Tom Goldstein on SCOTUSBlog has written his best estimate of who will write the decision on Bilski:
- Justice Stevens will write it
- the scope of patents will be narrowed, probably restricting software patents
- the court will be unanimous but possibly split on the scope of the ruling…
He bases this on the history and involvement of Stevens on law of patents. He has a history of narrowing patent rights. The court has a history of spreading the written decisions around and Justice Stevens has yet to write one this term. I think this view is consistent with the engagement of Stevens in the oral hearing last year.
That supports my belief that software patents will get the boot but courts often surprise. They could find a way to dodge the issue by deciding only on this Bilski case very narrowly. I hope we will know two days from now. The suspense is killing me. Cleared of software-patents, M$ is powerless to stop GNU/Linux by any legal means. I expect the stock price will drop on the news. If somehow the software-patents are allowed to live but with narrower rules, it depends exactly on what those rules are. M$’s patent portfolio could be shrunk. We shall see.
I think the court will rule that software-patents are a Pandora’s Box that should never have been opened. The mind boggles at the $billions that have been wasted as a result. It will be interesting to see all the repercussions.
Will previous settlements and cross-licensing agreements be rolled back? That would be difficult even if required. Certainly the patent fud from M$ should be toned way down. They must have earned a lot of enmity in the last year or two extorting money from smaller businesses to “settle”. Who will give M$ any respect if software-patents go down in flames?
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” I think it is a figure that M$ totals up from everything they spend in preparation for the next release…”
Robert, you are incredibly naive if you think that way. Microsoft’s value is based on its business, not on its patents. The family jewels at Microsoft are protected by copyright, not patent. A considerable amount of trade secret protection applies as well. If the USPTO were to void all patents, Microsoft would benefit to the extreme.
You need cash when selling short to be able to stop loss if things go the other way. Some brokers will not allow customers to sell short without having capital to cover.
M$ asked the supremes to keep software patents. Are they crazy? No. A-C is wrong. M$ made TomTom pay M$ in a cross-licensing deal. That’s the way it goes. The big guy gets to push the little guy around.
A-C told me M$ invest $8billion in research. The SEC filings told me, too. I think it is a figure that M$ totals up from everything they spend in preparation for the next release. They crank out patent applications almost every day backed by this “research”. The stock price of M$ is not based solely on revenue but also future revenue. Being able to tax the competition is a great deal for an investor. With software-patents dead, that future revenue is out of the picture.
” Then ISV’s will flee M$.”
It is your theory that ISVs ignore Linux due to patent concerns? That doesn’t seem very logical.
“$8billion per year for many years will go “poof”.”
You are just insane, Robert! What part of your anatomy produced this figure? LOL.
In reality, Microsoft pays many times more money to license technology from others than it receives from its own patent portfolio. Microsoft would benefit immensely from a declaration that software method patents were all void.
“I would sell short, if I had a lump of cash free at the moment.”
I know you are not a developer, Robert, and now I know that you are not an investor either. You do not need “a lump of cash” to sell short. You get cash from the sale and acquire a liability to replace the shares on demand. Read the rest of the book.
I wish it were so easy to kill the beast. The still have $billions in the bank and cash-flow, a billion installations, and an ecosystem that worships them. It will take more than killing software-patents to end the monopoly. This will be a great thing for startups to go with GNU/Linux. This will be the last signal for business that it’s OK to run GNU/Linux on the desktop. Then ISV’s will flee M$. It will still take a few years for the carcass to grow cold, it is so large.
The only sudden event following from the death of software-patents is a drop in the stock price on the basis of the patent-portfolio imploding. $8billion per year for many years will go “poof”. I would sell short, if I had a lump of cash free at the moment. (I do not advise anyone to take risks that I do not.)
If software patents will cease to exist then i guess it will be the beginning of the end for M$… At least i hope so. In an ideal world there should be competition fighting for “our” money and not one big bully that attacks below the belt…