> Parker v. Flook was a clear decision prohibiting software patents
Supreme Court jurisprudence about software patents has never been very clear. In any case, Diamond v. Diehr came out just a few years after Flook and made such a cut-and-dried reading untenable. And then there was the whole Bilski mess of an opinion...
This is what I mean when I say it'd have to come from Congress, and it'd have to be clear. If you want to prohibit software patents, you don't want 80 pages of Supreme Court justices all writing their own opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part. You want a statute no more than, say, a third of a page long, clearly defining what's meant by "software" (and maybe also "business method") and prohibiting patents on it. That would be damn hard to argue about. Supreme Court decisions are notoriously easy to argue about.
> No, you misread. Intentionally, I imagine. I said: how often do you refuse to pursue a patent you're confident will issue, just because you don't believe it is morally worthy? I got my answer, between the lines.
Ah, I did misread. It was not intentional. But the answer you read between the lines was correct--I have never done that. Maybe when I'm the head of a law firm I can make decisions about turning away money because of a moral objection... but for now, that's a little above my pay grade.
Supreme Court jurisprudence about software patents has never been very clear. In any case, Diamond v. Diehr came out just a few years after Flook and made such a cut-and-dried reading untenable. And then there was the whole Bilski mess of an opinion...
This is what I mean when I say it'd have to come from Congress, and it'd have to be clear. If you want to prohibit software patents, you don't want 80 pages of Supreme Court justices all writing their own opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part. You want a statute no more than, say, a third of a page long, clearly defining what's meant by "software" (and maybe also "business method") and prohibiting patents on it. That would be damn hard to argue about. Supreme Court decisions are notoriously easy to argue about.
> No, you misread. Intentionally, I imagine. I said: how often do you refuse to pursue a patent you're confident will issue, just because you don't believe it is morally worthy? I got my answer, between the lines.
Ah, I did misread. It was not intentional. But the answer you read between the lines was correct--I have never done that. Maybe when I'm the head of a law firm I can make decisions about turning away money because of a moral objection... but for now, that's a little above my pay grade.