That's a great idea. We'll call it the 3/5ths compromise.

Patents can't be obvious, and they can't be prior art. It is not clear to me how the current bill threatens those criteria, but sorry, I haven't read it.

Your 3/5 proposal is unworkable. It could take years to develop a patent. You can't ask 5 practitioners to spend that much of their lives creating something that won't even be used. Instead, a patent application is assigned to an examiner whose job is to compare the claims in the patent to those that exist already, either in other patents or in open literat

This is a good idea, but you forget that government bureaucracy would result in this process lasting until the heat death of the universe.

> This is what ya'll voted for.

We're still in the Biden administration, dickhead. Not that I'm looking forward to the next one.

The new administration doesn't enter office for a few more months, but okay.

I'm not even from the US, and even I know that the senators that started in 2023 will be there until 2025.

In Kentucky, the senators are known, but that doesn't help. If Rand Paul or Mitch McConnell had a non-zero chance at listening to any non-large-scale-donor constituent, or doing anything but what fits their agenda, it might be worth it. In reality, there could not be a more useless activity than expressing an opinion to them.

Posts like this are why we need Civics classes in school.

> "members of the public to contact their Senators."

> It might help if we knew who our senators were. We've just had an election, and the results haven't been certified yet.

Senators elected in November, 2024, will not be sworn in and seated until January 3, 2025. For now, contact the one who was not up for election or the one who ran for reelection, whether that person won or lost the bid.

> The SCOTUS decision that equites political donation as the right to petition.

Citizens United was about the broadcast of a film before an election, where the film was an advocacy piece against one of the candidates. That's, unequivocally speech, and political speech at that, obviously protected by the first amendment.

While Justice Stevens' dissent does raise some excellent points, the solution to those is a constitutional amendment, not SCOTUS ignoring the plain language of the constitution. "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" is unambiguous. To decide otherwise would create a situation where e.g. the New York Times (a corporate entity) was not protected by the freedom of the press.

"Money talks."

That's it. That's the basis of the whole decision. Money == Speech.

I happen to think that's a royal load of bullshit, but sophistry and bad argument are what the SCOTUS has been doing for years. And here we are.

> Enjoy all the patent wars in the near future not even linux is going to be protected

Linux is protected by copyright , not patents.

> What are the Dems doing?

Perhaps you should ask republican senator Thomas Tillis who sponsored the bill. [1]https://www.congress.gov/bill/... [congress.gov]

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/2140

That is probably exactly why Trump wants it, for his crypto platform.

Trump has been communicating with everyone all along, including republicans in congress and other fascist world leaders, his hand has never come off the wheel on the reich hand side of the garbage truck.

The problem with saying that software should get copyright protection it that the more you think about software vs. hardware the harder it becomes to tell the difference.

I can start with a single of set primary inputs and implement: native code; behavioral model; gate-level model; transistor level model; FPGA configuration; integrated circuits. Any of those implementations can be inserted into a physical system into such a way that the user cannot tell which implementation was used. Try to justify why some

> the concept of a novel thatâ(TM)s a mystery with a female detective. Then no one else could write that exact kind of book.

The courts would have to establish a legal precedent as to the definition of "female".

Yep. EFF praying on their supporters' lack of civics.

Well, the bill won't "resurrect" any patents. But going forward, it might enable a flood of new junk patents. Many of which the courts will have to litigate. Or legitimate businesses won't risk a court case and avoid areas where such blocking patents have been granted, driving business overseas.

You've managed to write a post which is technically correct but also completely wrong at the same time.

The legislative branch cannot "resurrect" any patents, they have no power to do so.

[Ignoring that the legislative branch can do anything that's not forbidden by the constitution]

A bunch of utterly garbage patents were applied for and granted. These have been rendered unenforceable by various court rulings, but most of the patents haven't actually been struck down and removed from the books.

They are zombie

The courts ruled that various of these bogus software patents are invalid under current law. (courts rule on whether something is illegal under the law as it stands all the time) This new bill would change the law so that the bogus patents are valid (congress passing laws that overturn court rulings is not unusual). And then if the bill is passed, there will likely be court cases (where the people who's patents were declared invalid under the old laws go back to court with a new lawsuit under the new laws)

> For pure software I wonder if this will simply lead to an up tick in off shore software companies. If you company has no physical presence in the USA and is selling online then I don't see how USA patent law could be applied.

Patent laws are territorial, and affect the commerce of the country in which the patent resides. So, an offshore company might ignore a US patent, but then it could not sell its products in the US.

There are international agreements and treaties that simplify obtaining a patent simultaneously in multiple countries. However, that's not what you're talking about.

> this is just Dems blowing smoke

Sponsored by both an R and a D. I suspect that you will have to follow the money down a deep rabbit hole to find the actual beneficiaries.

PERA has a similar wording as the list of exceptions to patentability in the European Patent Convention art52.2, although the category of 'computer programs' is missing from the exceptions. And it's written by people who want to abolish the Alice SCOTUS jurisprudence.

> You can order food without a mobile app

But it's "using the Internet".

Never mind that "the Internet" as a general class of communications technology is already effectively in the public domain. Any subclass of these claims is trivially obvious and not deserving of patent protection.

> In short, this could kill off OSS pretty easily.

Or kill off closed source software. If you can't see the source, examine it for similarities and place it into the public record* as a part of the court case, then it's not provably similar. Case dismissed.

*I'm against private parties using our courts for their private gain (civil cases) but sealing evidence and concealing it from the public (for whom the courts serve). If you want to settle a dispute on your own terms, have a fist-fight in the parking lot.

Open-source software protects itself with copyrights , not patents.

If an open-source project violated someone else's claim protected by a patent or copyright, then the remedy is to remove the offending code and use something else.

If a patent-troll filed patents for processes on which an open-source project already depends, then the open-source project could object on the grounds of "prior art."

If a patent-troll succeeded at obtaining a patent that blocks an existing project (open-source or otherwise) then ye