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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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software improves the machine.
Authored by: cjk fossman on Thursday, July 19 2012 @ 09:44 PM EDT
And I claim that switching on a light bulb improves the bulb;
therefore I should be able to patent it.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Maybe - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 20 2012 @ 10:03 AM EDT
    • Maybe - Authored by: cjk fossman on Friday, July 20 2012 @ 03:31 PM EDT
      • Maybe - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 20 2012 @ 05:21 PM EDT
software improves the machine.
Authored by: PolR on Thursday, July 19 2012 @ 09:48 PM EDT
If a CD of music doesn't improve the CD player why pay for it?

Payment is not proof that the machine is improved. We may pay for contents.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Think of a video display ...
Authored by: nsomos on Friday, July 20 2012 @ 12:45 AM EDT
Would you be improving a video display by displaying
something new and novel on it? Would the video display
be a new machine based on displaying something new?

The video display was designed and manufactured to
display any possible image according to its specifications.

No matter how new or novel or useful or any other
attribute, the image displayed may be or have, the
display is not a new machine based on this image
which may have been paid for, and which supposedly
'improves' the display.

Similarly computers are designed and manufactured
to run any software according to their specifications.

Of course in the case of computers, patent lawyers
have bamboozled courts into upholding software patents.
Just because something has not yet been overturned
does NOT make it right.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Not always!
Authored by: tiger99 on Friday, July 20 2012 @ 10:44 AM EDT
I much prefer a bare machine than one loaded with Vista. When you load the software, the energy consumption rises but still nothing useful happens. Not an improvement!

On the other hand, the same machine, the one I am on right now, with Debian or xUbuntu (doubtless others too, but not tried) does improve from something that displays a BIOS message and generates a little bit of heat and noise to something which does very useful things at a brisk pace. But the software is not patented, and only subjected to the minimum of copyright constraints by various licenses.

In many parts of the world, patents are required to be for something useful, so I don't see how something which is useless, or retards the state of the art, should be patentable, so counter-productive UIs and such like, which are in abundance right now (Windoze 8 etc), not useful, should not be patentable.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Nope.
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 20 2012 @ 06:23 PM EDT
Lots and lots of "improvements" are not patentable, including obvious
ones, ones in the prior art, ones caused by more competent use of the
machine....

...suppose you train your workers to run the steel mill better. Does that mean
that you can patent a "new steel mill"? Well, the
business-method-patent bullshitters would say so, but in a sane reality-based
patent system, you can't.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

software improves the machine the way a nail improves a hammer
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, July 22 2012 @ 05:10 PM EDT
and after you hit the nail you have a new hammer!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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