Free Republic

Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It's often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied at will. It's versatile - it can be customized to perform almost any large-scale computing task - and it's blessedly crash-resistant. A broad community of developers, from individuals to large companies like IBM, is constantly working to improve it and introduce new features. No wonder the business world has embraced it so enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the Fortune 500 are thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data centers....

This morning the Supreme Court came down with two decisions about patent law that both take small, but extremely important, steps towards reigning in some of the worst abuses of the patent system. In both cases, it's disagreed with the position taken by the Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). This isn't a huge surprise, as many observers figured that the Supreme Court's recent interest in all sorts of patent cases meant that the justices weren't at all happy with the way CAFC was moving. This is a good thing, as the past twenty-five years or so of CAFC...

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has made a preliminary decision to revoke three fundamental patents on human embryonic stem cells. If the decision stands, some scientists and consumer groups say it could loosen restrictions on research in a promising new field. Patent examiners rejected all the claims of the three patents that are based on the work of James A. Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, who is widely viewed as having been the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells and grow them in culture. The oldest patent was issued in 1998 and the most recent was...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. federal jury found that Microsoft Corp infringed on audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and should pay $1.52 billion in damages, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. The report said that Alcatel-Lucent had accused the world's biggest software maker of infringing on patents related to standards used for playing computer music files.

Two UK-based academics have devised a way to invent new medicines and get them to market at a fraction of the cost charged by big drug companies, enabling millions in poor countries to be cured of infectious diseases and potentially slashing the NHS drugs bill. Sunil Shaunak, professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College, based at Hammersmith hospital, calls their revolutionary new model "ethical pharmaceuticals". Improvements they devise to the molecular structure of an existing, expensive drug turn it technically into a new medicine which is no longer under a 20-year patent to a multinational drug company and can be...

At Christmas, we traditionally retell Dickens's story of Scrooge, who cared more for money than for his fellow human beings. What would we think of a Scrooge who could cure diseases that blighted thousands of people's lives but did not do so? Clearly, we would be horrified. But this has increasingly been happening in the name of economics, under the innocent sounding guise of "intellectual property rights." Intellectual property differs from other property—restricting its use is inefficient as it costs nothing for another person to use it. Thomas Jefferson, America's third president, put it more poetically than modern economists (who...

A patent feud between IBM and Amazon.com took a new twist this week as the e-commerce giant countersued Big Blue for infringement and blasted its earlier accusations as "meritless and misleading." In Thursday filings with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the Seattle-based Internet retailer denied infringing on five IBM patents and claimed that just the opposite situation was occurring. "IBM has chosen to infringe Amazon.com's patents willfully and to obtain the commercial benefits of Amazon.com's technology without authorization or compensation," attorneys for the company wrote in their responses to IBM's patent infringement allegations. In late...

The design of Google's search results page earned U.S. patent protection this week, bringing the total number of patents held by the search giant to some three dozen. Design Patent No. 533,561, awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday, covers "the ornamental design for a graphical user interface" as shown in several screen shots (click for PDF) of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company's search results pages. The screen shots depict lists of the company's search results, with blocks of news-related and sponsored advertising links at the top. A graphic of the word Google, spelled out with...

The greatest differentiator between OS vendors is no longer a question of features, function, performance, customer support, security, reliability or any feature of the product itself. The future of computing may depend on the lawyers.The last month has seen both Oracle and Microsoft take their gloves off in their competition with open source software. Where Oracle has taken a seemingly straightforward approach of copying the competition and undercutting their prices, Microsoft's move to invoke intellectual property and the terms of the GNU Public License (GPL) to counter open source competition is much more potentially damaging. What's more, while Oracle's success...

A U.S. official leading a business delegation here called India's patent and copyright laws antiquated and unable to offer protections necessary for foreign companies to operate here. "Patent and copyright laws in India are old and back-dated and they no where match the world standards," said Franklin Lavin, undersecretary of Commerce for international trade. India and the U.S. "need to sit and work out a proper regulatory framework by identifying the weak areas. India needs to seek more participation by U.S. companies." Addressing a business seminar in New Delhi, Lavin said India needs to modernize its patent and copyright laws...

