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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 14 2012 @ 08:05 PM EDT |
... and it is nonsense.
Consider the following claim:
A
method of modeling a mathematical equation by the steps of:
(A) Selecting a
mathematical equation to be modeled;
(B) Providing a fluid analog computer
including a fluid circuit having at least one reservoir unit (RU) and at least
one friction unit (FU);
(C) Providing a terminal reservoir unit (TRU) in
fluid communication with said fluid circuit and having a valved outlet;
(D)
Adding an initial first volume having a potential head to said RU and monitoring
and observing changes in said potential head with time as a first
variable;
(E) Selecting a configuration from looped, series, parallel
configuration, and combinations thereof;
(F) Arranging said fluid circuit is
connected to a plurality of fluid circuits arranged in said
configuration;
(G) Adding predetermined forcing functions to predetermined
RU;
(H) Providing predetermined at least one TRU with a valved outlet;
and
(I) Monitoring changes in potential head, pressure and flow over time in
said plurality fluid circuits as a modeled solution to the system of
mathematical equations;
(J) Monitoring the change in the liquid level in
said TRU with time as a second variable; wherein
(K) Modeling said solution
to the differential mathematical equation as said changes in said first variable
and said second variable with time.
This isn't the most
elegant claim I've ever seen, and I've written in the meaning of several
acronyms which are defined in the patent but not in this claim. But it will
serve the purpose at hand.
Please recall the objection mentioned
at the beginning of this article, that some people think we say software is
described by mathematics. You should now see more precisely why we are not
arguing that. The instruction cycle is not a description of the computer. It is
what the computer does. We are arguing that software is mathematics because what
the computer does is a mathematical computation according to a mathematical
algorithm.
Yet the computer described in this claim has little
to do with the random access stored program computers or register machines of
which you speak. Should the determination of patentable subject matter depend
upon whether a fluidics computer rather than a digital computer is used? And
what if analog-to-digital converters are used to "monitor the changes in
potential head, pressure and flow over time in said plurality fluid circuits?"
Would that make it unpatentable subject matter? What if it just stored the
changes as charges in a bucket-brigade capacitor circuit? Or if it never stored
the changes at all, but used the changes (or absolute values thereof) to control
a rheostat that set a parameter on a rocket, for example? Does it matter that
the "stored program memory" consists of the connection of the fluidics plumbing
rather than a digital program stored in a binary memory?
As I said, the
article is nonsense, either in the sense of being a sophism or a paralogism.
Either way, it is not helpful. That is why I fit into the group of people who
would argue that, if an algorithm is known, then performing it on a computer
makes the "invention" obvious, but it does not make it unpatentable subject
matter.
By the way, the claim recited above comes from U.S. Patent No.
6,223,140, issued April 21, 2001. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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