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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 26 2013 @ 12:54 PM EDT |
Using a computer : makes it, at a minimum, a new use for an old
machine. As far as the "old machine" is concerned, it is still
performing the same use for which it was designed: the processing of data
provided to it and adjusting the state of its outputs based upon that data.
Additionally, its a new machine.
It is the same
machine, still performing the function for which it was designed. Changing the
software on a computer no more produces a new computer than changing the album
on a stereo produces a new stereo.
Still further it might be a new
process.
Here I might agree. However, what is being processed
should not itself be abstract. The courts are finally starting to realize this
with, for example, business method patents. The majority of the patents being
granted for software processes -- and in particular the patents referenced in
this case -- deal with results that are abstract.
That an image on a
screen represents a "lock" is just an arbitrary assignment of meaning to a
particular arrangement of outputs of the computer. Similarly for the items in a
"drop-down list", or even the location and appearance of that list when the
computer attains a certain state. There is no physicality to the concept of a
list of phone numbers; it is an abstraction of the state of certain outputs of
the computer. Its only meaning comes from an agreed upon interpretation of what
those outputs signify. Software does not care about the meaning, nor does it
ever control the meaning. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 26 2013 @ 01:19 PM EDT |
The task was to identify a single patent-eligible subject matter that could
be done on a computer.
This particular response is a fail because it does
not do so.
Required:
One single example of patent eligible subject
matter (in other words, non abstract) which can be done "on" a computer.
It
can't be that hard - out of those hundreds of thousands of software patents,
there must be one.
RAS[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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