Judges fighting litigation with Supreme Court's "obvious" patent ruling

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

The Supreme Court ruling on obvious patents, which more clearly defined the line between a patented, original invention and an upgrade or innovation based on a broader concept, has apparently already been making an impact in the world of litigation. According to Techdirt, one example of the changes concerns a company called Friskit, a patent hoarding operation which was suing Real Networks over three fairly "obvious" patents that dealt with searching networks for streaming content. Originally, the judge ruling on the case had allowed it to move forward, but he has recently changed his mind. Using the Supreme Court's decision as a guideline, the judge now says that the patents were simply a combination of ideas and inventions which had been publicly available, and that their combination was a logical next step -- thus eliminating the need for a costly and time consuming court battle. Hopefully this will knock out other time and money wasting cases in progress which seem to "tax" innovation.

 

[via] Engadget