Alternatively...
I wrote a Python script a couple of days ago, called
benson.py:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import
sys
bcd = [int(arg) for arg in sys.argv[1:]]
while len(bcd)
> 1:
msdd = bcd.pop(0)
bcd[0] = bcd[0] + msdd * 10
intVal = bcd[0]
print '%d = %s'
% (intVal, bin(intVal))
This Python script computes the
value of a polynomial p(x) at x = 10 by Horner's method, which apparently has
prior art going back well before Horner at the start of the 19th century to the
works of ancient and medieval Chinese mathematicians. When the coefficients of
this polynomial p(x) are decimal digits between 0 and 9, the simple while
loop, when run on standard computer hardware carrying out arithmetic operations
in a standard fashion using binary arithmetic, converts the binary-coded-decimal
whose digits are stored in the array bcd to an integer, which is of course
stored in pure binary. Running those six lines of code sets up a process in the
computer's registers that would almost certainly have infringed Benson's Claim
13 (see the Gottschalk v.
Benson Supreme Court case, opinion here on Google Scholar) had
Benson's patent issued and been in force.
The above, when stored in a
computer file, makes the storage medium a "computer-readable medium storing
computer program product for causing a computer to [carry out said infringing
Benson method]". But it is surely expressive material which, when printed
out on paper, is unpatentable under the "printed matter doctrine". [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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