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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 02:03 PM EDT |
Your argument on #3 is simply wrong.
The point is this:
(1) The machine is designed to run all possible software, *including future
software*.
(2) The software, by itself, is not patentable because it is abstract
mathematics.
You accept both of these facts, right?
Now:
(3) The software plus the machine is not patentable because the machine was
designed to run the software.
Accept that.
Your argument #3 is simply wrong, because in the cases *other* than software and
business methods, the new element is patentable by itself. Step (2) in my
unpatentablity argument only applies to software and business methods and
similar things.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 02:05 PM EDT |
I haven't read your book, but suppose the pianola roll is used to play music for
a specific military communications purpose. I would guess that the
unpatentability argument in your book doesn't apply to that.
But it's still not patentable.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 02:08 PM EDT |
It's off-topic, even. Software is simply not written for particular hardware;
software is written for an "abstract machine" and particular hardware
merely approximates that abstract machine.
That's just how it's actually done in real life, 99% of the time. I know you're
not actually a programmer (a PHOSITA), so please listen to the people who
actually are.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Wol on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 02:17 PM EDT |
Except that's irrelevant to the argument at issue.
The general purpose computer was designed to run ALL POSSIBLE algorithms.
Whether they are not yet invented or not yet discovered or not yet whatevered is
irrelevant. The set of ALL POSSIBLE includes everything yet to be discovered and
everything that we will never discover.
And actually, it is possible, even today, to write a program that will generate
all possible programs, and to prove that today's general purpose computer will
run them. It's just that we can prove it faster than we can execute it - the
execution will take all the time in the universe, and then some.
Cheers,
Wol[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: drakaan on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 02:57 PM EDT |
...3. The general purpose computer does not have
a known use for
stuff that hasn't been invented yet. By your
argument, there can be no new
process, since they are all
new uses of molecules, which can be used to do
anything
anyone ever thinks of in the future...
If there were a
man-made device that could assemble
matter from its constituent particles, then
that argument
would be correct...actually, I expect that to occur at some
point in the future. Patents will most definitely mean very
little at that
point, but that's beside the point right now.
The thing that's not
correct in that statement is that
programs do not perform a process, they
describe the manner
in which it should (attempt to) be accomplished *by* a
general-purpose computer. The computer doesn't change, and
what the computer
does also doesn't change (it manipulates
numbers).
It's kind of like
saying that the Seti@Home screensaver
on a PC running Windows should be
patentable because it's
more useful than blanking the screen was in DOS and
there is
useful (some would say) calculation occurring in the more
modern
code. That just doesn't make sense (to me, at
least). ---
'Murphy was
an optimist'
-O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: jesse on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 03:59 PM EDT |
"The general purpose computer does not have a known use
for stuff that hasn't been invented yet."
Sorry false statement.
Computers are used to work out how new electronic structures should work.
They are then used to simulate what those new electronic structures should do if
they work. Then addition mathematics is processed by that simulation.
The results are then used to check and see if the new electronic structures work
as desired.... and the new electronic structures run the mathematics that was
processed on the simulation of the structures...
Eventually, the results of the hardware development are patented.
Now the newly patented hardware can process the mathematics...
It is how all computer processors are designed, and have been for about 50
years. It is how new transistors are designed and patented.
The mathematical descriptions are not. If they were, then I should get a patent
on the infinite speed processor I designed... and everyone working on the
quantum processor would owe me money.
It works in the mathematics....
BTW, this is directly equivalent to the perpetual motion machine.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: PolR on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 05:37 PM EDT |
The general purpose computer does not have a known use
for stuff
that hasn't been invented yet. By your argument,
there can be no new process,
since they are all new uses of
molecules, which can be used to do anything
anyone ever
thinks of in the future. That's just not how the
statute
works.
Here I feel we have to split the discussion between
a machine patent and a process patent.
The argument is that the machine has
all the structure to compute all possible programs because it has the structure
to execute all instructions in any combination. This doesn't imply no process is
patentable. This is an argument about the capabilities of the machine and
whether a new machine is invented.
If we want to discuss process patents
then we need to inquire which process. I can see a few possibilities
here.
In a computer there is an instruction cycle running. This is the
process by which to computer executes. This is the process which is physically
implemented. If the process is meant to patent the activity of electrons in a
computer, ie the process by which the machine operates, the instruction cycle is
the only process which is physically present. No new process is being
invented.
Perhaps the process claim has limitations where the bits carry
some meaning. This is different from the process by which the computer operates.
Meaning is not part of machine structure and the symbols are abstraction
different from the physical representations. Then the process is defined at a
more abstract level, disjointed from machine structure. This is claiming
mathematical language with associated meanings. The instruction cycle is a
universal algorithm and the symbols are manipulated according to this algorithm.
For example if the claim is of the form (a) some human gather data and input
them, (b) the computer computes, (c) the computer produces an output for the
human, then implementation is nothing more than the mathematical algorithm
limited to a field of use.
One point is that machine patents and process
patents are not interchangeable because there are processes which are not the
process by which the machine executes. Another point is that in the above
scenario the relationship between computer and utility is not causal. It is
semantical. This means the process is an abstraction different from the process
by which the machine executes.
But then there is another kind of process to
consider. If the method includes something like the rubber curing step of the
Diehr patent then in includes something more that the algorithm.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: ThrPilgrim on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 07:29 PM EDT |
I have written and published her
e a computer program that, given sufficient time and memory, will produce as
it's output every computer program ever in every computer programming
language designed or yet to be designed throughout eternity. It will even
produce it's self as one possible output
As a prof of concept I suggest
you run it for a few hours and run the output through a brainf*ck interpreter
All will correctly compile and some may even do something useful
I am
still waiting on someone to produce a machine that can create every physical
object ever. And that's why software should not be Patented because all it is is
counting and picking the number that does what you want when fed to the
particular piece of computer hardware you are targeting
Of cause waiting
for your particular number to appear as output may take you longer than you are
prepared to wait so computer programmers have developed ways of seeding my
program with a number which they hope will do the job and if it does not do so
then doing computations on their seed number to produce a new seed for my
program. This process we call debugging ---
Beware of him who would
deny you access to information for in his heart he considers himself your
master. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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