FSF has now filed an amicus brief in Bilski, and they too ask the Supreme Court "to affirm that software ideas are not patentable":

End Software Patents (ESP) executive director Ciaran O'Riordan explained, "Every software patent is a restriction on software developers and users of computers, and there are currently 200,000 software patents in the USA. As well as being an unjust restriction on a common household tool, time has now also proven software patents to be an economic failure and a hindrance to the progress of the useful arts. This means they've failed their constitutional mandate and have no legal legitimacy. The Supreme Court has itself never authorized the patenting of software ideas, so there's real hope that this problem can finally be solved."

Here's the press release. I wonder if this is the first amicus brief ever filed with the US Supreme Court prepared on a wiki? From the press release:

O'Riordan credited the swpat.org wiki contributors for their help, saying, "Much of the material for this brief came from our publicly editable wiki at swpat.org. For each point we decided to make, we used the wiki to find references and quotes and further information -- and I hope other brief drafters found it useful too. Contributing to this resource is a great way for people to get involved in the campaign -- the Bilski case will continue for months, and there is still much work to be done to eliminate software patents worldwide."

The brief is the best so far at explaining why the country should care about the negative impact patents are having on FOSS, why the Supreme Court should care about GPL software such as GNU/Linux systems and the many applications that are available. Here's one reason:

Free software, specifically software distributed under the GNU GPL, is also used heavily by the government of the United States. A 2003 report commissioned by the Department of Defense ("DOD"), entitled "Use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense" ("DOD Report") credits Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation directly. The DOD Report shows that roughly 50% of all of the FLOSS used at the DOD is licensed under the GNU GPL, and evaluates what a possible world within the DOD without this software would look like, stating:</p>

The main conclusion of the analysis was that FOSS software plays a more critical role in the DoD than has generally been recognized. FOSS applications are most important in four broad areas: Infrastructure Support, Software Development, Security, and Research. One unexpected result was the degree to which Security depends on FOSS. Banning FOSS would remove certain types of infrastructure components (e.g., OpenBSD) that currently help support network security. It would also limit DoD access to - and overall expertise in - the use of powerful FOSS analysis and detection applications that hostile groups could use to help stage cyberattacks. Finally, it would remove the demonstrated ability of FOSS applications to be updated rapidly in response to new types of cyberattack. Taken together, these factors imply that banning FOSS would have immediate, broad, and strongly negative impacts on the ability of many sensitive and security-focused DoD groups to defend against cyberattacks.9

In addition, NASA has also recognized the importance of free software by creating its own repository of freely licensed works.10 While the military and other divisions of government may not have to worry directly about their own use of patents, the DOD Report shows that their operation depends on the continued development worldwide of the kind of free software they use today - the kind of free software facilitated by the Foundation.

It's really an interesting read.

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