Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090603224807259
> 
> Why is it that I find myself thinking this will have precisely zero 
> effect on anything?

Well, except that he's wrong.

Non-mathematical algorithm: steps to process raw corn, blocks of cheese, and 
blocks of plastic into little bags of cheetos.

Non-mathematical algorithm: Use discrete log to negotiate a shared key for 
public key encryption. Discrete log is a mathematical algorithm. DH key 
exchange is not.

In the US, for many years (and probably still now) mathematical algorithms 
cannot be patented.

 > as if numbers were somehow different from other kinds of precise information

Of course they are. Numbers have no units.  Measure me out three of milk.

 > If software code is "a series of instructions" then it's like a manual

No, it's like an industrial process, which is patentable. Why should an 
industrial process written down in a book be patentable but an industrial 
process written down in a machine-readable file not? Indeed, that's how 
software patents are written. You don't patent the code. You patent machines 
running the code. Trying to distinguish this from patenting the instructions 
for using other technology is going to be *very* difficult.


Mind, I'm not saying we should have software patents. I'm just saying that 
the argument "all software is mathematical and hence should not be subject 
to patent" is an invalid argument.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

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