About Bilski - End Software Patents

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"There is no authority that we know of which permits software per se to be considered statutory [patentable subject matter]." —-Patent Office board of administrative judges, October 2007 (source PDF)

Portion of patents granted every year by the Patent Office that are software patents: 15% (Bessen and Hunt, 2004)

Websites that may be violating a software patent as of January 2007: 155,583,825 (Netcraft)

"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today." —Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft (cited in this New York Times op-ed.)

Estimated annual cost in legal fees incurred by software patents: $11.2 billion. (2008 State of softpatents)

Estimated economic benefit from software patents, as calculated by several pro-software patent economists: $0. (See the list of null results on the resources for economists page.)

About Bilski

Table of Contents

Bilski in the Supreme Court

Bilski in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Bilski in the Supreme Court

FSF amicus brief to the Supreme Court, 2009 (which ESP worked on)
On the en.swpat.org wiki you'll find:
- In re Bilski (Supreme Court, 2009)
- The briefs from In re Bilksi (Supreme Court, 2009)
From the oral hearing:
- Hearing transcript
- Summary regarding software patents
Useful third-party documents
- SFLC's Bilski resource page

Bilski in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

ESP amicus brief to the CAFC, 2008
On the en.swpat.org wiki you'll find:
- In re Bilski (CAFC, 2008)

© 2008, End Software Patents

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