I like the way you put, better than mine.
But several things done with computers could be patentable.
In the are of machine control, it is possible that the
human synapses etc would not make it possible for a human
to do the control thing, therefore a computer (and its
software, of course) is the only possibility.
Business methods, etc. are clearly not in this realm. Just
because you want to fire old Fred, the dusty bookeeper,
that does his job at the rate of 2 customers per minute,
does not make patentable a computer software that can
do 20,000 customers per minute.
But say, a flight control system where a thrust vector
of a fraction of a second would not even be discernible
to a human, but, in fact is essential to, say, a lunar
lander or a mars rover, or a rocket launch, or a
simulated bird where every 'feather' is tied to a sensor,
*might* qualify.
I always figured it thusly: Remove the Computer. Is the
end result can still be made to work, then it is not
patentable. By computer, I mean a general purpose
computer, like a Mac, PC or Linux running on a stock
computer and peripherals. Special hardware that is not
off the shelf, but created --and programmed-- specifically
for the purpose are a different animal.
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argee[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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