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you're almost right | 335 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Perhaps you can explain
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 05:16 PM EDT

How is math exempted as part of Patent Law?

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

you're almost right
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 05:23 PM EDT
It's true that the real reason these patents are so
offensive is because they're so obviously... obvious. So
why aren't they rejected on that ground?

The difficulty is that obviousness is very difficult to
prove - in fact it's essentially impossible under existing
Federal Circuit standards.

That wouldn't matter if you could toss out all of claim 33
as non-novel. As a PROCESS, it is NOT NOVEL. It describes
exactly the process used for centuries. The ONLY THING
"novel" about Claim 33 is the inventor's assertion that
the process is "tied to a particular machine - i.e. to be
performed ON A COMPUTER". (I don't see that claim in the
patent itself, but that's what the Fed Circuit says.)

(I exaggerate slightly. Claim 33 contains a limitation that
says settlement must be completed at "end of day". Which is
pretty stupid - the process works identically if you settle
instantly. I can see that some big banks doing lots of
mutual transactions would rather settle periodically, but
there's nothing inventive about that either. No, the end-of-
day language is to allow the inventor to pretend that doing
the same process faster on a computer somehow makes a novel
process, since banks generally havent' done one-day
settlement before.)

The idea that a method becomes novel by adding the words "on
a computer" is just sickening.

The idea that I'm spending my time arguing about whether a
business method that's as old as the Roman Empire is novel
is pretty sickening too. It's much wiser to do what the US
did for a couple of centuries, and just say that business
methods aren't patentable.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

35 U.S.C. 101 Inventions patentable
Authored by: Wol on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 05:45 PM EDT
But a process is NOT a LIST of steps. That is a recipe. A process is a SERIES of
steps carried out by someone or something.

I know the distinction sounds silly, but if a person is carrying out those steps
in their head, that is abstract subject matter and unpatentable. And "with
a computer" is an obvious extension, therefore also unpatentable.

Cheers,
Wol

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

35 U.S.C. 101 Inventions patentable
Authored by: cjk fossman on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 05:50 PM EDT
IANAL, and I'm not intimately familiar with the legal
definition of process.

In the non-legal world, though, a process is more than a list
of steps. To qualify as a process, the steps must transform
some input, however defined, into an output, also however
defined.

Perhaps the legal definition is similar.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Confusing how?
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 07:20 PM EDT
OP:
Whether it is a new process or an obvious process is a different question and one that was apparently not at issue.

PLEASE STOP CONFUSING NOVELTY AND OBVIOUSNESS ISSUES WITH PATENTABLE SUBJECT MATTER ISSUES.
I know this is an old argument, but I still don't see the distinction. Particularly § 103 makes me wonder how there could be a distinction.
35 U.S.C. 103 Conditions for patentability; non-obvious subject matter.

(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
How can that not be talking about the patentability of the subject matter? Don't the titles of that section and § 102 ("Conditions for patentability; novelty and loss of right to patent") strongly imply that novelty and non-obviousness are required for patentability?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

35 U.S.C. 101 Inventions patentable
Authored by: PolR on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 08:27 PM EDT
There is more to the law than the plain text of the statute. You forget about
abstract ideas and mathematical algorithms. This is the law too.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

It's not confusion, patent law contains an absurd way to meet those requirements independently
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 09:28 PM EDT
> PLEASE STOP CONFUSING NOVELTY AND OBVIOUSNESS ISSUES WITH PATENTABLE
SUBJECT MATTER ISSUES.

I'm not confused at all confused at the difference between 35 USC 101, 102 &
103. Rather I am aghast that people can do little more than recite standard
computer hardware to claim that they meet the patentable subject matter test,
then come up with something obvious (or non-novel) to do with that computer and
then get a patent.

In short, we hate the patents where the novel/non-obvious part of your patent is
not patentable subject matter and the patentable subject matter has already been
invented. Most often, the entire "patentable subject matter" in the
claims is in fact nothing more than a normal PC, possibly with a database or
internet access. Certainly nothing that has been "invented" under any
reasonable definition. You call us confused because we rebel at that absurd, if
long accepted, point of law, but it has not become any less absurd in the
intervening years.

In this case, we have a literally ancient technique, dating back to Roman times.
By itself, it does not meet 101, but they recite a computer and magically the
patent as a whole is okay now. That is idiotic. The fact that it is,
unfortunately, a well-settled point of law does not make it any less idiotic.
If anything, it points out that this mistake has been allowed to persist for far
too long.

Yes, yes, I know I'm oversimplifying, because there are many other types of
claims (methods, computer readable media, etc.) and tricks to skirt 35 USC 101's
requirements but they all effectively use something they didn't invent to meet
section 101's requirements. So my "confusion" is not confusion at
all, it is rather conscious objection to the present state of affairs.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Wrong denotation
Authored by: jpvlsmv on Wednesday, July 11 2012 @ 10:15 AM EDT
(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.
Think "processed cheese food" rather than "process for making cheese using a computer".

--Joe

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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