Canada Courts, Patent Office Warns Against Trying To Patent Mathematics

davecb writes "The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has recently published two notices for patent examiners relating to patent interpretation, and in particular computer-related/business method type patents saying: 'for example, what appears on its face to be a claim for an "art" or a "process" may, on a proper construction, be a claim for a mathematical formula and therefore not patentable subject matter.'"

Comments

Re:Cool! All we have to do is create code to math.

[msauve]

Isn't code already math? Any algorithm can be implemented on a Turing machine, which is a mathematical construct.

Re:Cool! All we have to do is create code to math.

[metageek]

Sure it is, but judges still need to be convinced

Re:this is why mathematicians are poor

[lxs]

Because money is all that matters in life. Got it.

Re:Abolish all patents and copyright

[PopeRatzo]

AFAIC all patents and copyright should be abolished on a general principle that government has no authority to protect or promote any business

Which government are you referring to? The US government most certainly has the authority, defined by Constitution to "protect or promote any business" (your words). Supreme Courts have been upholding that authority for at least a century and a half, and government has been asserting it since before ratification.

Re:not unlike ..

[Simon Brooke]

should genes be patentable, but it seems that we maybe have lost that one (sadly)

Actually, it's the same issue, since genes are information structures which are processed by the cell. Consequently, genes are software, and consequently are mathematics. The fact that we don't yet understand in detail the mechanisms by which the cell processes the information structures is irrelevant.

If you can't patent software because it is mathematics, then you can't patent genes because they are software.