Are There No Limits To Intellectual Property?

By The Business Insider Editors

In the song "Taxman," the Beatles sang, "If you take a walk/I'll tax your feet." A similar phenomenon is being considered by the Supreme Court: If you cook up an idea for a way to do business, can you call it unique enough to patent it? The end result being, of course, that you can then charge others who want to use it: If you think of an idea I already thought of/I'll sue your butt.

"Here's an Idea: Let Everyone Have Ideas"

What's considered intellectual property in the past decade has grown like weeds in a garden. According to the National Football League, a journalist can't use "NFL" in a news story without advance, written permission. Now, according to a story in the New York Times,  a couple of yahoos named Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw think they own an "idea," masquerading as a "business process," which is described in the Times article as "a method of hedging risks in the sale of commodities, including the risks associated with bad weather."

The notion is absurd. In his blog discussing the first court opinion of this case, Joe Mullen wrote at his blog, "I suppose Mr. Bilski's company, now run by his old partner Rand Warsaw, will have to keep making its money the old-fashioned way: allegedly, by helping power companies overcharge consumers with dubious billing schemes."

Say we come up with an idea for a way to think about education, bicycle lanes, soup, nuts, and call it a "business process." We somehow get a patent for it, then we sit around and wait for somebody to replicate it - now we can sue them for damages, thus furthering the ghost economy where nothing tangible is either bought, sold, or in this case transacted.

This is stinkin' thinkin' and it's the cause of much ruination of our economy. It's utterly ludicrous that the Supremes are even hearing the case. Bilsky and Warsaw didn't get a patent, and their case was rejected by lower courts. All we can reasonably hope for is that the Spreme Court throws out the case.

We'd love to see the gang at "Boston Legal" do this one on their television show. They'd have a ball.

The Business Insider Editors

Comments

[Betonschade oplossingen]

I havent any word to appreciate this post.....Really i am impressed from this post....the person who create this post it was a great human..thanks for shared this with us.

[Study in UK]

seems like we are going to have many more copyright related litigation now...

[Tim Rosa]

Yes more litigation is a definite possibility.