You would have to be living under a rock not to notice that everything’s going to the clouds, not the dogs. The cloud industry has continued to demonstrate its “sky-high” potential as intellectual property (IP) rights are becoming important in preserving competitive edges, and sky is the only limit. Is it?
While intellectual property rights remain important to protect many hard-earned innovations, the news from the patent lawyers has not been as cheery. The Supreme Court’s June 2014 decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank and its aftershocks rocked the tech community with the fear of declaring permanent death of patents for all things computer-related. In two other cases also decided in June, the Supreme Court dealt further blows to patent holders by making it harder to prove induced or joint infringement in Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies, Inc., and by making it easier to find a patent indefinite (and therefore invalid) in Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments. All three decisions make it harder to get patents and easier for someone to invalidate the ones you already have.