most industries? No. Some industries? Yes. I am a firm believer that patents do not belong in software at all. They're used to litigate not innovate and how often has a developer truly come up with a software technique that isn't in some form prior art? Most of the things that Oracle was arguing in the Google case were in-fact techniques that have been used in mathematics long before programming ever became a viable choice as a career (the rangeCheck point in the case is a prime example).
I think patents should only be for actual products, something you can hold in your hand. People like Apple trying to patent things like slide to unlock are idiots, you shouldn't be able to patent a movement.
As it has been shown many times, software patent litigation is a joke. Patent something real or GTFO. Look at people like James Dyson the dude has tonnes of patents all mostly on real products and techniques for doing unique things in the case of Dyson suing for competitors stealing his patented methods of cyclonic vacuum cleaners that's a real patent lawsuit right there, not arguing over whether or not a swipe is a zero length touch.
Actually Oracle only made two patent infringement claims against Google -- rangeCheck wasn't one of them -- and Google didn't argue prior art against either of them.
Just for correctness, Oracle made 7 patent infringement claims against Google, and was left with only 2 by the time of the trial because of the reexaminations.
And Google didn't argue invalidity because they agreed (to streamline the trial).
That's fair enough. I don't know a whole lot about these things but I guess my intentions as to what I was trying to say were pretty clear. Thanks for clarifying that for me though.
I think patents should only be for actual products, something you can hold in your hand. People like Apple trying to patent things like slide to unlock are idiots, you shouldn't be able to patent a movement.
As it has been shown many times, software patent litigation is a joke. Patent something real or GTFO. Look at people like James Dyson the dude has tonnes of patents all mostly on real products and techniques for doing unique things in the case of Dyson suing for competitors stealing his patented methods of cyclonic vacuum cleaners that's a real patent lawsuit right there, not arguing over whether or not a swipe is a zero length touch.