The Supreme Court - Parker v. Flook:Our approach to respondent's
application is, however, not at all inconsistent with the view that a patent
claim must be considered as a whole. Respondent's process is unpatentable under
101, not because it contains a mathematical algorithm as one component, but
because once that algorithm is assumed to be within the prior art, the
application, considered as a whole, contains no patentable invention. Even
though a
phenomenon of nature or mathematical formula may be well known, an
inventive application of the principle may be patented. Conversely, the
discovery of such a phenomenon cannot support a patent unless there is some
other inventive concept in its application.
Here it is absolutely
clear that respondent's application contains no claim of patentable invention.
The chemical processes involved in catalytic conversion of hydrocarbons are well
known, as are the practice of monitoring the chemical process variables, the use
of alarm limits to trigger alarms, the notion that alarm limit values must be
recomputed and readjusted, and the use of computers for "automatic
monitoring-alarming." Respondent's application simply provides a new and
presumably better method for calculating alarm limit values. If we assume that
that method was also known, as we must under the reasoning in Morse, then
respondent's claim is, in effect, comparable to a claim that the formula 2(pi)r
can be usefully applied in determining the circumference of a wheel. As the
Court of Customs and Patent Appeals has explained, "if a claim is directed
essentially to a method of calculating, using a mathematical formula, even if
the solution is for a specific purpose, the
claimed method is
nonstatutory."
The Supreme Court opined that, following the Morse
case, all phenomenon of nature and mathematical formulae must be assumed to be
within the prior art.--- Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid! [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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