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| Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 04:47 AM EDT |
Please don't think deeply about this. It will drive you mad.
Bilski modelled a financial function on a computer. However, the programming is
not the patented function.
One of the two Oracle patents uses a virtual machine with a virtual processor to
establish a table of pointers to functions in software and the other sets all
the values in an array of values to an initial value.
The VM is not a model of a computer. It is an abstract concept of any VM that
has a virtual processor at its heart. The VM is a number of binary symbols in a
computer that look like a VM when executed by the computer. The programming and
the symbols used are irrelevant to the patent.
The array initialisation invention does not initialise arrays modelling real
life. It does not initialise arrays that are a defined part of the VM platform.
The arrays are arbitrary and may or may not be programmed by a programmer in the
programmer's source code. They can be found in files and memory.
The patent is on the function of using any virtual machine with a virtual
processor at its heart to look into an arbitrary program and determine whether
the program has included an arbitrary array in the program code and use a
function in the VM to initialise the array.
In fact, the only definition of the array is that it has been created in any
language on any computer hardware using any OS in the US. The patent does not
specify what the items in the array are. They could be strings, they could be
numbers, they could be symbolic representations of pixels in a photograph.
It is only applicable to those VM platforms with a virtual processor which are
supplied with a compiler that does not efficiently produce code which
initialises arrays.
The patented array initialisation function is not a math function or using a
math concept because the data is conceptual and cannot be manipulated by an
algorithm.
I could look at the lookup table creation in the same way with much the same
result. The table points to arbitrary function implementation code that the
programmer may or may not have chosen to use in his program. In other words, the
patent is on the manipulation of arbitrary program artefacts.
If you specially arrange your platform such that compilation is not complete in
'executable' files presented to a virtual machine using a virtual processor, the
patent is an invention to use a feature built into the VM to create the table
rather than manipulate the program source or compiled code.
The patents are the equivalent of patenting the process of automatically
cleaning transportation vehicles wherever an automatic cleaning machine is made
available. The patent is for autos (what else!), planes, trains, bycycles,
skateboards, mono-cycles, pogosticks and inflatable plastic balls. Except that
the things being done are concepts being performed on concepts represented by
arbitrary symbols on-a-computer.
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Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid![ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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