Two of the nation's leading civil liberties organizations and a new organization dedicated to the abolition of software patents have all filed amicus briefs in a patent case that could give the courts an opportunity to revisit the issue of software and business method patents. The case involves an application for a patent that would cover "a method for managing the consumption risk costs of a commodity" through a series of financial transactions. Not surprisingly, the Patent Office rejected the application on the grounds that purely abstract ideas are not patentable.
Since ideas began to be patented as opposed to actual physical products, the costs of such patents to society in general has become burdensome. Who in thinking of a solution to a problem is safe from a claim that someone else thought such a thought before and has a right to charge for such thoughts?
Let us hope the courts show some common sense on this issue.
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