I’ve been quiet on my reaction to Bilski because I’ve got an OpEd floating around that might get published in the next few days. It’s been rejected by one major publisher because according to the senior editor “it didn’t fit their opinion on the case” and another major publisher because “no one really cares that much about patents.” Ok – whatever. Fortunately, I have a blog, but I’ll wait a few more days and see if I can get someone in the traditional media to care.
In the mean time, my partner Jason has written a post titled Bilski Redux and Why You Shouldn’t Believe Everything You Read and Fred Wilson has also weighed in that it’s time for Congress to buck up and take some action in his post Bilski and Patent Reform.
For a great summary of the case, take a look at the Groklaw article titled Here’s Bilski: It’s Affirmed, But . . .No Decision on Software Patentability.
I expressed my opinion briefly in a ReadWriteWeb article titled Supreme Court: Software is Patentable… Sometimes where I said that I was profoundly disappointed with the outcome.
“They had a chance to address a serious and deep issue surrounding innovation in the software industry. Instead of taking a clear and forward looking position, they effectively punted on the hard stuff, surrounded it with ambiguity, and increased the mess we find ourselves in surrounding software and business method patents.”
I’ve got a lot more to say but let’s see if the OpEd shows up somewhere else first. If not, I expect Independence Day will liberate me.