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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 13 2012 @ 09:27 AM EDT |
"From the The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences review of the
Bilski patent:
In the examiner's answer, it is stated that "Applicant['s admission]
that the steps of the method need not be performed on a computer... coupled with
no disclosure of a computer or any other means to carry out the invention, make
it clear that the invention is not in the technological arts". The examiner
states that the only way to perform the steps without a computer is by human
means, and, therefore, the method is not technological because it does not
"improve human efficiency" as required by the definition of
"technology". Thus, the examiner's answer relies primarily on a
"technological arts" test.
Machines, manufactures, and man-made compositions of matter represent
tangible physical things invented by man and seldom raise a § 101 issue, except
for the "special case" of claims to general purpose machines (usually
computers) that merely perform abstract ideas (e.g., mathematical algorithms),
where the fact that the claim is nominally directed to a "machine"
under § 101 does not preclude it from being held nonstatutory.
Machine-implemented methods also seldom have a problem being considered a
process under § 101 because a "process" includes a new use for a known
machine, § 100(b), again except for the "special case" of
machine-implemented abstract ideas. However, "non-machine-implemented"
methods, because of their abstract nature, present § 101 issues.
So, Bilski might have transformed their abstract idea by putting it
on-a-computer. However, the examiner noted that this does not work 'for the
"special case" of machine-implemented abstract ideas'.
Let's consider the examiner's view that the Applicants had to concede that the
process 'need not be performed on a computer'. Here is a part of the process
2. perform a Monte Calrlo simulation across all deals at all locations in
the book over the last 20 years of weather patterns and establish the payoffs
from each deal under each historical weather pattern;
3. assume that the summed payoffs are distributed
Ꞑ(µ,Ỽ); [closest available character substitution);
4. perform one-tail tests to determine the marginal likelihood of losing
money on the deal and the marginal likelihood of retaining at least the design
margin included in the initial evaluation of Equation (4);
I don't know what your mathematics skills are, but I would not be able to do
this analysis in my lifetime with a pencil, paper and a filing cabinet full of
data. But then, I am not a lawyer.
The Bilski invention was for use on a computer. That is the only way it
qualifies as a 'useful' invention under the law. Further, at all levels short of
the Supreme Court, it is claimed that the invention patent might have been
redeemed if it had passed the machine or transformation test by having the words
'on a system with a processor and memory' in a claim.
The text from the appeals board shows that the definition of 'process' in §
100:
(b) The term "process" means process, art, or method, and includes
a new use of a known process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or
material.
has been criminally abused so as to find the known machine an infringement, in
its own right, of the process patent. A process, as highlighted in Bilski, is a
novel series of steps taken as a whole (Diehr) done by someone, with, or
without, employing a known process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter,
or material."
I'm not sure what this rant is about.
This thread began when you said Bilski was about computers.
I said, no, it wasn't about computers. The claims don't mention a computer and
Bilski did not assert that a computer was involved.
The portion of your rant pasted above only confirms this. I will paste from
your quotation of the record one more time:"In the examiner's answer, it is
stated that "Applicant['s admission] that the steps of the method need not
be performed on a computer... coupled with no disclosure of a computer or any
other means to carry out the invention"
The Examiner also said, based on Bilski's admissions, that there is not computer
in the claims and no computer in the specification.
So, my comment at the start of this thread is confirmed in triplicate. Bilski
was not about computers.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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