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| Authored by: Tolerance on Saturday, February 09 2013 @ 04:50 PM EST |
You ask, "How are you going to determine how long it would
have taken a person to accomplish a task?"
I don't have to. The principle in question says that if a
calculation can be made by a human brain, it's not
patentable. Since no-one can be sure how long an individual
will live (yet, expect a patentable technique one day) the
proper upper bound is the longest human lifespan on record,
say 126 years. And that, I predict, is how a court would
construe the principle as applied to a particular
calculation.
Not the underlying formula, which would remain unpatentable.
That should also illuminate your other point: "... 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?"
The answer would be that the formula would not be
patentable, but any method for calculating a particular case
which would take longer than the longest human lifespan,
would be patentable.
Please see the "other comments" that you mention for some
elaboration.
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Grumpy old man[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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