Re: The Oracle/Google lawsuits, and how it affects choice of language
On 08/24/2010 06:40 AM, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:
Simon Brooke<stillyet+nntp@googlemail.com> writes:
Not if they can get a judge to decide that it violates their patents, and
that all copies of it must be destroyed in consequence, which is what
Is that possible?
I'm not sure about the validity of software patents everywhere in the
world.
In the U.S., the patentability of software is a somewhat open question.
The only relevant Supreme Court cases are Diamond v. Diehr (which says
that software per se is not patentable, but its presence does not render
a patent unpatentable) and Bilski v. Kappos (which says that the State
St. decision is a load of bullshit, the machine-or-transformation test
is on crack, software patentability is left explicitly unexplored in the
decision). A lot of software patents rested on the State St. decision
(which says that anything that "produces a useful, concrete, or tangible
result" is patentable)--which the SCOTUS struck down in Bilski.
I'm not a patent lawyer, but my understanding is that the boilerplate in
most current software patents is now invalid (resting on an untenable
decision). I think, however, that it is possible to amend the patents to
change that boilerplate or something, so current software patents are
not, in effect, blanket-invalidated by any of the recent decisions.
I am not aware of the binding case law in the EU or other jurisdictions.
I do know that the EU in theory prohibits software patents, although the
actual practical application of patent law does appear to admit software
patents.
Given all of the patent treaties and general legal atmosphere, I suspect
that if a software patent were actually successfully used against a
company in a major jurisdiction, the company would be required to
destroy the infringing code.
But, in the end, IANAL.
--
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth