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There's no such thing as "the computer science definition" as far as patent law is concerned. Lawyers aren't engineers or scientists. Patents are basically list

There's no such thing as "the computer science definition" as far as patent law is concerned. Lawyers aren't engineers or scientists. Patents are basically lists of claims that have a lot of complicated wording that is designed to get interpreted by other patent laywyers in very specific ways. What is and isn't a software patent is extremely murky water. As soon as you involve algorithms, it's not all that different from an actual machine or engineering system from a patent law point of view. Which is why you find the words like "method" or "apparatus" in a lot of patent claims. That's the little legal loophole that makes something an actual patent vs. just a "software patent". Whether it's enforceable or gets past the patent office review is a second thing of course. In the case of the infamous 1 click shopping patent, the answers turned out to be that there was a lot of prior art and the EU declined to accept the patent for being too obvious. In the US it did get accepted but then a later ruling invalidated most of the claims. The patent expired a few years ago. Having the patent is one thing; enforcing it another. The US being a bit more eager to accept all sorts of obvious patents has been used by patent trolls to harass small companies into payments. And it's also uses as a defensive tool by all sorts of big companies as a defensive tool and as a way to get other big companies to pay royalties for stuff that they did. Which, in this case, Netflix thought they could get out of.

shmerl 3y ago
> As soon as you involve algorithms, it's not all that different from an actual machine or engineering system from a patent law point of view. It should be different. The more abstract it gets, the less patentable it should be. Algorithms are more abstract than machines.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  That's simply not up to me or you. Neither of us are lawyers or legally trained (I'm assuming, of course). We'd sound like bumbling baboons in a court of law without proper representation. You wouldn't want a lawyer to tell you how to code either because of something they dreamt up not hindered by even the slightest bit of knowledge. Same difference. Even just translating what you said into something that makes sense legally (or is at all coherent from that point of view), has enough urgency that politicians might act on it, and actually stands a chance of getting enough backing to turn into law, is a process that takes a lot of skill, determination, and time.
  - shmerl 3y ago
    That doesn't negate the validity of the basic idea. Algorithms shouldn't be patentable becasue they are more abstract than machines and they give too much monopoly power to those who claim to own them. Legal logic that explains it should be worked out if for some reasons it still isn't.
    - jillesvangurp 3y ago
      > That doesn't negate the validity of the basic idea. Actually it does. Your assertions lack a legal basis, i.e. validity. Something being more abstract than something else is not a legal concept. It might matter to you but you'd get laughed out of a court room. Algorithms have been patented for decades. That's the legal reality. > Legal logic that explains it should be worked out if for some reasons it still isn't. The legal side of this is brutally simple: decades/centuries of existing patents, their interpretations, and any law suits around those. Which of course involves lots of legal bickering for the last decades by big software companies and their inventions arguing every comma, semantics of the words, and generally picking any nit that looks like might be worth picking (lawyers are amazingly good at that), etc. Legal logic dictates that unless the law changes, any new interpretations need to be consistent with all of that previous work. And changing laws and upholding them is a tricky business. Especially when they are being inconsistent with previous laws. Something like that requires a broad consensus. Which of course does not exist.
      - shmerl 3y ago
        If you think this isn't working this way, then the legal system needs fixing so it would. As simple as that. Software patents situation is so messed up because basic and obvious ideas like this aren't applied as they should be.
- freejazz 3y ago
  In the US, patents related to computing are regularly knocked out for being "too abstract" so, that's how things stand now.

shmerl 3y ago

> As soon as you involve algorithms, it's not all that different from an actual machine or engineering system from a patent law point of view. It should be different. The more abstract it gets, the less patentable it should be. Algorithms are more abstract than machines.

jillesvangurp 3y ago
That's simply not up to me or you. Neither of us are lawyers or legally trained (I'm assuming, of course). We'd sound like bumbling baboons in a court of law without proper representation. You wouldn't want a lawyer to tell you how to code either because of something they dreamt up not hindered by even the slightest bit of knowledge. Same difference. Even just translating what you said into something that makes sense legally (or is at all coherent from that point of view), has enough urgency that politicians might act on it, and actually stands a chance of getting enough backing to turn into law, is a process that takes a lot of skill, determination, and time.
- shmerl 3y ago
  That doesn't negate the validity of the basic idea. Algorithms shouldn't be patentable becasue they are more abstract than machines and they give too much monopoly power to those who claim to own them. Legal logic that explains it should be worked out if for some reasons it still isn't.
  - jillesvangurp 3y ago
    > That doesn't negate the validity of the basic idea. Actually it does. Your assertions lack a legal basis, i.e. validity. Something being more abstract than something else is not a legal concept. It might matter to you but you'd get laughed out of a court room. Algorithms have been patented for decades. That's the legal reality. > Legal logic that explains it should be worked out if for some reasons it still isn't. The legal side of this is brutally simple: decades/centuries of existing patents, their interpretations, and any law suits around those. Which of course involves lots of legal bickering for the last decades by big software companies and their inventions arguing every comma, semantics of the words, and generally picking any nit that looks like might be worth picking (lawyers are amazingly good at that), etc. Legal logic dictates that unless the law changes, any new interpretations need to be consistent with all of that previous work. And changing laws and upholding them is a tricky business. Especially when they are being inconsistent with previous laws. Something like that requires a broad consensus. Which of course does not exist.
    - shmerl 3y ago
      If you think this isn't working this way, then the legal system needs fixing so it would. As simple as that. Software patents situation is so messed up because basic and obvious ideas like this aren't applied as they should be.
freejazz 3y ago
In the US, patents related to computing are regularly knocked out for being "too abstract" so, that's how things stand now.