The article states that Eolas Technologies has 60 days to appeal the ruling.
Hopefully this move signals a larger one towards the eventual nullification of software patents in general. As a creator and owner of intellectual property, I should be the first to support sotware patents but instead, as many software developers do, I see them rather as dangerous roadblocks to the evolution and progress of scientific knowledge and a threat to the future of the Internet.
Currently the EU does not recognize software patents but there is strong pressure to get it to do so. I hope that the EU will not repeat the costly mistake that the US has made on this matter an that we will eventually see a policy shift in the US regarding software patents in general.
The Eolas no more? article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
I’m a little concerned that no one is paying attention to this case anymore. I’m a software developer and recently a client of the company I work for asked us to review this case. What I learned from the whole thing is that the patent process in the US with regards to software in particular is broken.
With the matter apparently headed toward a reasonable resolution, people have stopped following the case. Outside the lens of public scrutiny, Eolas and the unwitting PTO are working surreptitiously to revive the patent most people thought was long buried. In the process, Eolas is presenting arguments that both fly in the face of common sense and contradict key positions they took during trial. Worse yet, the PTO seems to be buying it.
The creation of patent holding companies whose business plans are based on acquiring and licensing patents will surely lead to more cases of litigation over alleged infringements. This is not good for the industry and I certainly hope the USPTO sees this as an opportunity to send a message and address the growing call for patent reform. More and more people in our industry are becoming very concerned about the entire patent process.
You might find the results of our investigation interesting. Check it out at http://www.iticentral.com/906Full.html
By the way… invalidating a patent is a three stage process and the patent is still being reviewed. So, The Register’s claim that the “US Patent Office has nullified Eolas’ patent” isn’t quite true just yet.