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| Authored by: Ian Al on Monday, May 14 2012 @ 03:29 AM EDT |
This simple test from Flook and Bilski rules all stand-alone software
on-a-computer, non-patentable subject matter.
Patents protect the
functions disclosed in the patent text. I look forward to the day when someone
invites the Supreme Court to consider PoIR's explanation of why all software has
to be mathematically valid math in order that it can be computed on a
computer.
All functions computed in computers are math functions.
Patenting inventions that just have math, computed on a computer, is an attempt
to patent math functions alone with no post-solution activity. The proof of the
math theory is that every possible math algorithm to provide the function is
protected by the patent (it does not matter what processor, math language,
operating system or algorithmic solution is employed).
The Oracle
patents are for math functions buried within the software and you never see a
stream of dynamically resolved symbolic references coming along the conveyor
belt.
BS&F might argue that playing a tune or a video on a computer
is significant post-solution activity.
The Supreme's would refer to
their discussion of Flook in Bilski: In Flook, the Court considered
the next logical step after Benson.
The applicant there attempted to
patent a procedure for monitoring the conditions during the catalytic conversion
process in the petrochemical and oil-refining industries.
The
application’s only innovation was reliance on a mathematical algorithm. Flook
held the invention was not a patentable “process.” The Court conceded the
invention at issue, unlike the algorithm in Benson, had been limited so that it
could still be freely used outside the petrochemical and oil-refining
industries.
Nevertheless, Flook rejected “[t]he notion that
post-solution activity, no matter how conventional or obvious in itself, can
transform an unpatentable principle into a patentable process.
If
there is no post-solution activity at all, then the patent is an attempt to gain
a monopoly on a math function. It is even worse than Benson which was an attempt
to patent only one of the never ending math algorithms that compute the
function.
In fact, the algorithm is math. The function is abstract
math ideas. If the function is not enacted by software or a mathematician, it
decays into an abstract idea.---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid! [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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