Supreme Court Adds Common Sense to Patent Law

Washington – The Supreme Court of the United State today issued two important decisions that will bring some much needed common sense to world patent law, according to the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT).  The Supreme Court delivered decisions in the cases of KSR International v Teleflex and Microsoft v. AT&T.  ACT executive director Morgan Reed made the following statement in response to the decisions:

“Today the Supreme Court injected some much needed common sense into the world of patents.  The KSR decision in particular will make it much harder to obtain and enforce the kind of absurd software patents that are threatening the future of the patent system.

“In essence, the Federal Circuit Court was being too liberal in its interpretation of what should be patentable.  The Supreme Court found that the test used by the Federal Circuit to determine whether an invention was “obvious” or not, was too “rigid” and not reflective of the “expansive and flexible approach” of the Supreme Court on obviousness.”

“In overturning the Microsoft case, the Court realized that software is different than shrimp deveiners, and needs to be treated as such.  The original law was intended to prevent Deepsouth Packing from exporting its unassembled shrimp deveiners outside the U.S.  In today’s ruling, the court clearly returned a common sense judgment that a “golden master” CD shipped to an overseas manufacturer is not the same.  Software only really becomes a product once it actually exists in some usable form.  Until then, it’s just an abstraction.”

For More Information or to Setup an Interview Contact:

Mark Blafkin

+1.202.331.2130 x104

The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) is an international education and advocacy group for the technology industry. Focusing on the interests of small and mid-size entrepreneurial technology companies, ACT advocates for a “Healthy Tech Environment” that promotes innovation, competition and investment. ACT has been active on issues such as intellectual property, international trade, e-commerce, privacy, internet policy and antitrust. ACT represents more than 3000 software developers, systems integrators, IT consulting and training firms, and e-businesses from around the world.

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