The claim is not to any form of printed matter! The claim is to the
printing press. And I have certainly gone through life believing that a
printing press is some sort of machine. It is surely a machine in
the same way that a programmed computer, with all the programs and data
in memory and in storage units at any particular point in time, is a
machine. A machine that operates in accordance with the laws of
physics, as taught in particular in courses on electrical
engineering. Some software developers, blog posters with too much time on
their hands etc. might kick up a load of irritating nonsense about what is a
program, what is data, and why programs are just data, with all this stuff about
universal machines, with discussion of Turing machines, lambda-calculus and the
like. But such smoke and mirrors cannot obscure the fact that the patent claim
covers what is claimed, and it is clear that the thing being claimed in
this case is a particular type of machine, namely a printing press. And
no amount of sophistry can disguise the fact that Section 101 of the statute
explicitly states that machines are patent-eligible subject matter.
We
explained all this in Alappat. Those people harping on about
Benson, Flook etc. really are slow learners!
Moreover, the
claim scope does not include all printing presses. The claim limitations
do restrict the scope of the claim in a meaningful fashion. The printing press
does not infringe the claim when first delivered. Nor does it infringe the
claim when configured to print War and Peace. But the moment that it is
configured to print a text containing sufficiently many of the listed words, the
configured printing press becomes an infringing device. This might happen, even
if the printing press is configured to print a commentary on The Lord of the
Rings that might be exempt from copyright infringement under fair use
provisions. And the inventor of the claimed device (the configured printing
press) is entitled to royalties and/or an injunction.
“Know thine enemy.”
In this instance, I
suggest that the referent of the claim is the printing press, which is
surely a real-world object, with more than enough durability and solidity to
satisfy anyone's requirements. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
