolies on any idea is harmful when taken to logical conclusion.
