4 ms·
> Following precedent set by Benson and Abele, the court here held that an unpatentable mental process remains unpatentable even when restricted to use on a co
by dminor 15y ago
> Following precedent set by Benson and Abele, the court here held that an unpatentable mental process remains unpatentable even when restricted to use on a computer.
Really, really hoping this logic survives and becomes widely applied.
- tghw 15y agoI can imagine certain individuals making a lot of money as expert witnesses, demonstrating the execution of patented software processes completely mentally.
- marshray 15y agoWouldn't you think that "mentally" includes the use of pencil and paper? Given enough of that and time I can simulate any classical computer.
- wes-exp 15y agoIt does include pencil and paper: The Court noted that the calculations, while “primarily useful for computerized [applications],” could still “be made [using a] pencil and paper.”
- wisty 15y agoIn a sense, yes. But it might simply be that you can't patent anything that a normal person (say, the judge) could easily do with a pencil and paper. So things like "See if the guest's name is on the guestlist" might be found unpatentable, but complicated sequences of instructions (which you have specifically laid out) for which you really do need a computer (or some other machine) might still be patentable. I'm not a lawyer, though.
- jimktrains2 15y agoIf you're performing a computation that cannot be done with pencil and paper, a computer cannot do that computing.
- wisty 15y agoAs another post is pointing out, there is a "practicality" clause. If you can use a computer to do something that would otherwise take days to compute, it may still be patentable.
- marshray 15y agoIt's impractical to multiply two million-digit numbers by hand, but elementary schoolkids know the algorithm to do it. Does that imply that using a computer to multiply numbers of sufficient size would be patentable? How about a particularly efficient multiplication algorithm that can be demonstrated by hand? How about a linear problem optimization algorithm? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karmarkar%27s_algorithm#Patent_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karmarkar%27s_algorithm#Patent_... How about a network optimization problem? http://www.google.com/search?q=network+optimization+patent http://www.google.com/search?q=network+optimization+patent The whole idea of patents in a post-industrial economy is a farce.
- jimktrains2 15y agoWell, everything scales based on size. Given a small input, the algo is more than likely still doable by hand.