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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 15 2012 @ 04:19 PM EDT |
Only hard math is patentable, and because all math is hard for lawyers, all math
is patentable.
QED
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 15 2012 @ 07:00 PM EDT |
I'm going to be optimistic and say that this ruling really means that the
Federal Circuit Court has realize dthe error of its ways and they are trying to
fix the situation without contradicting themselves.
They could try to bail themselves out of this mess by saying that only things
that are NP but not P are patentable. That would likely contradict their
previous ruling, but they could just claim they were misinformed before.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Gringo_ on Monday, October 15 2012 @ 07:20 PM EDT |
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| Authored by: Tkilgore on Monday, October 15 2012 @ 08:34 PM EDT |
The decision is striving (yet again) for a means to decide which software is
patentable and which is not. Unfortunately, their new criterion makes just as
little sense as the old decision that new software makes a "new
machine," or, if that is possible, even less sense than that old decision.
The problem with this new decision is that any distinction between what is
possible to do in mental steps, or with pencil and paper, as opposed to the
"hard" or "complex" mathematics will have everything to do
with the hardware. Otherwise, the "hard" or "complex"
mathematics becomes merely impossible on the grounds of being totally out of
human reach, in practical terms. Presumably, even our federal court system tends
to agree (at least on its better days) that the impossible falls outside of the
realm of patentability.
If a problem has an obvious procedure for its solution, then the procedure is
obvious. It makes no difference whether the actual solution of the problem can
actually be carried out. If it would take ten million steps to reach the
solution and there is no machine which will do those ten million steps in any
reasonable time frame, then we humans can only dream about having the solution
in hand. But once there is a machine which we know can do the job, it is only
necessary to give the machine the known method of solution and press a button.
The difference between "easy" versus "too long or complex"
on the one side or "easy" versus "impossible in practical
terms" on the other side is the hardware. The difference is not the
software which does not run on the non-existent machine or runs on the existing
machine. No, the difference comes down to having a good enough machine.
And as everyone knows the hardware was already patentable, has duly been
patented, and various companies have been making a lot of money off of
inventing, patenting, and manufacturing that hardware. Very few actually
begrudge them that money, either. But now we have the machines, don't we? So the
next thing is to patent using them?[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Tkilgore on Monday, October 15 2012 @ 11:16 PM EDT |
The patent in question is a patent upon monitoring the credit card transactions
of an individual in order to detect potential fraud -- obviously, with the use
of a computer. As I understand the article, the CAFC has decided to uphold said
patent, and their reasoning was that it is too hard for anyone to carry out such
monitoring and comparison of recent transactions without the use of a computer.
Well, I did not know until I read this article that such a process has been the
subject of a patent. But here is an actual experience of mine from last summer:
On June 25 my wife and I left home with a round-trip ticket to Stockholm,
returning a month later. Two air tickets Atlanta to Stockholm. I don't buy air
tickets to Europe every day. But no problem.
While in Sweden, I bought round trip tickets to Helsinki. No problem.
In Helsinki, I bought round trip train tickets to St. Petersburg to go to a
mathematics conference. No problem.
No credit card problems anywhere on the trip. Hotel bills, restaurant bills, no
problem.
But when we got home in late July we went to a local Publix supermarket to
restock on groceries. We had shopped there many times, though obviously not in
the previous month. My credit card transaction was rejected. Thinking it might
be some technical problem with the swiping machine, I tried again. Then I had to
use a different card to pay for the groceries.
The next day, I went to the credit union which was the local issuer of the card
and asked what the problem was and whether it would continue. Their response
after checking:
"Two attempted transactions at Publix supermarket yesterday were flagged by
a fraud detection service as potentially fraudulent."
I said, "Yes. We just got home from spending a month in Europe, where we
had no problems using the card. The two attempted transactions at Publix were
done by me, trying to pay for groceries at a store where we have shopped many
times in the past. Please fix this."
Response: "Well, it is obviously a problem related to the way the software
works. We will make sure that the local Publix is whitelisted for you."
Boy, that is some really fine software, isn't it?[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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