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| Authored by: cricketjeff on Sunday, December 30 2012 @ 07:27 PM EST |
Water isn't particuarly wet, try washing a duck without soap ...
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There is nothing in life that doesn't look better after a good cup of tea.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 30 2012 @ 08:09 PM EST |
Your statement that "An unaided human can't output nearly the torque of a
steam engine" and my earlier statement that an unaided human can't land the
space shuttle because he can't think fast enough?
Nobody has yet hit on the correct answer, which is that a patent on the steam
engine is analogous to a patent on the computer itself.
However, the steam engine (and subsequent engine) patents led to a lot of
patents on related things. Rack and pinion steering, for example, is a
technology which has a lot of patents, is really pretty obvious, at least in
hindsight, and is only useful if you can go at high speed.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 31 2012 @ 06:16 PM EST |
It has NOTHING TO DO with whether a human could do it
better.
Actually, you're illustrating the problem rather nicely.
What is reasonably in the realm of patent for a steam engine
is a specific arrangement of water tanks, heating elements,
valves, and condensers that create a device to manufacture
torque. That's why a steam engine is patentable, and why a
different design for a steam engine that uses a different
arrangement of elements, pipes, and valves would not run
afoul of that patent.
The problem with software patents is that they're patents on
the CONCEPT of generating torque AT ALL. This is the
handwavy bit of a "general purpose computer" - oh, so you
rotate a shaft like this and you get rotary power out. And
you do it using steam!
Or, alternately, they're patents with claims on ideas that
have few reasonable alternatives or are obvious, which fail
the novelty requirement. For example, my steam engine uses
valves to control the steam to only flow in one direction!
So you can build a steam engine, but not use anything that
looks like a valve (if the valve design is sufficiently
innovative, you might patent that separately, but that's a
nother discussion.
Or a software patent can improperly extending a non-
innovative detail to create exclsionary effects. For
example, "Oh, sure, you can make a steam engine using a
different arrangement of valves. But you can't use water!
My patented steam engine uses water, so yours can't, because
my patent has a claim involving water. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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