Submission + - Two Big Patent Rulings from the Supreme Court
BrianWCarver writes: "The Supreme Court of the United States has just handed down two important patent rulings that could be especially relevant for software and technology companies. In a ruling that alters the analysis of when a patent is obvious the Supreme Court found that lower courts had too rigidly interpreted the requirements for finding a patent obvious, allowing some bad patents to slip through. (Read full opinion.) In a separate opinion the Court addressed part of the U.S. patent law that prevents companies from getting around a patent by shipping the components of the patented invention from the U.S. to a foreign country for assembly and sale. The Court found that supplying software to a foreign country for sale therein did not constitute a "component" of a patented invention and hence was not prohibited. This was a victory for Microsoft who had been accused of violating an AT&T patent simply on the basis of shipping Windows to foreign countries. Regardless of one's usual feelings about the world's largest software company, enforcing limits on the extra-territorial application of U.S. patent law, especially in the software context, is generally a good thing for innovation. If the first ruling results in more software patent applications being deemed "obvious" then that could be even better."