The Supreme Court of the United States has just handed down two important patent rulings that could be especially relevant for software and technology companies. In a ruling that alters the analysis of when a patent is obvious the Supreme Court found that lower courts had too rigidly interpreted the requirements for finding a patent obvious, allowing some bad patents to slip through. (Read full opinion.) In a separate opinion the Court addressed part of the U.S. patent law that prevents companies from getting around a patent by shipping the components of the patented invention from the U.S. to a foreign country for assembly and sale. The Court found that supplying software to a foreign country for sale therein did not constitute a “component” of a patented invention and hence was not prohibited. This was a victory for Microsoft who had been accused of violating an AT&T patent simply on the basis of shipping Windows to foreign countries. Regardless of one’s usual feelings about the world’s largest software company, enforcing limits on the extra-territorial application of U.S. patent law, especially in the software context, is generally a good thing for innovation. If the first ruling results in more software patent applications being deemed “obvious” then that could be even better. Read analyses of the Microsoft and the obviousness rulings.
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