Companies filing vague patents seems to hinder innovation and create "patent trolls," that file lawsuits that demand license fees, and several tech companies want to battle those abstract patents.
Facebook, Google, Zynga and other tech companies filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals to battle the "wide-ranging patent claims" between two companies, according to AllThingsD. It seems that Alice Corp. filed for a patent on closing electronic financial transactions. However, it seems that Alice Corp. also asked to patent a data processing system to share information, which some say is essentially a computer.
This made the tech companies a bit wary.
From the brief:
U.S. & World
Granting patent protection for such claims would impair, not promote, innovation by conferring exclusive rights on those who have not meaningfully innovated, and thereby penalizing those that do later innovate by blocking or taxing their applications of the abstract idea.
Already tech companies must buy up whatever patents are available to battle one another against licensing fees or to stop manufacturing smartphones. By taking a proactive stance, these companies are fighting for what is theirs before they have to defend it in a patent-infringement case.
