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Patent 5,893,120 Reduced To Pure Math
An anonymous reader writes "US Patent #5,893,120 has been reduced to mathematical formulae as a demonstration of the oft-ignored fact that there is an equivalence relation between programs and mathematics. You may recognize Patent #5,893,210 as the one over which Google was ordered to pay $5M for infringing due to some code in Linux. It should be interesting to see how legal fiction will deal with this. Will Lambda calculus no longer be 'math'? Or will they just decide to fix the inconsistency and make mathematics patentable?"
it doesn't matter if program is reducible to mathematics, only that a claim for a software patent might be valid if it contains "a mathematical formula [and] implements or applies the formula in a structure or process which, when considered as a whole, is performing a function which the patent laws were designed to protect" http://www.bitlaw.com/source/soft_pats/final.html
This point has been made repeatedly, but nobody cares. The eHarmony patent was shown to be nothing more than linear algebra with particular names assigned to each variable. People have been pointing out the relationship between software and lambda calculus since before most Slashdot users were in high school, but it has had practically no impact on the legality or public opinion of software patents.
Palm trees and 8
I've collected various examples of this argument here:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Software_is_math
However, you have to remember that this is *not* the end of the discussion (or at best, this will result in this one patent getting invalidated or narrowed).
When faced with "software=math" arguments, judges still argue that *applications* of math to real world problems can be patentable.
What we need is legislation saying that writing, distributing, selling, and using software cannot constitute a patent violation.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
That's why patents used to require a physical demonstration. Ideas were all well and good, but until you demonstrated a physical device that acted like the patent claimed, you could not get it patented. This was intended to prevent fraudulent devices that looked good on paper but could never actually be manufactured, like perpetual motion machines. It could just as easily prevent software, algorithms and business methods.
I'm pretty sure that in the late 1930s, the process to make Little Boy and Fat Man would have been patentable under any purview that considered any kind of patents to be valid.
And, in the end, all they are is the bringing together of big lumps of elementary material, albeit highly refined from what is found in nature, to bring about a reaction that, itself (after decades of study), can now be reduced to a set of mathematical equations.
As for software patents, some wiener patented the use of XOR to draw a cursor... if that can stand, why not anything else, like one-click order taking?
I truly hope we have hit bottom of the patent well, but I'm sure there's an army of attorneys out there willing to dig with ever sharper tools.
Sure, software is math. I'll accept the point as stated.
Likewise, books are language. Can books be copyrighted? No one owns language.
A power drill is metal and plastic. Can a power drill be patented, then?
Patents aren't limited to ideas that have never been remotely observed before in all of human existence. You patent innovations. Many innovations are incremental, probably even the vast majority of them. I don't see how saying "but that's just math" invalidates the significance of a particular innovation. There's a big difference between saying "you could probably do that with a computer" and actually doing it with a computer, which is what a software patent would cover.
Breakfast served all day!
If software developers are prohibited from decoding your video format, the result is incompatibility.
Some people would indeed love to have a monopoly, and would spend millions for it, but these monopolies are simply not in the public interest. They're impeding software development and blocking interoperability.
There are more reasons here:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Why_abolish_software_patents
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
what's the point of even going to university if the end result is discovering that your idea has already been patented ages ago.
Well, if your goal is to create innovative new work, I imagine the point of going to university is learning what has been done before.
On the other hand, if you enroll in an undergraduate program with an amazing, brilliant idea in your head, only to discover that it had already been patented ages ago, maybe it's a wake-up call that you aren't the most brilliant person ever born, after all, and that you still have some studying to do.
Breakfast served all day!
Sorry, but I'm not familiar with "if" in math. What's the symbol for "if"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Displaying_a_formula#Continuation_and_cases
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
You can reduce any algorithm to a physical device that implements the algorithm. So therefore all algorithms are patentable. See, I can play the silly argument game too!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
The point is that only the device is patented, not the algorithm.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
I agree. You can write them as products with the Heaviside unit step function: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaviside_step_function
"You can reduce any algorithm to a physical device that implements the algorithm."
O RLY? Here's my algorithm:
1. Build a device, call it Larry
2. Bend the universe as a demonstration of what Larry should do.
3. Sell this universe to another universe, also as a demonstration of what Larry should do.
4. Deposit proceeds into a my offshore account. Explain to Larry that this step is very important.
5. Make sure Larry knows that, for every 5th loop, he's to build a Larry clone which does this recursively, instead of just a normal iteration.
