I pity this poor jury. There is so much confusion and
semantic verbiage in this
trial, I wonder if they will ever come to a
verdict.
I thought the copyright phase was both
thin and convoluted, even considering that we do not yet have access to all
exhibits and transcripts. Of course most of the convolutions came from the goofy
SSO claims.
The patent phase has been simply bizarre. That's mostly thanks
to the USPTO, the State Street decision, and lots of greed mongers. It
should never have been dumped upon the jury...
Greed Monger: I want a
patent for my New and Wondrous Invention worth beeeelllions!
[New,
hypothetical, rational (we can dream)] USPTO: What kind of
invention?
GM: It's a "means or method of" ... ON A
COMPUTER!
USPTO: Uh-huh. So, can this new and wondrous invention be
practiced entirely within a computer, as software?
GM: Yes! I'll make
beeeellions!!!
USPTO: Nope. If it can take place entirely in
computer software, it's a computation -- mathematical manipulations.
Computations are head games that people play. You can't patent
thinking.
GM: But it Transforms the computer and magically renders
Valuable and Useful information on the screen!
USPTO: Riiight. Get a
gang of preschoolers together who've learned the concepts of "0" and "1" and
they can do the same transformations. Give crayons to some of them and they'll
do the rendering. You can't patent playtime.
GM: It's new and useful
and advances the state of the art!
USPTO: It's computation. Ask the
Internet for prior art and you'll get some math or history professors showing
some ancient Egyption architect or Mayan priest or Plato or somebody doing the
same calculations on clay tablets and cave walls. You can't patent
math.
GM: But it's on a computer!
USPTO: Yes, and that
used to be a job title for a person or persons doing computations. If I grant
you a patent on your particular computation, your Chief Extortion Officer will
be suing people for adding and subtracting. You can't patent
math.
GM: But my billions!!
USPTO: Get a
job.
---
-- grouch
GNU/Linux obeys you.
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