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"Capable"? | 1347 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
"Capable"?
Authored by: mrisch on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 11:29 AM EDT
Yes - you are getting my position. And your guitar example
is a good one, because people often push back and ask why
the new guitar tune can't be a patentable process for
playing guitar (or the pianola, as someone else noted, or
the Jacquard loom).

What I am hearing from people here is that computer software
is no different than the guitar tune. And in theory, I think
that's right.

I think the primary difference is in the usefulness. The
tune doesn't do anything - it's entertaining, but it's not
useful. The computer is useful, it does do something. If it
just calculates, then that's not useful, and that's not
patentable. That's the pure math. But if it deals with
inputs and outputs to achieve some specific useful end,
that's different than the guitar.

I hear the contrary arguments. Guitar tunes are "writings"
under the IP clause, and software should be, too, even if
useful. I understand those arguments, even though I don't
agree with them.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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