Patrick Elliott wrote:
> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091111151305785

Wrong button. Try that again.

"""
What I get from the paper is that there isn't really a difference between 
what a human does with a paper and pencil and what a computer does, except 
speed.
"""

There's really not a difference between what an automobile does and what a 
human does when walking except speed. Does that mean an automobile is 
unpatentable?

There's really not a difference between a machine that manufactures 
integrated circuits and what a human could theoretically do with a 
sufficiently steady hand and a sufficiently small pair of tweezers, either. 
So out goes that patent.

There's really nothing that google does that a human with paper and pencil 
couldn't do, so nothing google does is worthy of patent protection.

Why patent a new and more efficient space ship engine, if a human can *jump* 
to the moon, in theory with enough leg strength?

Do you see how silly that sounds?







"""
Computer programming is an exact science in that all the properties of a 
program and all the consequences of executing it in any given environment 
can, in principle, be found out from the text of the program itself by means 
of purely deductive reasoning.
"""
Except this isn't true. Programming computers is *not* purely mathematical. 
*Thinking* about programming computers is purely mathematical. A computer 
program that produces only mathematical results is, however, useless. And, 
indeed, computational theory proves you cannot determine all the 
consequences of executing it, so the statement is factually incorrect.




"""
If we build an electronic device that does the same calculations as the 
automated typewriter but with symbols encoded electronically instead, does 
their meaning change? Of course not, the symbols still mean the mathematics. 
The maths don't describe the computer or anything physical in the computer. 
The maths don't describe the software either.
"""

OK, so let's outlaw patents on any computer program that does no input or 
output and has no interaction with physical systems outside the CPU and 
memory subsystem. I'm down with that.





"Software is data."  That's why you're not patenting software, but rather 
the machine programmed with the software, which is what I was saying. 
They're claiming that adding the instructions makes the computer a new and 
more useful invention than the computer without the instructions. Find me a 
patent claim that claims to be patenting software itself, and I'll believe 
you. *That* is what I'm talking about.

You're saying "that should not be the case." I happen to agree, altho there 
are clearly methods and lists of instructions that I think should be 
patentable. But that's just debating a subject that we have no control over.

All the other crap in the groklaw page is confusion over whether bits have 
color.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Is God willing to prevent naglams, but unable?
     Then he is not omnipotent.
   Is he able, but not willing, to prevent naglams?
     Then he is malevolent.

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