Does not compute: court says only hard math is patentable

On Tuesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected a patent on a method of detecting credit card fraud. The result was unsurprising, but the court broke new ground with its reasoning. Citing the Supreme Court's famous rulings against software patents from the 1970s, the court ruled that you can't patent mental processes—even if they are carried out by a computer program.

#Patent Eater: a new resource for patent news

Hello everyone, sorry for the light posting today but it's for good reason as I put together a patent news aggregator so that don't have to be constantly updating news items: now I can spend more time on actual writing instead of linking.  Anyways, I hope you like it.  It's called Patent Eater.

Shelter for #Linux in the #Software #Patent Storm

Indeed, "the #USPTO has allowed US businesses to descend into a depressing state of paranoia and mindless violence," agreed blogger Robert Pogson. "The USPTO has issued thousands of worthless patents that can do $millions of damages per patent in legal fees and blocking commerce."

Though originally intended "to promote science and technology by providing temporary monopolies to inventors, often solitary individuals," patents have since "warped into weapons of mass destruction in the hands of corporations," Pogson added.

#Patent reform is coming: Who should care — Tech News and Analysis

According to Bernard Codd, an intellectual property partner with McDermott Will & Emery, the proposed “first to file” provision “would be a fundamental change to patent law.” The U.S. is among the only developed countries that clings to the “first to invent” system, he explained, which tends to inspire litigation over who actually invented a particular product or system. Under a first to file system, the first party to file is the presumed inventor, which creates what some refer to as a race to file.

Smartphone wars: #Android topples #iPhone in #Australia

In the 12 weeks to August 7, 42.9 per cent of smartphones sold in Australia were Android phones compared to 37.2 per cent for Apple's offerings, new figures from Kantar's ComTech WorldPanel reveal. Kantar's statistics are based on regular interviews with a panel of 10,000 Australians.

#Android Boss Andy Rubin Split His First Huge Bonus Check With His Employees

When the first Android phone shipped in 2008, Andy Rubin received a multimillion dollar check from his bosses at Google.

He turned around and gave some of the money away to the 100 or so employees on the Android team.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Android workers received between $10,000 and $50,000 as part of the surprise deal.

We're all scum to Nathan Myhrvold

But a slime mold doesn’t have eyes or a brain -- or any other organ, for that matter. Creating an organ requires a deep subjugation of interests. The heart has to trust that the brain will run things and that the reproductive system will look after its long-term interests.

Although it may be tempting to think of social institutions as functioning like organs, human societies behave, in practice, much more like slime molds. They don’t have eyes or brains that are anything like human eyes and brains. So although any one of us can learn from our mistakes, foresee problems and act reasonably to solve them, collectively we don’t do a very good job of this.

HTC, Second Sight, GoDaddy, iiNet, Summit, TCW: Intellectual Property - Bloomberg

More than 200,000 people have been sued in the U.S. for online copyright infringement, the TorrentFreak website reported.

The TorrentFreak site, which is associated with users of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol, said that more than 145,000 users haven’t yet settled their cases.
The largest number of defendants are those accused of downloading and distributing Summit Entertainment LLC’s “Hurt Locker” film, according to TorrentFreak.

Circuit City puts DIVX #patents up for sale, anyone in need of a failed disc format? -- Engadget

Circuit City's ill-fated video rental alternative, DIVX (not DivX), went belly up over a decade ago but just like Nortel, now that its parent company is belly-up its patents may still have some value. In case you've forgotten, the DIVX scheme offered discs similar to DVDs that were initially viewable for 48 hours, but could be activated for more time over a phone line. Now, the Circuit City Stores Inc. Liquidating Trust has entered into an agreement to sell the remaining patents to Imaging Transfer Co., but not before opening the sale to others in an auction, scheduled to take place August 16th.

#Apple snags MagSafe #patent for #iOS devices -- Engadget

Cupertino was awarded a patent yesterday to integrate the magnetic (trip-safe) cord into future iOS devices like the iPad, potentially solving the dilemma for good. The Haus of Jobs also snagged patents for magnetic assembly and a 'securing system,' whatever that means.