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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, October 13 2012 @ 04:10 AM EDT |
You start out saying 'they are not patentable subject
matter' and conclude with 'they are if it is novel'. These
are two completely different things. Which is it?
If recipes are not patentable subject matter, then it
doesn't matter if the invention is novel or non-obvious, no
patent will be granted. If they are patentable subject
matter, you then need to check for usefulness, novelty and
non-obviousness.
Most recipes would fail the 'non-obvious' test. But a
combination of barbecue sauce, baking powder, cow dung and
arsenic would (probably be) non-obvious, and if (by some
miracle) it created something useful (tasty), then it could
possibly be patented.
Is there a particular ruling where recipes are declared non-
patentable subject matter?
The point I was trying to make is that Software is not like
contracts, it is more like a recipe.
But most of all, software is like software. It is self-
defining, and I think that attempting to categorise it under
the headings of other things have been unsuccessful.
I don't think that there is anything that is necessarily
unique to software patents, as opposed to say mechanical
engineering patents. As far as I know, the same shenanigans
could be pulled with other patents. We either just don't yet
know how to write a 'good' software patent, or various parts
of the patent system just weren't meant to deal with the
software world. But a blanket ban on all software patents
because we haven't worked out those kinds is unwarranted and
overreacting.
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