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| Authored by: mrisch on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 02:09 PM EDT |
I still think you are trying to have it both
ways, or maybe you're
just being unclear about how you "put
a calculation into" something. Do you
mean use the results
of the calculation to design a better cannon? Or include a
computer within the cannon that can perform the calculation
on the fly? How
about an analogue computer? How about a
computer that's been specialized
(either a crippled general
computer, or one that's been optimized in some way)
for
artillery range calculations, that can be placed along side
the cannon?
How about Napier's bones?
I mean the following:
This is not
patentable: A method for calculating angle and
direction to a target,
comprising the steps of: a, b, c
This is patentable: A method for calculating
angle and
direction to a target in a cannon, comprising the steps of
a, b, c,
and moving the cannon to point at x, y, z in
response to the result of such
calculations
One is just a calculation. It doesn't do anything but
produce and
answer for us to study. The other does do
something - it causes a cannon to
aim.
To me, it doesn't matter whether it is specialized, general,
hardwire,
uses Mechanical Turk, etc. The end result is a
useful process of aiming the
cannon (and I suppose the
cannon itself depending on integration).
Now, the
harder question is the attempt to have a method of
aiming a cannon where the
calculation is done in a general
purpose computer, but a human then aims the
cannon in
response to the results on a computer screen. This, I think
is not
enough.
But the bigger issue is that you seem to say that
something
should be both patentable and copyrightable at the same
time. That's
quite radical. Why would that be a good idea?
Not sure why you
think it is radical - it's been done since
the beginning of software. I'm just
saying that one doesn't
exclude the other. And the protections are not the
same.
Copyright doesn't protect functionality, nor should it. See
the Oracle
case just concluded. So, copyright protects the
expressive elements and patent
protects the functional
elements (sometimes). These are complementary, not
overlapping.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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