One of the issues Volano Solutions faced this year when selling our mobile compliance review app Action Card was from a restaurant that expressed concern that they might be held liable for intellectual property patent infringement by using our software. We learned that there was a special breed of bottom feeder that “trolled” published patents, waiting for them to expire so that they could purchase the rights and hold others legally liable for “infringing” on their patent. This was commonly done with software and restaurant chains were targetted. It looks like that phenomenon known as “patent trolling” was dealt a blow by the Supreme Court last week. According to this post from The Verge in regard to the Supreme Court case that serves as precedent, Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank has been one of the most closely watched patent cases of the year. It takes on what patent reform advocates see as the unreasonably broad category of “software patents,” which cover a process implemented on a computer rather than a piece of design or a physical invention. Earlier, the case was said with some degree of hyperbole to spell the “death of software patents,” but this decision doesn’t necessarily stop people from patenting a software “idea,” as long as its technical steps are concrete improvements or new designs, not an aggregation of existing steps.
Some businesses were asking software providers to sign indemnification agreements to assume the liability from any patent troll who decided to file suit over the use of their intellectual property. This case basically states that you cannot simply patent a broad, abstract process, link it to software and hunt down anyone who might be using a specific software system that manages that process. This is good news for software developers that would not like to spend time and resources protecting themselves from the threat of frivolous lawsuits and should alleviate some of the anxieties businesses have about investing in process efficiency technology. As a bonus, it’s nice to see a Supreme Court ruling come down 9-0 and not 5-4.
January 19, 2021
Software development is a team-based endeavor because of the complexity involved in launching a new system. Gone are the days when one developer can be point on the whole back-office software stack. It now takes multiple specialized roles to (appropriately) fulfill the software delivery lifecycle. A typical software project requires: Leadership Product management Project management […]
January 13, 2021
One definition of rot is the process of deterioration. Something that decays over time. By this standard – software rots like food in the Nebraska heat. It’s true. If your software isn’t regularly updated, it deteriorates and breaks down. Consider this – software is written to work at a moment in time…but time marches on. […]
January 4, 2021
OMAHA, NE, January 4, 2021 – In late 2020, Volano Solutions announced it has changed its name to Volano Software and launched a new website: www.volanosoftware.com. The name change was made to more accurately reflect what the company does, and the website was designed to be more informative and user-friendly to clients and prospective clients […]
June 2, 2020
According to LinkedIn technology (software) has a higher overall turnover rate than retail. With that, it isn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when. Volano has engineered a culture of “by developers, for developers” and this helps our retention. In fact, most of the folks that work at Volano have been here +5 […]
June 2, 2020
It is hard enough to build a successful business, and few want to invest time and resources into worrying about an Intellectual Property Assignment. But alas, you must do your homework. Fortunately, we make it easy for Volano customers. When asked – “Who owns the software and IP for my project?” – it is an […]
May 28, 2020
Many of us remember the grade school game Telephone. It was funny to see how a simple message would get garbled as it was passed along from person to person. But it’s not as funny when that message is a critical business requirement that will be turned into software that will power your business. Yet, […]