Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Units can be encoded as numbers. Well *everything* can be encoded as 
> numbers. And numbers, of course, can be encoded as things.

Nope. Sorry. That jug of milk in the fridge there? You can't encode that as 
numbers. No amount of numbers will pasteurize it either.

>>  > 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.
> 
> Not last time I checked. E.g., the patent on LZW, the patent on using 
> XOR drawing, the patent on clicking a button to order stuff off the 
> Internet, etc.

Read the claims carefully. "We patent a computer doing ..."

> If you have a machine that does something, which somewhere involves a 
> computer, sure, that should be patentable. But I don't think you should 
> be able to patent the fact that a if you multiply two numbers together 
> and then multiply the product by the multiplicative inverse of the 
> second number in some finite field it yields the first number should be 
> patentable.

It isn't. *Using* that to create public key encryption is patentable.

A coil of wire isn't patentable. Using a coil of wire to tune a radio 
receiver is patentable.

> But hey, I guess that's no different than some guy in his guarage making 
> a new extra-soft kind of foam and then getting sued because some 
> petrochemical giant somewhere already makes something similar...

Yes, exactly.

Now, the problem with software patents isn't that you're patenting the 
software, but that people try to read into the claims all kinds of formal 
equivalents they didn't think of when they wrote the patent.

If you patent a way to make asprin, I don't have to worry about doing the 
exact same steps if I use it to make motor oil.

But I've seen software patents on things like mechanisms to dial telephones, 
and the argument in court was along the lines of "well, if you substitute 
the credit card number for the phone number, and you substitute the person's 
voice with his signature, and you substitute the vendor's PBX with his cash 
register, then Visa is violating our voice-dialing patent by accepting 
credit cards!"  That's just absurd.

And in every case, you could easily look at that patent and understand what 
they were trying to patent, and understand exactly how that didn't cover 
what the other party was doing, yet it still gets argued stupidly in front 
of judges.

-- 
   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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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> In the US, for many years (and probably still now) mathematical algorithms 
>> cannot be patented.
> 
>   You mean eg. LZW is not a mathematical algorithm?

The operations it does are mathematical. *Using it for compression* is 
what's patented. Not actually running the algorithm, but running the 
algorithm with the intent to compress the data.

-- 
   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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Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> Units can be encoded as numbers. Well *everything* can be encoded as 
>> numbers. And numbers, of course, can be encoded as things.
> 
> Nope. Sorry. That jug of milk in the fridge there? You can't encode that 
> as numbers. No amount of numbers will pasteurize it either.

"Scotty!  Beam me up!"

or, "Encoding properties of mass for lightspeed transportation across 
distance"

or, "Overcoming Heisenberg uncertainty issues in localised systems and 
reconstructing that data set in another position"

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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Tim Cook wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Units can be encoded as numbers. Well *everything* can be encoded as 
>>> numbers. And numbers, of course, can be encoded as things.
>>
>> Nope. Sorry. That jug of milk in the fridge there? You can't encode 
>> that as numbers. No amount of numbers will pasteurize it either.
> 
> "Scotty!  Beam me up!"
> 
> or, "Encoding properties of mass for lightspeed transportation across 
> distance"
> 
> or, "Overcoming Heisenberg uncertainty issues in localised systems and 
> reconstructing that data set in another position"

Yeah, let me know when you have a working model there to show the patent 
office.

-- 
   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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Darren New a écrit :
> Warp wrote:
>> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> In the US, for many years (and probably still now) mathematical 
>>> algorithms cannot be patented.
>>
>>   You mean eg. LZW is not a mathematical algorithm?
> 
> The operations it does are mathematical. *Using it for compression* is 
> what's patented. Not actually running the algorithm, but running the 
> algorithm with the intent to compress the data.
> 
So, technically you could argue that you're using LZW not to compress, 
but to obfuscate your data? A slight compression being just a 
side-effect :-)

-- 
Vincent

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Vincent Le Chevalier wrote:
> So, technically you could argue that you're using LZW not to compress, 
> but to obfuscate your data? A slight compression being just a 
> side-effect :-)

Yes, exactly. If, for example, the steps you follow to do LZW compression 
was one step of an encryption algorithm, it wouldn't be encumbered by the 
patent.  Look at the patent:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4,558,302.PN.&OS=PN/4,558,302&RS=PN/4,558,302

"""
I claim:

1. In a data compression and data decompression system, compression 
apparatus for compressing a stream of data character signals into a 
compressed stream of code signals, said compression apparatus comprising ...
"""

If you're not compressing data with it, it's not patented. Just like if 
you're not encryption data, modular exponentiation isn't patented.


