1. Software Patents: What You Can Do
Deb Nicholson
Community Outreach Director
Open Invention Network
FSCONS 2012

2. Open Invention Network
● Promote mutual non-aggression for
FLOSS projects
● Block bad software patents using
prior art
● Give free advice to Linux projects

3. Free software is the future.

4. Patent trolls are a scourge
● Getting sued costs money
● The time could always be better spent
(unless you're the $400/hour lawyer)
● Humanity's time could be better spent
● Frivolous lawsuits deter innovation

5. How do you know if you're infringing?

7. “User interface with multiple workspaces
for sharing display system objects.”

8. How did we get here?
● 1952 Amendment to the Patent Act
* processes are patentable
● 1972 Gottschalk vs. Benson
* math is not patentable
● 1978 Parker v. Flook
* math is patentable if it's non-obvious

9. How did we get here?
● 1981 Diamond vs. Diehr
* a physical process controlled by a program is
patentable
● 1982 Federal Circuit Court
* patent lawyers approve patents for everything
● 1994 Alappat
* installation of software == new patentable
machine
● 1998 State Street
* useful, concrete and tangible? Struck down.

10. 2010 Bilski vs. Kappos
"If a high enough bar is not set when
considering patent applications of this sort,
patent examiners and courts could be flooded
with claims that would put a chill on creative
endeavor and dynamic change."
- from Judge Stevens

11. 2012 Prometheus
The good guys win for once!

13. Things
those
companies
make
(money is not to scale)

14. 14 of these companies raked in a
combined $7.6 billion over 10 years
That figure represents only 9% of what the
companies who were sued actually lost.
Defendants lost an estimated $87.6 billion
Source: Bessen, Meurer and Ford, “The Private and Social Costs of Patent
Trolls”, September 2010

15. A headache even if
you don't get sued.

16. Defensive publications – block
future bad patents
Peer-to-patent –provide prior
art for the USPTO before bad
patents are issued
Post-issue – help invalidate
existing bad patents
http://linuxdefenders.org

17. A pool of our own!

18. deb@openinventionnetwork.com
CC-BY CC-BY-SA
Pool girl by Anne Catherine Nyberg Rubber Band Ball by Danielle Scott
Graph paper by Calsidy Rose Money by Nick Ares
Headache by Samantha Celera Penguins by Amber Kennedy
Dog in pool by Georgi Keith http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Public Domain - Golden Gate Bridge by Philipo