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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 02:26 PM EDT |
>Not sure why you think it is radical - it's been done since
the beginning of software
Wow. Do you actually believe that? Here's a little
"hornbook" of the relevant history:
http://www.bitlaw.com/software-patent/history.html
Let me assure you that software predates the 1960s.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 02:44 PM EDT |
>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
You have got to be kidding. That's just like your typical
software patent: take something that's already well
understood and clearly not patentable (the method of a, b,
c), add something non-novel (an actuator, to move the
cannon, in this case), claim an field of application
(ballistics) that would be obvious to any PHOSITA, and
voila, patent!
Anyway, you answered my question: by "in a cannon" you mean
some kind of device connected to the cannon by some kind of
actuator. (By the way, that's not how many useful gunsights
work. Humans do the actuation, the machine adds in
compensations for windage and yardage and tells them when
they've got it aimed just right, for instance by
mechanically deflecting a pointer so that the human has to
lift the muzzle higher to get the pointer to line up with
the target. I suspect those machine ARE patentable, in
which case you may need to reconsider your assumptions.)
If I understand you correctly, your argument boils down to
"software is patentable subject matter as long as the
selected field of application is not anticipated."
That seems intuitively wrong to me, but let me pause to
think about why. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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- Wow again - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 03:28 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 03:13 PM EDT |
So, the key piece is that the invention has to do something
physical: aim the cannon.
Are you saying that "lighting up the pixels (in a particular
useful way, e.g. to display a useful result) on a computer
monitor" counts as the physical piece? You just tack on
some mention of hardware doing what it was designed to do,
and all software becomes patentable?
That is intuitively wrong to any engineer. The "invention"
being claimed in a software patent has nothing to do with
the computer display. The computer display is prior art.
The only piece that's novel is pure software, and that, by
your own terms, is not patentable.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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