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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 11 2013 @ 06:32 PM EDT |
How fast something is done should not be patentable, I agree.
It is when a process can be done with substantial, sub-second timing and
precision, based on external factors, that the idea may become patentable. Such
complexity and reaction time would overwhelm a human, even with a really nice
calculator.
We need to stick with, "Software is Math", rather than try to finesse
a close, but flawed, analogy.
-- Alma[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 13 2013 @ 11:11 PM EDT |
"Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process,
machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new
and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent
therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this
title."
Genuinely asking here, I'm not 'pro-patents' but I'm not
sure I'm 'anti-patents' either:
Here are a few inventions.
1) a method to control an aircraft in flight using foot
pedals.
2) A method to control the aircraft using various dials
which need to be set according to a series of mathematical
calculations done by hand, which allows you to pilot an
aircaft flying at 50 km/hr
3) A method to control an aircraft by doing the above
calculations faster, on a computer, which allows you to
pilot craft going at 200 km/hr
4) A method to control an aircraft better, by doing 3)
faster on a better computer, which allows you to pilot craft
going at Mach 5.
Is not #3 a new and useful improvement over #2? Isn't #4 a
useful improvement over #3 ? Without the 'invention' of #4,
we couldn't have gotten to the moon.
If the ineligibility test is only 'is it just a speed
improvement over what humans can do' then couldn't we find
any number of inventions which do something a human can do,
but faster and better and more reliably?
(some examples which will probably be shot down by people
missing the point)
Isn't a sewing machine just something which can sew faster
and better than a human?
Isn't a fan just a machine which twirls a blade faster and
better than a human?
Would a search engine be 'useful' if it took 50 days to give
you results and half of them were wrong? Isn't it a new and
useful improvement on the method of looking up books in a
library if we can do it in less than a second rather than in
10 minutes?
What I'm trying to say is that at some point a speed
increase breaks a barrier and allows a slow process to
become a 'useful' 'invention'.
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