Opponents of proliferating software patents who see them as a threat to open source software may finally get their day in court--the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case involves two brake pedal manufacturers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a legal advocacy group, has filed a friend of the court brief in the case of KSR International v. Teleflex. The two parties will be arguing whether Teleflex has patented the right to put electronic sensors on brakes. The EFF has signed on to argue that the U.S. Patent Office's increasingly loose grants of patents is hurting innovation in many fields, such as electronic brake sensors, but that it's particularly worrisome for open source code development.

The rest of the story is at Information Week.