Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Darren New wrote:
>>>> So... Tell me again how no one is making this absurd argument?
>>>
>>> OK. Nobody said it's a new machine. They said it's an improved machine.
>>>
>>> If I figure out how to add color to TV broadcasts, have I not simply 
>>> improved the television?
>>>
>> Semantics.
> 
> Bingo! That's my point.  Guess what the whole court system is about? 
> Semantics!
> 
>> making "trivial" improvements, 
> 
> How do you judge how "trivial" an improvement is? If you come up with a 
> new calculation for an X-Ray machine's firmware that saves 30% more 
> lives because the bad stuff shows up better, is that "trivial"?  It's 
> math, but the math isn't what you're patenting. It's applying that math 
> to improve the performace of that X-Ray machine that's patented. There's 
> no patent on using the same math to improve the performance of your 
> outboard motor.
> 
>> movie poster in a digital display, it becomes now "data", but 
>> "improvement"? WTF? 
> 
> You're missing the point of the argument, probably on purpose.
> 
> You're arguing that a printing press shouldn't be patentable because all 
> it does is add data to paper.
> 

No I am not. I am arguing that the press **is**, changing the lettering 
around, so as to print a new book **is not**, nor, for that matter, is 
the bloody book in question. Software is an "improvement", the same way 
that re-arranging the letters on a printing press is. You are not 
changing what the original machine *is*, the whole point of the machine 
in the first place is to "allow you to print more than one page, with 
different words", so changing what is already supposed to be changed 
doesn't a) make it an improved machine, or b) require a new patent.

So, how is this "different" from my digital poster example, or even a 
computer. The whole point of both is that you can "change" the content, 
to have the "result" of its operation be something else. Why is 
rearranging symbols on a printing press not generating patents every 
time you do it, while a digital poster "might be", if its something it 
can already do, but the prior arrangement of symbols didn't support, and 
a computer with software on it **always is**? The only apparent 
difference to me seems to be how many things the machine is supposed to 
be able to do, and how complicated the data has to be to *get* that 
result. At which point you run afoul of defining "complex" again. What 
is complex on a PC where you have to write everything, including the 
graphics library. On one where you are using the existing library, and 
your "improvement" amounts to a few hundred lines of code though? How, 
other than by some argument made by software vendors that they are 
different, do these things *differ* in any logical or consistent manner? 
Or, to put it another way, at what point does your printing press become 
and "improvable machine", based solely upon what set of data you *apply* 
to it to change its behavior? Would, for example, a printer loaded with 
postscript be patentable, if you, say.. designed it to do nothing but 
print the same pamphlet forever, without stopping? Or does the fact that 
it does stop matter? Why? Why is it stopping, when done with the 
process, not patentable, but an application working the same way, where 
it has to be "loaded" into the machine, then unloads later, patentable, 
if loading postscript to what is basically a PC with a different output 
system isn't?

Where is this imaginary line drawn between these things, and why is it 
so damned inconsistent as to when, how, and if, it qualifies as 
"improving" the machine?

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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