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falcon2424 posted:So, it seems like the problem could be solved by requiring much more specificity in the applications, and rejecting ones that have an "insert solution here" gap. To put it another way, “goals” should not be patentable. There was a guy who sued Apple over his patent on ‘having a playlist’. But playing audio tracks in a sequential order is a thing that is accomplished, and that’s not the sort of thing that should be patentable. I’d put most of these user interface features in that same category. For people who know more about patents, I’ve always wondered something about the classic case of the windshield wiper patent: quote:These consist, preferably, of the wooden strips H, which carry a rubber T,adapted to sweep across and clean the window-pane. These strips H are joined to the tubing or bar D by means of bearings [BlahBlahBlah]… Under today’s precedents, would it have been possible for Mary Anderson to simply patent the second paragraph? That is, something like “a mechanism which removes rainwater from the front glass, comprised of a handle or switch which activates a wiper moving in a predefined way across the front glass.” I have no idea why that would be unacceptable when something like the Neonode patent passes.
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Dec 9, 2013 21:07
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Munkeymon posted:Because you make a physical thing. I don't care what it does as long as you're not claiming to own the idea of performing the task it performs. I mentioned GPCPUs because the novel apparatus test apparently doesn't apply to a software process but does to a chemical one, which is strikes me as terribly inconsistent. Munkeymon posted:Well I'm a little less sure than I was a couple days ago, but a couple days ago I would have said "hell yes". I said earlier that a short patent lifetime on an algorithm doesn't sound too bad, etc, but I'm not qualified to fully evaluate the consequences of that kind of legal protection. I'm still confused as to how a 'process' is patentable but an 'algorithm' isn't even though the words effectively have the same meaning, but don't see why a chemical process and a data manipulation process are so hard to distinguish. To simplify things a bit, a process done on physical things should be patentable for the same reason that physical things are themselves patentable. The rub is that an algorithm is a process/recipe carried out on numerical objects. You can't get a patent on an abstract object, so it's inconsistent to have them for recipes carried out on abstract objects. I'll agree with the first thing you said: the idea of performing a task should probably not be patentable. In other words, a process which results in cured rubber should be patentable. "A Process which Results in Cured Rubber." [Period] should not be. Some algorithms may be owned to an extent by copyright. If someone built a "D" compiler which swapped around a bunch of keywords in the C language, then transcribed C programs written for the PC and compiled them on a MAC, then that would surely be a copyright violation, even though neither the source code nor compiled version would be the same. So using the same algorithm would veer close to copyright infringement, depending on how flexible you are with sameness. Phyzzle fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 19:50
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