In a win for the people of the United States and privacy advocates, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has ruled that the police cannot search people’s flip phones or smartphones without a valid warrant, which will likely make it difficult for certain law enforcement officers (LEOs) to snoop around people’s phones without a warrant. This includes a multitude of network tapping and cellular investigative technologies originally implemented by the NSA and CIA and now used be LEOs. Chief Justice Roberts handed down the ruling that questioned, These two cases raise a common question: whether the police may, without a warrant, search digital
Abstract Software Patents are Out, Says Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States of America (SCOTUS) yesterday ruled that software patents based upon abstract ideas are invalid. In the ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that abstract software patents (where arguments had ended on March 31st) that are essentially based on an idea and an idea alone are not valid. This is basically the Supreme Court ruling that you cannot simply claim a patent on a process by simply taking it and adding the idea of adding a computer system to it and suddenly having it become a legitimate patent. Unfortunately, though, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted thousands of