Carelessness, or is there an agenda here?

[jducoeur]

I was surprised but happy when I got a forwarded copy of this news alert from the Wall Street Journal the other day:

The Supreme Court ruled that two inventors' patent of a method of hedging weather-related risk in energy prices can't be granted. The high court unanimously agreed with a lower-court ruling that said a process is eligible for a patent only if it is "tied to a particular machine or apparatus'' or if it "transforms a particular article into a different state or thing.''

The happiness was muted, though, when I read what actually transpired. Suffice it to say, this abstract is almost precisely wrong, or at least fabulously misleading: while the Court did shoot down the Bilski patent (as hoped), it did so on deliberately narrow grounds, and explicitly did *not* support the lower-court ruling. Indeed, the ruling was pretty disappointing for those of us who would like to see the software-patent regime simply scrapped.

I'm normally inclined to assume incompetence rather than malice, but I have to say that my suspicions about the WSJ have been growing lately. Ever since it got bought by Rupert "I'm not evil, I'm just a businessman" Murdoch, I've been noticing the slow trend towards it becoming a mouthpiece for his political views. So despite myself, I'm acidly looking to see if there is an agenda -- a Fox-News style reason to try to scare people into pushing for more extreme positions. Anyone have a reason to believe there is one?

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

There has long been two papers to consider: the opinion pages of the WSJ, and the news. Which was this?

Opinions Page Is Opinionated. But not factual.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Also worth noting was that the SCOTUS said "this patent too broad" but didn't set definitions, and DID throw it to the lower courts. The lower courts will likely set a new standard for determination: based largely on the commentary.

It is not, really, the place for the SCOTUS to say how a Patent is approved: so its right that they didn't create a mechanism.

But software patents are likely to be sharply restricted. And the cost of defending them just went UP.

[jducoeur]

Don't know for sure -- the link I got with that precis was surprisingly imprecise. Appeared to be the news page, though. And even if it was the opinions page, I don't expect that to actively mislead: IMO, this went beyond mere disagreement into actual misrepresentation. (I do expect that of Fox, of course, but my opinion of the WSJ hasn't fallen that far yet...)