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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 11 2013 @ 12:56 AM EDT |
Sensors, servos, hydraulic actuators, all can be simulated
arithmetically.
Different filters, delays, etc are use to simulate these
components. Then when
the time comes you replace the simulation block with the
actual sensors.
This has seemed to me to be the fatal flaw in the
"software=math, therefore unpatentable" argument.
A planetary gear is
definitely patentable, if it is a new type and non-obvious.
But its
operation can be described in terms of math, and simulated on a computer.
So
what separates the gear from the math and the program? I'd answer that the math
is a description which was not invented but discovered, while the device was
invented...
but then, did RMS write GCC and Emacs, or did he discover them? Did
Kernigan and Ritchie discover C or invent it? At the instruction level, software
is obviously math; but when you get into higher-level functionality, the analogy
to devices becomes more apt than saying it's pure math.
But if there's a
difference I'm missing, please point it out. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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