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| Authored by: Gringo_ on Sunday, October 14 2012 @ 03:25 PM EDT |
"manufacturers of the systems can enjoy the protections of
not willfully
infringing any patents"
but there is liability for inducement there. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: PolR on Sunday, October 14 2012 @ 04:17 PM EDT |
| I think your analysis omits two important points.
The first one is that
software actually manipulates the symbols. This manipulation is mathematics. I
read your argument about "where the rubber meet the road" as that the
mathematical computation is not patentable but the digital (or abacus)
equivalent of a process for pushing a pencil to make mark of paper might be. I
think this sort of argument is a fairly obvious charade because I think in terms
of symbols. The manipulation of symbols itself is the math and it doesn't matter
which physical form is used to represent them. It doesn't matter which physical
agent pushes the symbols around. The patent is still a patent on manipulating
symbols.
The other important point you omit is meanings. The article asks
this riddle:
Please take a pocket calculator. Now use it to compute
12+26. The result should be 38. Now give some non mathematical meanings to the
numbers, say they are counts of apples. Use the calculator to compute 12 apples
+ 26 apples. The result should be 38 apples. Do you see a difference in the
calculator circuit? Here is the riddle. What kind of non mathematical meanings
must be given to the numbers to make a patent-eligible difference in the
calculator circuit?
This is the kind of question the Federal Circuit is
asking about computers. When I read case law about section 101 patentable
subject matter, I see the court analyze the meanings of the bits to determine
whether the invention is abstract. But at the same I see the court working from
a legal theory where a software patent is actually a hardware invention. Can't
they see this is a contradiction? This is the point of the riddle. The meanings
of the bits is not a hardware component of the machine and it is not influencing
the steps of the computation.
We can rewrite the riddle for an
abacus if you prefer. Software patents typically describe the invention in terms
of the meanings of the data. Your "where the rubber meet the road" argument
fails because meanings are absent from this view but they are present in the
patent.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 14 2012 @ 05:00 PM EDT |
| (no text) [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 14 2012 @ 07:23 PM EDT |
Try bothering to read at least the first dozen lines before replying.
One of the first things the article did was refute your junk argument.
The article basically says:
(1) Software *is* math
(2) Math is unpatentable
therefore
(3) Software is unpatentable.
That is valid and correct.
You retort with:
(1) everything can be *described by* mathematics
therefore
(2) everything would be unpatentable.
Your attempt to equate *is math* with *can be described by math* is laughably
ludicrous.
A method for compressing an image *is* math. Using a computer to compute that
math will actually produce a compressed image. Any software to compress an image
or anything else, *is* math, is *not* and invention, and is *not* a valid
patent.
You certainly can write some math *describing* a ham sandwich making method, but
using a computer to compute that math will *not* actually get you a ham
sandwich. A method to make a ham sandwich is a physical process, it is *not*
math, and it *is* patentable. *Describing* that method with math is a fruitless
exercise, and it is a fruitless argument.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Ian Al on Monday, October 15 2012 @ 06:03 AM EDT |
You posit a computer language algorithm that symbolises abacus beads in a frame
and the arithmetic logic employed in using it.
What happens when the algorithm is executed by the processor? As far as I can
see, it just sits there being a symbol of an abacus.
If you added the ability of the computer operator to symbolically move the beads
and see the result on the screen, then the logic of calculation stays with the
operator and not with the algorithm.
If the beads are not displayed, but the operator inputs values to be used in
computation and a screen displays the result in numeric symbols, then the result
is a simple calculator. The fact that an abacus has been modelled rather than
the processor arithmetic instructions being used, is concealed from the
operator.
It is just an unconventional math algorithm for arithmetic calculations. Why
would an algorithm to do arithmetic and inspired by the abstract logic of using
an abacus be patentable?
---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid![ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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