Patent Absurdity

To help make subtitles in other languages, see Patent Absurdity/Subtitles.

Patent Absurdity: how software patents broke the system is a half-hour film about software patents, published on the 16^th of April, 2010.

The issues raised

Roughly in chronological order:

• Bilski
• Silly patents - many would call Bilski's patent, and others mentioned, trivial or silly
• Business method patents (Bilski's patent is a business method, not a software idea)
• Software is math (Ben Klemens explains how a "match making" patent, US6,735,568 is just math)
• USA#Legislation
• US Supreme Court
• Analogies - if symphonies had been patented...
• Software progress happens without patents

The court cases mentioned

(see also: Case law in the USA)

• Diamond v. Diehr (1981, USA)
• Parker v. Flook (1978, USA)
• Gottschalk v. Benson (1972, USA)
• In re Alappat (1994, USA)
• State Street v. Signature Group (1999, USA)
• In re Bilski (2008, USA)
• Bilski v. Kappos (2009, USA)

The cast

• James Bessen
• Dan Bricklin
• Peter Brown
• Mishi Choudhary
• Ben Klemens
• Timothy B. Lee
• Michael Meurer
• Eben Moglen
• Ciarán O'Riordan
• Dan Ravicher
• Karen Sandler
• Richard Stallman
• Rob Tiller
• Jesse Vincent
• Mark Webbink

Related pages on ESP Wiki

• List of recordings and transcripts
• Boston swpat conference 2006 videos
• Audio-video patents
• Ogg Theora
• Who should see Patent Absurdity (in the USA)
• Who should see Patent Absurdity in New Zealand

External links

• Patent Absurdity home page from where you can watch or download the film.
• Patent Absurdity Screenings
• The Bilski hearing transcript, as text

Reviews

• www.groklaw.net
• lwn.net
• yro.slashdot.org
• ipkitten.blogspot.com
• www.the-source.com
• opensource.com
• www.patentlyo.com
• Darkness Visible: Making Patent Absurdity Patent, by Glyn Moody
• www.eweekeurope.co.uk
• www.h-online.com
• www.opensource.org
• techrights.org
• webmink.com
• fosspatents.blogspot.com, by Florian Mueller
• news.swpat.org
• lxer.com
• www.0xdeadbeef.com
• linux-magazine.com, by Bruce Byfield
• German original: Dokumentarfilm gegen Softwarepatente (English translations^[?]: Google, bing translator)