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| Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, October 24 2012 @ 05:34 AM EDT |
I seriously doubt those slot machines let you move the spindles by
touching the screen.
Come to that, Apple don't allow you to move
the document by touching the screen. I referred to Magritte's painting with a
title that translates to 'This is not a pipe' in a previous story. He was saying
that he had painted an image of a pipe and not made the pipe,
itself.
If you can patent what Apple put on a screen, why cannot
Ferrari patent the performance and handling of their sports cars when
incorporated into a games console? You can control the car with a driving wheel
and you can see when you have hit the edge of the track.
Better still,
when an invention is in software, one can just patent the functionality (Fonar
v. GE). So, I will patent the matter transporter. It would be hard to sue Star
Trek because they don't infringe the 'Transporter Control' claims. However, any
space fiction game that implements matter transportation under control of the
player will infringe on all of the functional claims in my patent.
I
think I will patent the setting of the time on a software digital clock. I just
patent the up and down buttons changing the digital numbers. They could be
touched by a finger, a mouse or a touch pad. I will add the physical swiping of
the actual number cylinders up and down using a touchscreen. There isn't an
operating system in the world that does not have a clock feature that does not
infringe my pending patent.
There is nothing in the Apple patents
involving touch and a display screen that are any more than my proposed patents
on mechanical functions
The real issue is that neither the law nor the
courts have given a definition of the word 'machine'. Process, method and
transformation of materials have been defined by the courts in court opinions,
but the courts have failed to define 'machine' in the same way. That has lead
them on flights of fancy about making a new machine by putting software in an
old computer.
All of my proposed patents, and many of the Apple
touchscreen patents, are device patents. They are patents on machines according
to U.S.C. 35 § 101 because they do not meet the court definition of other
patentable inventions of method, process and transformation of
materials.
There is no definition of 'machine' in § 100 and, in that
situation, the courts say that the dictionary or generally understood meaning
should be used. The invented machines referred to by the law and the
Constitution are physical devices and therefore the definitions for nouns must
be used.
The most general I could find was:
n 1: any mechanical or
electrical device that transmits or modifies energy to perform or assist in the
performance of human tasks
The other definitions were the physical
science definitions of a machine as a device and ones that give people the
attributes of a machine as in 'at work, he was just a machine'. They do not meet
the requirements of an invented device as demanded by the
Constitution.
It seems to me that most patents referring to things
displayed on a computer screen under the control of a data input device are
accepted by the USPTO as meeting the definition of 'machine' whereas they are
modelling devices on a computer screen.
As with games machine
simulations, they are modelling the behaviour of a real or imagined machines,
controlling them with computer data input devices and displaying the simulation
on a display device. These modelled or simulated machines are not limited to the
laws of physics and the laws of nature and are not, therefore, inventions of
machines. They are simulations of abstract ideas of devices in the software
programmer's head.
Just to drive the point home, simulations or models
of devices are not real devices, even if they simulate real existing machines.
Neither do they meet the court definitions of 'method', 'process' or
'transformation of materials'. They are abstract ideas when considering them
under patent law.
---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid! [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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