BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Friday, September 24, 2010 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is advising the software community in the United States to write to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and ask that software patents be excluded from upcoming guidance about patent eligibility.
Following the Supreme Court's recent decision in *Bilski v. Kappos*, the USPTO plans to release new guidance about which patent applications will be accepted, and which will not. As part of this process, they are seeking input from the public about how that guidance should be structured. The FSF is taking this opportunity to call on the USPTO to exclude software patents from eligibility, and encouraging others in the field to do the same.
"Normally when the USPTO solicits feedback like this, they hear almost exclusively from patent attorneys who have a vested interest in making sure that patents are granted as broadly as possible," said Brett Smith, license compliance engineer at the FSF. "And this process will be overseen by David Kappos, the current director of the USPTO and formerly an attorney at IBM in charge of their heavy-handed patent strategy. It's not hard to guess what this guidance will look like if we leave this process in their hands, so we're taking this opportunity to put on public record how software patents harm all computer users and developers, and why, based upon the Supreme Court's ruling, they should not be granted."
Ciaran O'Riordan, executive director of End Software Patents added, "The *Bilski* decision didn't give us everything we wanted, but there was a silver lining. We asked the Supreme Court to reaffirm their rulings in *Diehr*, *Benson*, and *Flook*, and distance themselves from the decisions of lower courts that expanded patent eligibility. They did just that. Now the USPTO has to interpret this shift, and our task is to ensure that this key element of the decision isn't forgotten."
The FSF is advising US corporations, computer users, and developers to express their opposition to software patents by writing to Bilski_Guidance@uspto.gov. More information and example starter text is available at http://www.fsf.org/news/uspto-bilski-guidance and http://en.swpat.org/wiki/USPTO_2010_consultation_-_deadline_27_sept. The USPTO is accepting comments through Monday, September 27.
### About the Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
### About Free Software and Open Source
The free software movement's goal is freedom for computer users. Some, especially corporations, advocate a different viewpoint, known as "open source," which cites only practical goals such as making software powerful and reliable, focuses on development models, and avoids discussion of ethics and freedom. These two viewpoints are different at the deepest level. For more explanation, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.
### Media Contacts
Brett Smith License Compliance Engineer Free Software Foundation +1 (617) 542 5942 x18 brett@fsf.org
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