6. Set Larry to work.
I am an attorney & patent agent and I hold multiple degrees in mathematics and computer science, so I feel fairly competent to speak on this issue.
The claims require a physical implementation (e.g. "An information storage and retrieval system"). No amount of math will produce such a system out of the aether. Nor does thinking about the math or the formulas on pen & paper infringe the patent. The specification makes it clear that "information storage and retrieval system" refers to a computer system. Thus, the patent was not actually reduced to pure mathematics.
The nonpatentability of mathematics refers literally to patenting a formula or algorithm without any useful application, just as chemical elements cannot be patented but a mechanical device made entirely of a single element could be. A claim to a bare formula would be invalid for lack of utility as well as lack of patentable subject matter. Consequently, the Curry-Howard Correspondence has no effect on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions.
Based on what is evidently your limited understanding of mathematics (you did not realize that iterations and conditions exist in math, for example), I would be inclined to speculate that if someone were to humor your request and show you a legitimate mathematical formula that was isomorphic to the patent, that you would not understand it, and proclaim it to be invalid presentation on that basis.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
All of patent law deals with interpretations, most of which are involve varying degrees of subtly.
The Federal Circuit Court has provided a great deal of well-written guidance. This particularly applies to what is and is not patentable.
The issue of what is and is not patentable is not black and white, such as, “mathematical formulas are not patentable,” or “software is patentable.”
A process that creates something useful and tangible is patentable, whether or not that process involves a calculation. What is not patentable is a “pure” formula that is not tied to something tangible. Data structures are tricky. The newer rules (yes, lots of mistakes were made in the past) are that generalized data structures, such as a table or a linked list, do not count as “tangible.” However, if those data structures are used (critically) to perform useful work, such as to refine steel or to serve up ads on websites, then the ENTIRE process is patentable. Subject, of course to all the other restrictions, such as non-obviousness.
These rules are not really new. They are the same rules that apply to mechanical inventions. For example, you cannot patent a “law of nature,” even it is something complex and nobody else knew about it. You can, however, patent a new device that takes advantage of this law of nature. For example, you cannot patent super-conductivity, but you can patent a useful device that uses super-conductivity.
Even mechanical inventions could be reduced to equations. CAD systems and hardware description languages are such examples. However, these “mathematical” representations have no bearing on the patentability.
Thus, the “deaf ears” referred to are those practitioners in the field who are following well-established law.
You don’t have to like current patent law. Many people don’t. European rules, for example, are different that ours. Note that not liking is distinct from not understanding.
- Registered Patent Agent
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
That's not an algorithm, because the steps are not precise. An algorithm can be performed by a mindless device. "Build a device" is a vague instruction that someone needs to figure out how to do. Not all sets of instructions are algorithms.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
The device is not what is patented. If you build a device out of metal and that device is covered by a patent, and then I make a device using the same plans but I make mine out of wood, it uses the patented idea. Similarly, I can write an algorithm in C or Fortran, and no matter which I use if the algorithm is patented both pieces of source code use the patented idea. It's the idea of how to construct the device which is patented. Otherwise, a trivial way to get around any patent would be to build a minimally different device.
This is actually what happens in the pharmaceutical industry. If a drug is patented, the molecule itself is patented. If someone makes any change to the molecule, no matter how slight, the new molecule is not covered by the patent.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Doesn't IBM have a patent on Arithmetic coding? We crossed the bridge on patenting pure math a long time ago.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You can't patent atoms. A physical device is just a collection of atoms. Therefore, you can't patent a physical device.
Those of you familiar with the RSA crypto algorithm will know it boils down to some incredibly simple number theory. ie. Generate two large primes p and q, and compute e and d such that: n = p.q e.d =~ 1 (mod n) All that math is in the patent, and that is the absolute essence of what they are patenting. But they get around this by drawing block diagrams for every possible way to create a communication channel that is encrypted and decrypted using RSA. They then just use the word device in the title, and Bob's your aunty's live in lover. The whole thing is peverse and absurd. But it's the way it has been for a long time, and this is unlikely to change anything.
That's why patents used to require a physical demonstration. Ideas were all well and good, but until you demonstrated a physical device that acted like the patent claimed, you could not get it patented.
And oddly enough, dozens of "working" perpetuum mobiles were patented. Anything proving that they couldn't work could and can not be patented.
Fandroids hate facts.
> Unfortunately, this is not allowed under TRIPS.
TRIPS is no problem. TRIPS says that computer programs are to be considered literary works.
