That patent is the sort of thing you're tasked with building in a mech-e class, or as an abstract problem in a physics class. If it's patentable, then one coul

That patent is the sort of thing you're tasked with building in a mech-e class, or as an abstract problem in a physics class. If it's patentable, then one could say that the purpose of physics and engineering training is to build things, patent them, and live off of the royalties, rather than to create products people want to buy, competing in an open market. The premise of your argument relies on the vague notion of what's a "practical" problem and what's not. I don't think that's any more tenable than any other defense of the current patent system I've ever seen. It's all vague, and exchanges like this are pushing me to a more extreme position that all patents are bogus, rather than granting that some "math" patents are connected to specific practical problems and thus patentable.