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The problem is that math isn't "invented", it's "discovered". Hence why it's traditionally been un-patentable.

by fryguy 15y ago

Detrus 15y ago
These sound like silly distinctions. I'm sure lawyers have good rhetoric to back themselves up but maintaining the pace of innovation should be prioritized above their greatest arguments. If there was an opportunity to redesign the patent system, some sort of economic framework should be used instead of the legal one.
- fryguy 15y ago
  Well there is a fundamental difference between the two. The light bulb was invented, was lightning was discovered. It already existed, and was merely discovered. It was discovered that there are are infinite primes. It was discovered that f'(x) = 2x when f(x) = x^2. It was discovered that when p is prime, (a * x) === b mod p, x is unique mod p (unless a=0, or something else). Eventually you get to things like cryptography where you can apply some simple things that were discovered into a process, and come up with encryption. If you go back to mathematics and consider (Newton's method)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtons_method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtons_method], that seems like it might have been invented, but it's derived from a series of discoveries, and hence is considered a discovery rather than an invention. If you used the Newton-Rhapson method to calculate the zero of a function in code somewhere, you should feel safe that it's not protected by a patent (not to mention it was discovered ages ago). Since computer science is applied mathematics, and mathematics are discovered rather than invented, it makes sense that it should be protected as well. I'm not the best at explaining things, but hopefully you can understand the difference.
  - thehotdon 15y ago
    The light bulb was invented? How do you know Edison didn't just dig the first one out of the ground and tell everyone he invented it? Before Edison discovered the first light bulb, would it have been impossible to build one? Were the materials simply non-existent? It's all discovery.
  - Detrus 15y ago
    It was discovered that light has some weak magnetic properties, then an actual experiment was done that discovered these magnetic properties were strong enough to generate useful amounts of electricity. Patents were issued. This is just semantic wordplay. I bet the legal literature is the same way. Even if we somehow fit these clunky classifications to reality, we would be no closer to designing a sensible patent system.
    - fryguy 15y ago
      Were the patents issued for using that form of electricity, or rather for the contraption built to harness that electricity?
      - Detrus 15y ago
        Don't know. They haven't built a practical contraption yet, hopefully it's some piece of their experimental setup, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's math. After all, they do issue patents for what some describe as "8th grade algebra" in software. Don't worry, I understand the semantic distinction when the case is clear cut. Lead is a discovery, lead pipes are an invention. Addition is a discovery, arabic numerals are an invention. (by today's standards)
jacobolus 15y ago
> The problem is that math isn't "invented", it's "discovered". This is a quite controversial philosophical claim you are making. Don’t be too hasty to state such claims emphatically. By reasoning surely similar to your own (unstated) reasoning, any formal model for anything is “discovered” rather than “invented”.
Dn_Ab 15y ago
It's not that clear cut though. I've been thinking about this question since I was about 9 and the conclusion I came to as I stepped off that circle is that the distinction is meaningless because they are dual to one another and hence not separable. But if I had to choose I would say everything is a discovery of how to put or see a series of things in a certain way. Consider the light bulb. It could be described that someone discovered that if you run so much current through this material you get light. And we can ask the same questions about math. Is the matrix a discovery or an invention? What about zero or logarithms or Aleph Null or electricity? The invention part is the series of steps that take you to the discovery, if these steps arrive at a construct then this construct is the invention. Invention is the centering of discovery to the human condition but everything is already there so to speak. Things like zero or a matrix or complex numbers or quaternions or taylor polynomials or the combustion engine are inventions or tools to allow us to see, do and think about certain things. I am not for software patents because they are used in the opposite way than they were intended. Patents were an incentive to get people to share but now they are used as a tool to stop people from sharing and creating. People associate inventions with physical things and material costs but really every reproducible invention implicitly contains an algorithm and that is what the patent is on. The thing with software is that there are no material costs and so the constructs can be built and arrived at with pure thought like in maths (which makes sense since algorithms are about math in a constructive universe). Here the algorithm and the result are one and the same where as in the old world the algorithm yielded the result. This means that a lot of its constructs can be arrived at with trivial costs and then hoarded and used as ammunition by better captilized entities. Counterproductive. In areas where costs are non trivial and barriers are high then patents make sense as a motive to share and incentivize. But information moves so well now that the old time scales no longer make sense. And in particular, because like maths nearly all software are constructs of thought progress is made very rapidly via composition of pure concepts and so the time scale must be zero or the opposite effect - one of anti progress - is had when patents are applied.

