Can an idea be patented? Google, Facebook and six other tech companies say no. They filed an amicus brief in court Dec. 7, stating that abstract ideas that can be accomplished “on a computer,” or “over the Internet,” do not deserve patents. The brief asks courts to reject lawsuits that are based on patents for ambiguous concepts rather than specific applications because they increase costs and impede advancement.

An amicus curiae brief allows parties outside of a court case to provide information that might assist a court in making its decision. The Dec. 7 brief was also cosigned by Zynga, Dell, Intuit, Homeaway, Rackspace and Red Hat. The brief offers information to the US Court of Appeals in the case of CLS vs Alice. In the suit, CLS claims Alice’s patents for the vague concept of financial intermediation within a computer are not valid. The court originally rules Alice’s patents were valid and could be used to counter-sue CLS for infringement.

The companies filing the amicus hope to convince the court that the issue, if allowed to pursue, could place the tech industry in great danger.

“Many computer-related patent claims just describe an abstract idea at a high level of generality and say to perform it on a computer or over the Internet. Such barebones claims grant exclusive rights over the abstract idea itself, with no limit on how the idea is implemented. 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…The abstractness of computer-related patents bears much of the blame for the extraordinarily high litigation and settlement costs associated with such patents. It is, therefore, imperative that courts enforce Section 101′ s “screening” function (Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1303) early in most cases, to save defendants and the courts from the unnecessary expense of fully litigating or settling cases- like this one that should be dismissed at the outset.”

The companies wrapped up their argument by explaining what, in fact, would qualify for a patent—applying an idea into a workable concept.

“It is easy to think of abstract ideas about what a computer or website should do, but the difficult, valuable, and often groundbreaking part of online innovation comes next: Designing, analyzing, building, and deploying the interface, software, and hardware to implement that idea in a way that is useful in daily life. Simply put, ideas are much easier to come by than working implementations.”

[Image via Shutterstock]