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Physical vs. abstract is easy | 1347 comments | Create New Account

Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.

Physical vs. abstract is easy

Authored by: PolR on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 09:20 PM EDT

In this claim there is a mixture of hardware elements, physical signals
representing symbols and numeric interpretations given to the symbols. If such a
mixture happens in a patent on a printing press, if my understanding of the law
is correct, there would be an effort to filter the physical substrate from the
abstract symbols and their associated meanings. No patentable weight would be
given to the symbols and the meanings. Only the physical substrate could
potentially get a patent. The rest is out of it. This would be applicable even
with printed matter with a practical utility like a map or a dictionary.

But when it comes to software such an analysis doesn't happen. Isn't this a
problem? This appears to me as the key to limit hardware patent to hardware and
stop encroaching on abstract territory.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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