From: Ad 

& oddly MS is the defendant.....

http://www.betanews.com/article/Supreme_Court_Debates_Patentability_of_Software
/1172097039


"A seemingly simple case regarding whether Microsoft had the right to
replicate speech recognition software it had licensed -- or rather, thought
it had licensed -- from AT&T, and then sell that software abroad as a
component of Windows Vista, has exploded into what is now extremely likely
to become a landmark case in US patent and copyright law.

The US Supreme Court today took up oral arguments in Microsoft's appeal of
a judgment against it in AT&T v. Microsoft, which has now become
Microsoft v. AT&T in view of the appeal.

During oral arguments this morning, Microsoft attorney Theodore Olson,
responding to a barrage of questions from Justices Anthony Kennedy and
Antonin Scalia, attacked AT&T's position with a novel argument that you
might not expect to hear from Microsoft: In short, you can't patent source
code or object code.

"An idea or a principle [such as] two plus two equals four can't be
patented," Olson told the Justices. "It has to be put together
with a machine and made into a usable device." Acknowledging both
Kennedy's and Scalia's questions, Olson built a case against AT&T's
position: For foreign replication to work, a golden disk is shipped abroad
to the replication service, containing the master of the Vista operating
system that includes AT&T's drivers. It's not software at that point,
Olson says, because no one can execute it. When it's installed onto a hard
drive, then it becomes software, and it's the end customer who does that.

If you accept that argument, Olson's case goes on, then Microsoft did not
copy AT&T's software. And since the physical components - the hard
drive, processor, and optical drive - necessary for the copying process to
happen may or may not have been supplied by manufacturers in the US, then
US courts may not have jurisdiction anyway."


Blimey......this could cause real ructions......

Hooorraaaay.....finally a reason to like MS....(or probably more accurately
their lawyers)....I'll be curious to see if Balmer will throw any chairs at
the lawyers.

Adam

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