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In 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
by wisty 15y ago
In 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.