The problem is that math isn't "invented", it's "discovered". Hence why it's traditionally been un-patentable.

by fryguy 15y ago

The problem is that math isn't "invented", it's "discovered". Hence why it's traditionally been un-patentable.

These sound like silly distinctions. I'm sure lawyers have good rhetoric to back themselves up but maintaining the pace of innovation should be prioritized above their greatest arguments. If there was an opportunity to redesign the patent system, some sort of economic framework should be used instead of the legal one.

fryguy 15y ago
Well there is a fundamental difference between the two. The light bulb was invented, was lightning was discovered. It already existed, and was merely discovered. It was discovered that there are are infinite primes. It was discovered that f'(x) = 2x when f(x) = x^2. It was discovered that when p is prime, (a * x) === b mod p, x is unique mod p (unless a=0, or something else). Eventually you get to things like cryptography where you can apply some simple things that were discovered into a process, and come up with encryption. If you go back to mathematics and consider (Newton's method)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtons_method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtons_method], that seems like it might have been invented, but it's derived from a series of discoveries, and hence is considered a discovery rather than an invention. If you used the Newton-Rhapson method to calculate the zero of a function in code somewhere, you should feel safe that it's not protected by a patent (not to mention it was discovered ages ago). Since computer science is applied mathematics, and mathematics are discovered rather than invented, it makes sense that it should be protected as well. I'm not the best at explaining things, but hopefully you can understand the difference.
- thehotdon 15y ago
  The light bulb was invented? How do you know Edison didn't just dig the first one out of the ground and tell everyone he invented it? Before Edison discovered the first light bulb, would it have been impossible to build one? Were the materials simply non-existent? It's all discovery.
- Detrus 15y ago
  It was discovered that light has some weak magnetic properties, then an actual experiment was done that discovered these magnetic properties were strong enough to generate useful amounts of electricity. Patents were issued. This is just semantic wordplay. I bet the legal literature is the same way. Even if we somehow fit these clunky classifications to reality, we would be no closer to designing a sensible patent system.
  - fryguy 15y ago
    Were the patents issued for using that form of electricity, or rather for the contraption built to harness that electricity?
    - Detrus 15y ago
      Don't know. They haven't built a practical contraption yet, hopefully it's some piece of their experimental setup, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's math. After all, they do issue patents for what some describe as "8th grade algebra" in software. Don't worry, I understand the semantic distinction when the case is clear cut. Lead is a discovery, lead pipes are an invention. Addition is a discovery, arabic numerals are an invention. (by today's standards)

jacobolus 15y ago

> The problem is that math isn't "invented", it's "discovered". This is a quite controversial philosophical claim you are making. Don’t be too hasty to state such claims emphatically. By reasoning surely similar to your own (unstated) reasoning, any formal model for anything is “discovered” rather than “invented”.

Dn_Ab 15y ago

It's not that clear cut though. I've been thinking about this question since I was about 9 and the conclusion I came to as I stepped off that circle is that the distinction is meaningless because they are dual to one another and hence not separable. But if I had to choose I would say everything is a discovery of how to put or see a series of things in a certain way. Consider the light bulb. It could be described that someone discovered that if you run so much current through this material you get light. And we can ask the same questions about math. Is the matrix a discovery or an invention? What about zero or logarithms or Aleph Null or electricity? The invention part is the series of steps that take you to the discovery, if these steps arrive at a construct then this construct is the invention. Invention is the centering of discovery to the human condition but everything is already there so to speak. Things like zero or a matrix or complex numbers or quaternions or taylor polynomials or the combustion engine are inventions or tools to allow us to see, do and think about certain things. I am not for software patents because they are used in the opposite way than they were intended. Patents were an incentive to get people to share but now they are used as a tool to stop people from sharing and creating. People associate inventions with physical things and material costs but really every reproducible invention implicitly contains an algorithm and that is what the patent is on. The thing with software is that there are no material costs and so the constructs can be built and arrived at with pure thought like in maths (which makes sense since algorithms are about math in a constructive universe). Here the algorithm and the result are one and the same where as in the old world the algorithm yielded the result. This means that a lot of its constructs can be arrived at with trivial costs and then hoarded and used as ammunition by better captilized entities. Counterproductive. In areas where costs are non trivial and barriers are high then patents make sense as a motive to share and incentivize. But information moves so well now that the old time scales no longer make sense. And in particular, because like maths nearly all software are constructs of thought progress is made very rapidly via composition of pure concepts and so the time scale must be zero or the opposite effect - one of anti progress - is had when patents are applied.