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/TRIPS
TRIPS says that patents have to be granted for inventions in "any field of technology", but there's no definition of this term, and if computer programs are literature and stories aren't patentable, then computer programs are not patentable under TRIPS.
Further, a general principal of law is that international treaties that restrict sovereignty are to be interpreted narrowly. Trying to stretch TRIPS to include software is not only incorrect but it's also against this general principal of law.
The pro-swpat lobbyists mostly try the "TRIPS says" trick when they're talking to people who they think won't read the text.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
The Metal/Wood thing is something that the courts could get into, but the general argument in such a case is that they are effectively the same device.
But I'll admit that it is sort of the same argument. In order for a device to not be infringing despite doing the same task it would have to do the task via a different method, and the question comes in whether said method is different enough.
Personally I like the idea of making them come up with an actual device or implementation because I think it'd keep the patent trolls down - things like force feedback joysticks being held back for years because a company that has never produced one holds some patent on it; sure, they'll offer a license, but no technological help. They might of patented the idea of a control mechanism with a feedback loop, but they didn't do anything else to actually develop it.
Another one I remember has something to do with social media sites - and the company that did the patent doesn't run a social media site.
I don't read AC A human right
I have to agree. I think we need to go back to at least requiring an implementation of a patent in order to grant it.
Fear of patents shouldn't be a reason to NOT do something.
I don't read AC A human right
And that, boys and girls, is why you always leave one step unspecified.
Failure to follow this advice may result in non-deterministic behavior.
So, until everybody understood what the integral symbol was calculus wasn't math?
what's the point of even going to university if the end result is discovering that your idea has already been patented ages ago.
Well, if your goal is to create innovative new work, I imagine the point of going to university is learning what has been done before.
On the other hand, if you enroll in an undergraduate program with an amazing, brilliant idea in your head, only to discover that it had already been patented ages ago, maybe it's a wake-up call that you aren't the most brilliant person ever born, after all, and that you still have some studying to do.
On the other hand, If your goal is to create your own software using your own ideas while ignoring the whole field of CS research, prior art and patents as their information is not accessible to you, and it matters not if wheels get re-invented because you are inventing them to learn how they work: The patent system can and will prevent you from profiting from your original works.
I was exposed to computers at a young age (7?) I taught myself BASIC on the Apple IIe, and on an IBM 386. Learning things by doing, I had needed more functionality and therefore learned Assembly and C by the age of 12. To solve a problem I would just think, how would I ___ in C? Then write an outline, and code it... I had no access to any other source code, or even higher mathematics.
EG: In Junior high -- age 13, having been taught about algebra and line slopes ratios I was able to render lines. For a vector graphics space battle game, I actually "invented" the unit circle, and sin/cos tables (I called them angle tables) by realizing line slopes could be used to roughly determine the degree of angle between two lines. I built a table of all 5.625 degree increments to line slopes, and interpolated between the line slopes to derive my "decentAngle()" function. Three years later the American public school system introduced me to trigonometry, and I told the teacher, "Gee, that Pythagoras guy wasn't that much of a genius, anyone can figure this out..." while showing her my sin() approximation functions and distance theorem... Oh, so that's called a "hypotenuse"?
Yes, the C library had a sin() function, but I didn't know what to use it for -- The compiler manual didn't teach trig...
As a teenager I built my first interpretor and virtual machine, without ever hearing those terms (I needed command language for my Doom .WAD (map) editor to build stairs, align textures across "curved" walls, etc.)
I had an expensive Borland C compiler, it's manual, a book on QBasic, and a book on x86/x87 Assembly. Understanding that a C compiler must somehow generate assembly like language in order to make .COMs & .EXEs, I wrote my first compiler by reverse engineering complied assembly instructions -- A "command to machine code table" was used to directly piece together an executable... it was ugly, but it worked, and I know better now (thanks to the existence of the Internet).
At age 16 I realized I could make money selling my programs. I distributed my software as share-ware and trial-ware for free on BSS systems -- after a the trial period a pass-code was needed to unlock the program. It was easily bypassed by re-installing or setting back the system clock, but was just enough of a deterrent that people would pay to get an unlock code. Hey, I would have released it as source code, but I needed $$$; Dating girls, driving cars and buying new compilers for MS OSs isn't cheap (besides, few others would likely compile the source, and if people asked I would show them how I achieved things).
Almost exactly 2 years after I started selling MY software I received my first cease and desist notice. I didn't have the money to dispute the claim in court (and neither did my family), so I stopped distributing the application. My simple CAD program was apparently infringing