That patent also patents hardware implementations of LZW. Would you say that 
hardware isn't patentable in the EU, because it's implementing a "software 
patent"?

-- 
   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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Darren New a écrit :
> Vincent Le Chevalier wrote:
>> So, technically you could argue that you're using LZW not to compress, 
>> but to obfuscate your data? A slight compression being just a 
>> side-effect :-)
> 
> Yes, exactly. If, for example, the steps you follow to do LZW 
> compression was one step of an encryption algorithm, it wouldn't be 
> encumbered by the patent. 

Then if I'm understanding correctly, the patent applicability is decided 
by looking at the final purpose of the use of the thing patented?

> That patent also patents hardware implementations of LZW. Would you say 
> that hardware isn't patentable in the EU, because it's implementing a 
> "software patent"?

As far as I understand patent law (which is probably not much ;-) ), the 
hardware is one thing, the algorithm it implements is another. If the 
hardware is patented I'm free to implement exactly the same function on 
another hardware. If the method is patented I can't do it at all.

It would be perfectly understandable to patent a particular hardware 
doing LZW compression, but not to put a patent on every unspecified 
hardware that does LZW compression. The issue may revolve around the 
generality of the claims in the patent...

-- 
Vincent

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Vincent Le Chevalier wrote:
> Then if I'm understanding correctly, the patent applicability is decided 
> by looking at the final purpose of the use of the thing patented?

Methods and processes are patented as "process to do X". If you're not doing 
X, it doesn't count.  Read the first claim in that link I posted, and you'll 
see what the language is like.

> As far as I understand patent law (which is probably not much ;-) ), the 
> hardware is one thing, the algorithm it implements is another.

Right. You can't patent the algorithm. You patent hardware running the 
algorithm.

> If the 
> hardware is patented I'm free to implement exactly the same function on 
> another hardware.

It depends how the hardware is described. If you describe the hardware as 
"mechanism for inserting a controllable delay between strokes of windshield 
wipers", it doesn't matter if you implement it with electronics, vacuum 
lines, or a mechanical cog. But if you use the exact same hardware to time 
the beeps of the burglar alarm, it's not violating the patent that patents 
mechanisms for the delay of wipers.

If the patent says "Boil willow bark for 2 hours, then mix with salt and 
carbon-rich iron shavings", it doesn't matter whether you use a cauldron or 
a stainless steel pot to make your aspirin.

> It would be perfectly understandable to patent a particular hardware 
> doing LZW compression, but not to put a patent on every unspecified 
> hardware that does LZW compression. The issue may revolve around the 
> generality of the claims in the patent...

Well, I posted a link to the patent. Look at it. :-)

The patent on the hardware is something like claim 29, which sounds like a 
hardware description of what registers you'd need in a compression chip that 
implements LZW.

-- 
   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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Vincent Le Chevalier wrote:
> Then if I'm understanding correctly, the patent applicability is decided 
> by looking at the final purpose of the use of the thing patented?

To answer technically, the patent applicability is decided by looking at the 
claims. If you claim "A method for processing photographs to reduce 
red-eye", then to violate it, someone has to work with photographs and has 
to reduce red-eye. The exact same pixel math applied to a photo without any 
eyes in it isn't violating the patent.

But it depends on the claim.

I've never seen a claim that says "We claim that aX^2 +bX +c = 0 is ...."

-- 
   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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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> In the US, for many years (and probably still now) mathematical algorithms 
> >> cannot be patented.
> > 
> >   You mean eg. LZW is not a mathematical algorithm?

> The operations it does are mathematical. *Using it for compression* is 
> what's patented. Not actually running the algorithm, but running the 
> algorithm with the intent to compress the data.

  That sounds nothing more than playing with words in order to get around
the restrictions. A bit like "I'm not stealing, I'm just borrowing". Imagine
if by saying that you get free of any punishment.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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