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Length of time does not alter the fact it's abstract | 267 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Those which take longer than a human lifetime.
Authored by: ThrPilgrim on Saturday, February 09 2013 @ 05:32 AM EST
You're missing something.

The claim is 'done by a human mind'. Nothing says that the mind that starts it
has to be the one that finishes it.

Lawyers are tricky with words. Caveat Emptor.

---
Beware of him who would deny you access to information for in his heart he
considers himself your master.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Length of time does not alter the fact it's abstract
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 09 2013 @ 10:00 AM EST

The latest mersene prime identified is 17 million digits in length.

The math to calculate the mersene prime is very well known. According to the article it took a computer (doesn't say what power) 39 days to confirm the number was a prime.

We're getting to the point where we'll reach such a large number, it will take a normal computer a human lifetime to figure if the value is a prime number.

So by your suggestion:

    A: Even if the math formula is well known, since it would take longer then a persons lifetime to calculate the 17 million digit mersene prime - the math formula is now patentable
and certainly:
    B: Since it'll take a computer longer then a persons lifetime to calculate some soon to be discovered mersene prime - the math formula should certainly be patentable
Seriously? The math formula - well known for confirming a prime number - should now be patentable because we're dealing with numbers a human can't finish in his lifetime?

Sorry: it's still math, it's still abstract! Both being cause to eliminate it from patentability!

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Those which take longer than a human lifetime.
Authored by: OpenSourceFTW on Saturday, February 09 2013 @ 02:19 PM EST
People live for different periods of time, and are productive for different
lengths of time. Also people have different levels of productivity. How are you
going to determine how long it would have taken a person to accomplish a task?
How many people are you going to allow to work at a time? Who is going to make
these determinations (the USTPO? I don't think that's a good idea given their
track record). What happens if a task misses the mark by 1 hour? 1 day? 1 week?

Furthermore, as other comments have stated, what if the formula is extremely
simple (like the formula for Mersenne primes), but very repetitive and thus
takes a long time to get results? Any formula, even the circle area formula,
would then be patentable if you are trying to work with very large values (say
you are trying to compute the area of the milky way galaxy, or the precise
acceleration of a supersonic missile down to several decimals).

Trust me, you don't want to go here. It's would be very messy. Standards have to
be bulletproof and insightful, or clever lawyers will dance around them. You
cannot be vague.

It is much better to stick to the standard and say that if something is
abstract, adding a computing does not make it not abstract, and thus is not
patentable. Software, alone or "with a computer" should not be
patentable.

The exception I would allow is if you are patenting a whole machine: software,
bolts, gears, processor, memory, everything. In this case, someone using the
same software in a different kind of machine would not be infringing. Only if
someone used the same machine with the same kind of software would there be
infringement. This is, I believe, how patents were supposed to work (protect the
whole invention, not little bits of it).

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

This is silly
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 09 2013 @ 08:07 PM EST
Commentators are getting lost in the detail and missing the principle.
Any problem that 'can be done in a human mind' can be passed on to relays of
human minds, each handling a sub-problem ... Many problems can be done in
parallel by many human minds (and if necessary in sequence as above). If the
(abstract) principle is known implementation is merely a mechanical exercise.
The logic behind the Mersenne prime is mistaken. Taking the proponents argument
then only the particular Mersenne prime would be patentable, not the process of
calculating Mersenne primes in general. But that a particular number is a
Mersenne prime is a law of nature ...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Those which take longer than a human lifetime.
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 11 2013 @ 10:09 AM EST
I appologize if the remarks that follow offend anyone. But
I've briefly skimmed over a lot of the comments in this
particular thread and everything you seem to be saying is
basically just an "excuse" for why software should be
patentable subject matter. First of all, i don't care what
you think. The way the law is currently stated, software
should not be patentable... you addressed several ludicrous
tangents such as god create math and big bang theories and
software that takes longer to calculate than a human life
time... etc etc... look, you can believe what you want, but
not a single bit of that wishful thinking is currently
represented in american law. so it's all just wet dream
logic to express what "you think" the law should mean.

I could have said all that in a much nicer way. but your
arguing is borderline trollish with ludicrous assertions and
i haven't had my coffee yet.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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