I posted a short blurb on the Amazon decision recently. One of my colleagues (thanks again Peter!) mentioned that a notice of appeal was filed yesterday.
I posted a short blurb on the Amazon decision recently. One of my colleagues (thanks again Peter!) mentioned that a notice of appeal was filed yesterday.
If I were to pick a subtitle for this post, it would probably be “Bilski, Canadian style”.
One of my colleagues (Thanks Peter!) was kind enough to mention that the judgement of the Federal Court of Canada (PDF) was released earlier today, so I set aside a few minutes to go through it. Admittedly, I haven’t been following the case all that closely.
In any event, rather than slogging through all 35 pages yourself, the following is a rather abbreviated summary of the decision:
On the first point relating to physicality, the Court’s comments seem to echo, to some degree, the Bilski decision by the US Supreme Court and its rejection of the “machine or transformation” test.
Although the Federal Court did not agree with the Commissioner’s rejection of the patent, it also did not affirm its validity nor did it grant the patent. Instead, it sent back the patent for re-examination.
Of course, there is quite a bit more in the decision itself, including riveting details on novelty, analyses of the process used to assess patentability, elements of that process versus application of same to the patent itself, etc. etc. So consider the bullet points above a gross oversimplification and use accordingly.
As most of you probably know, the US FCC and its members released a series of press releases at the beginning of August announcing its order against Comcast in respect of its “network management” activities in relation to P2P networks, but not releasing the order.
Well, apparently the order (PDF) has now been released. Haven’t had a chance to read it yet. Should be interesting, particularly given the same or similar developments with Bell and Rogers up here in Canada.
Noticed first on Lessig’s blog and of course in the time I’ve written a tiny little entry he has already churned out a five page letter thanking the FCC
I have a number of half finished posts on the question of net neutrality that haven’t been made public – mostly because they get unbearably long but still don’t do the topic justice. There are other reasons as well but perhaps I will get into it more if and when I decide to finally post something. Suffice it to say that I honestly don’t think the issue is black and white (and hopefully will not be caught in the “if you’re not for us, you’re against us” mentality).