Excerpt - A recent out-of-court settlement between Apple Computer and a Vermont-based inventor has landed Apple the rights to a prestigious software design patent that may allow the company to seek royalties on a broad spectrum of digital downloads. Michael Starkweather, a lawyer and author of the 10-year old patent, issued a statement on Thursday calling it a "billion dollar patent" that will have affects on the future of the "cell phone, iPod and PDA" industries. "I believe that, with this patent in hand, Apple will eventually be after every phone company, film maker, computer maker and video producer to...

Brigham Young University has accused pharmaceutical giant Pfizer of cheating the school out of profits and credit for the development of Celebrex, a blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug that has earned the company billions of dollars. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City against Pfizer and several of its predecessor companies after years of unsuccessful negotiations, BYU said. The suit seeks unspecified actual and punitive damages, but notes Celebrex sales have exceeded $20 billion. It also seeks corrections in 75 patents in order to credit Professor Daniel L. Simmons for his discoveries. The suit alleges Simmons...

  PATENT OFFENDING In October 1976, an Alaska pipeline engineer named John Moore became seriously, mysteriously ill. Eventually, he found himself at the UCLA Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with a rare, progressive form of blood cancer called hairy cell leukemia.To slow the disease and perhaps save his life, Moore's physician - Dr. David Golde - recommended removing Moore's spleen. The surgery was successful. Moore recovered and eventually returned to Alaska, with instructions to visit Golde for annual checkups.  Over the next eight years, Moore did so. During each visit, Golde would extract samples of Moore's blood, skin,...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Creative Technology Ltd. on Monday filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission against Apple Computer Inc., charging the maker of the market-leading iPod media player of infringing on Creative's patents for some of its own music-playing devices. Creative (CREAF : 5.46, -0.10, -1.8% ) said that it wants the ITC to investigate whether Apple (AAPL : 67.79, +0.09, +0.1% ) violated the Singapore-based patents for the former company's Zen brand-name device, and is asking the organization to force Apple to stop "engaging in sales, marketing, importation or sale after importation into the United States"...

"Who's that tripping over my bridge?" Thus spake the troll in the famous children's tale "The Three Billy Goats Gruff." Miffed that the goats were encroaching on his property, the troll threatened to gobble them up. But the trolls' adversaries had the last laugh.

Holding Hu to account. Listening to the American political conversation recently, one would conclude that the foremost threats to the U.S. economy are the purchase by foreigners of our “critical infrastructure” and an insufficient supply of unskilled labor to pick our lettuce. These two nonissues have been part of the red-hot debates over the (since jettisoned) Dubai ports deal and illegal immigration. As is so often the case, where there is heat in American politics, there is no light, and if you want to discover a truly important issue, it is often necessary to look to one that is relatively...

Burst.com has filed a countersuit against Apple Computer claiming that the iTunes software, the iPod and the Quicktime streaming software all infringe on patents held by Burst.com, Burst announced Monday. [more]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court debated the rights of inventors Wednesday, weighing in on a dispute between eBay and a small Virginia patent holder. The case's outcome could mean millions of dollars for inventors working in their garages or in large pharmaceutical labs - including those who develop a product and those who opt only to patent ideas. The dispute between eBay, the Web-based marketplace, and MercExchange is one of several high-profile legal battles that are calling attention to the nation's patent laws, which some critics - including Amazon.com, Yahoo! and Xerox Corp. - say need updating to keep...

• The Earth revolves around the Sun. • The speed of light is a constant. • Apples fall to earth because of gravity. • Elevated blood sugar is linked to diabetes. • Elevated uric acid is linked to gout. • Elevated homocysteine is linked to heart disease. • Elevated homocysteine is linked to B-12 deficiency, so doctors should test homocysteine levels to see whether the patient needs vitamins. ACTUALLY, I can't make that last statement. A corporation has patented that fact, and demands a royalty for its use. Anyone who makes the fact public and encourages doctors to test for...

The Indian and Chinese drug discovery outsourcing market is riding a crest with companies from outside Asia increasingly seeking to outsource drug discovery to these countries for greater cost savings. Other major factors driving this shift to Indian and Chinese companies are the better access to expertise, productivity gains, process improvements, variable costs, avoidance of capital outlays and opportunities for companies to focus on specific niches. With competition in the global market escalating, multinational companies are aggressively seeking innovative strategies such as outsourcing production. Global pharmaceutical manufacturing was worth nearly $50bn in 2004, and India and China have the potential...