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| Authored by: PJ on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 04:02 PM EDT |
Mathematics that does stuff is still mathematics,
and math is not supposed to be patentable per se.
You can't invent a category for math that makes it
not math.
That's where law starts to diverge from reality, and
that is what makes folks disrespect it. It takes on
an angels on the head of a pin quality.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 04:05 PM EDT |
"I just think that mathematics that makes a computer do stuff as part of a
process that is useful is not mathematics - it is a process."
That's nonsense. Embedding a piece of mathematics inside a process does not
turn that math into a process -- It's still just math. By itself it should NOT
be patentable. What might deserve to be patentable is the mechanical,
transformational process. Not the piece of math that was used in some way to
control it.
You can patent a *process* of curing rubber that uses a specific mathematical
algorithm as a part of the process. But your patent should only cover that
process, not all other uses of the mathematical algorithm. If someone else
independently discovers the same piece of math, the patent should not prevent
them from using it (unless they are curing rubber with it).
Patenting the mathematical algorithm by itself should be impossible even under
the current rules, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of software patents
which purport to do exactly that.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Wol on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 06:02 PM EDT |
Adding mathematics (programs) to a computer to do "useful stuff" is
fine. And yes, it may be "a process". But unless the computer actually
does something "unusual" in the *physical* realm (like control a
lathe, drive a car, whatever whatever), then that process is expected and
decidedly NON-novel.
"Running software on a computer" is never, ever, a novel process.
Using a computer's i/o to control external hardware most definitely patentable,
but the patentable material is the external hardware, not the maths controlling
it.
Until you show that you "get" this - that it is just not sufficient to
add maths to a piece of hardware to convert that hardware into a new patentable
machine, you'll continue to have a hard time here. Everything you've posted in
response to me so far doesn't give me faith you grok this.
And once you do grok it, you'll see that we have a very CLEAR definition of what
a software patent is, and a very CLEAR understanding of why they are so
damaging.
Cheers,
Wol[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Ian Al on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 06:36 AM EDT |
I just think that mathematics that makes a computer do stuff as part
of a process that is useful is not mathematics - it is a
process.
Every bit of software is a mathematical process. It is a
series of mathematical algorithmic steps that manipulate binary symbols. That's
all a computer does. The processor executes the mathematical instructions it
finds in the software in memory. It saves any binary values that it manipulates
in memory, if the program includes the algorithmic instruction so to
do.
If the software includes the instruction to the processor to save
the binary symbols 1000001 to the memory address for the serial port (it is more
complicated with PCI busses!) then the serial Universal Asynchronous
Receiver/Transmitter (UART) integrated circuit will send that binary value out
over the port and a visual display unit connected to that port via a serial
cable will print the letter 'A' at the point marked by its cursor.
The
computer does not know what it has done. It does not know what 1000001 means to
the VDU. It does not know where the VDU cursor is pointing. It is just following
the mathematical algorithmic processor instruction to save binary symbols to a
memory location at that point in the software. People have the abstract idea
that the computer is printing an 'A' on the VDU. It is a concept. The programmer
was using the ideas of how a VDU works to implement the concept of a computer
printing an 'A' on a VDU.
That's how computers 'do' stuff. Computers no
more display pictures of kittens than a faucet (aka 'tap') fills a bucket. If
one cannot legally patent a 'bucket-filling faucet', but only the general
purpose faucet, then one cannot legally patent a general purpose computer
displaying a picture, playing a tune or 'doing' anything.
However, as
with Diehr or my computer controlled gearbox in another comment, that does not
mean that software executing on a computer cannot be protected as part of a
whole process as long as the invention does not fail under the law like Flook
and Bilski. However, it is the algorithm essential for the process that is
protected and not the software algorithm that contains it.
The software
is always prior art, math algorithms, free speech, standard parts of the
software arts and abstract ideas when considered in isolation and is, thus,
non-patentable subject matter.
---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid! [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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