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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 01 2012 @ 08:14 AM EDT |
The chemical formula that describes a given molecule isn't a
physical object either. The formula isn't patented, the
molecule is.
Likewise, the program isn't patented. Silly as it is, an
otherwise "general purpose" computer executing said program
is. Hence continuance patents "on a mobile device".
Somewhere down the line, we've crossed into the absurd, I
know that. But fixing it isn't easy, and certainly won't be
surgically limited to disallowing "software patents". Making
it look superficially simple doesn't help.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 01 2012 @ 08:40 AM EDT |
Just a thought - time travel, should it get a patent? If so for what?
The idea? Many have thought of it as an idea even though they have no idea how
to implement it. Can't see why having an idea about a broad idea you can't
realistically achieve should get a patent.
The theory? If someone comes up with a theory that supports a realistic
implementation of a time machine. By realistic I mean using human scale amounts
of physical components and energy. I would have thought not.
The design of the time machine? What if it involves no special new parts, just
common of the shelf ones assembled as theory dictates? There is a design but
nothing novel? I can see patents being relevant if there is a jump to some new
non-obvious part but perhaps they'd not even be relevant at this state if there
was nothing novel. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 01 2012 @ 12:39 PM EDT |
Yes. A program can be printed on a t-shirt (and, given the proper hardware, can
actually be executed off the t-shirt.) A car cannot be printed on a t-shirt.
What can be printed on the t-shirt is merely a picture of a car, not the car
itself.
That's the difference between a physical object and a mental concept: a picture
of a program IS a representation of the program, and is just as useful as any
other representation of the program (ASCII file containing C code, binary file
containing IBM 360 machine language, whatever. A picture of a car IS ... a
picture.
You can't drive any kind of representation of a car. You CAN execute any
reasonable representation of a program.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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