Supreme Court orders do-over on key software patent ruling – Ars Technica

When the Supreme Court decides a case, it often asks lower courts to re-examine related cases to see if the high court’s reasoning in the new opinion changes the outcome. A week after the Supreme Court invalidated a medical diagnostic patent back in March, it ordered a reconsideration of gene patents in light of that opinion. Now software patents like Ultramercial’s will also get a fresh look under the same precedent.

This week’s decision to send the Ultramercial case back for another review doesn’t necessarily mean a majority of justices disagree with the original decision. But Julie Samuels of the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that it does at least mean the Supreme Court thinks its March decision is relevantto the validity of such patents. This can only be good news for critics of broad software and business method patents.