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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 11:46 AM EDT |
Please do pay attention. I'll try to explain for the fifth time.
There are two different ways in which patent lawyers try to patent software:
(1) as an abstract process. This should fail because it's pure math. Software
is explicitly excluded from patentability in the EU.
(2) as a process running on a generic computer, creating a "new
machine" or a "new use of a machine". This fails because the
combination of the math with the generic computer is suggested.
This *second* technique, the "plus a computer" technique of
patent-writing, is used by lawyers to get around the explicit exclusion of
mathematics and software from patentabilty, but it's not valid.
*That* is what my point regarding the fact that running programs on a computer
is "suggested" is about.
Suppose that the combination of chemicals to cure cancer drugs was already known
-- or for some other reason unpatentable. (Like the software is unpatentable.)
And that the "invention" consisted of instructions to mix them in a
standard beaker.
Well, that would be the suggested use of the beaker. Adding that to the
unpatentable mix of chemicals doesn't get you something patentable.
There is no "workaround" to make unpatentable math into a patentable
machine just by adding a computer.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 11:47 AM EDT |
It's not suggested "simply because it can be done".
It's suggested because computers execute _a universal algorithm_ (the
instruction loop). By definition, a computer can perform any possible
computation using this algorithm.
Software is just a giant number -- an input, written down, and fed into this
universal algorithm.
The entire purpose of a general-purpose computer is to do computations. ANY
computations. ANY POSSIBLE computations. The inventor of the general-purpose
computer designed it for that purpose, and intended it to be used in that way,
and that's exactly what millions of programmers and billions of users, do with
it every day.
The general-purpose computer is probably the single most important machine
humans have ever invented, but that invention was done decades ago.
Writing software is a process of discovering how to write down instructions for
performing desirable mathematical calculations. Those instructions are made for
a pre-existing machine, designed decades ago, expressly to perform them.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Wol on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 05:31 PM EDT |
But the point is that software DOESN'T *DO* ANYTHING!!!
It is the COMPUTER that does something, and it does what the software tells it
to do. The software is the INSTRUCTIONS. The software can be the patent
DESCRIPTION. It cannot be the patented object itself!
You can't patent a recipe. You can patent the cake that you make by following
the recipe.
That was the whole point of Diehr. You can't patent the recipe - the computer
software - for making rubber. You can patent the rubber that's made when you
follow the instructions (run the software).
Cheers,
Wol[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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