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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.'"
...translators and software won't be patentable!
but you can patent the application in a specific area to solve a specific problem. Nothing new there.
Isn't code already math? Any algorithm can be implemented on a Turing machine, which is a mathematical construct.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Sure it is, but judges still need to be convinced
metageek
Because money is all that matters in life. Got it.
Here's why: Lawyers being what they are, will bicker over what exactly a mathematical formula is.
I will never forget an incident where in the recent Oracle vs Google case, Oracle's side tried to change the facts about a memory reference being symbolic or otherwise. Mind you, this was an expert! It was pathetic!
Subsequently, the court shot down Oracle's position with this piece.
The foregoing is sufficient but it is worth adding that Oracle's infringement case was presented through Dr. Mitchell. A reasonable jury could have found his many "mistakes" in his report merely to be convenient alterations to fix truthful admissions earlier made before he realized the import of his admissions. For this reason, a reasonable jury could have rejected every word of his testimony.
Oracle lost the case - For now.
In a little while, when physicists have figured out the laws of the universe, everything might be mathematics... (not just symbolic stuff like computer programs)
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
AFAIC all patents and copyright should be abolished on a general principle that government has no authority to protect or promote any business (or private protection scheme of any ideas or implementations) in the first place and all of a sudden the problem disappears. You want protection? It's your private business, use trade secrets and contracts.
Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Let me guess: when I buy a book, I'd be bound by contract to respect the author/publisher's right to control duplication, right? Is this meant to bind from the moment of purchase, or of opening the book?
If I am recording video of me walking along the street, and walk past someone reading a newspaper, then unless I'm contract-bound simply by having inadvertently seen the newspaper, then all the contents of that newspaper that I have recorded are essentially 'public domain' now, right? The copyright idea of 'fair use' can't apply here, after all.
I've yet to hear a vaguely plausible defence for replacing copyright by contracts. I've also never seen the idea seriously forwarded outside of Slashdot discussion.
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Not a baby but a rotten corpse. You don't have to sign any contract with a publisher, very few would, so to sell books they would not ask you to. Ever been to countries where they don't care about copyright? Publishers are in business there as well.
You can't handle the truth.
And it was a mistake.
You can't handle the truth.
As a clarification and reminder for the patent examiners, this is a good thing. However, the USPTO has guidelines and rules as well, with odd little things like "Prior art" and descriptions of things that should not be patentable.
However, there is also a policy (not sure if it is written, or just written about) that if the patent examiner cannot understand the patent application but cannot specifically see that it definitely contravenes any of the guidelines for things that should not be patentable, the patent should be granted and then the court system should be used to test the validity of the patent.
printf("Hello World!\n");
Convince me where the math is in that.
Prove that it is not math. Start by showing that it is not represented by 1s and 0s at the hardware level. Then prove that it is not all NAND gates that do the manipulating and that all the hardware operations are not mathematical. Bonus: Prove that add, subtract, divide, multiply, mov are not mathematical functions.
... whatever
printf("Hello World!\n");
Convince me where the math is in that.
Can a computer interpret it? If it can, then it's maths, because all a computer can do is manipulate symbols, which is maths. If, of course, it can't be interpreted by a computer, it may not be maths.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
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.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Good, they shouldn't be.
Many things patentable, shouldn't be, many things unpatentable shouldn't be, but are.
Patents should expire 4 years after acceptance to promote innovation. If you haven't dug gold out of it in 4 years, it's time to shit or get off the pot. There's a world out there who can innovate. What have you done for us today?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Indeed, Google is gonna win because it was built by mathematicians. Like Stephen King said "Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.".
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: all math, sufficiently abstracted and obfuscated, is indistinguishable from art.
Software may be mathematics but the research, engineering and creative thinking that went into bringing the software from concept to actual code isn't.
If I invented a new artificial intelligence algorithm that has distinctive advantages over every currently known alternative, I believe the principles behind it would still be very much patent-worthy. The exact software implementation is pointless since others would likely be able to rewrite their own alternate implementation from principles and my own implementation would already be covered under copyright anyway.
The big problem with software patents is the endless volume of different filings about different methods of doing generally trivial stuff like drawing lines and countless other things most programmers consider obvious, take for granted, is purely cosmetic and non-essential (ex.: end-of-list bounce), etc. so we get countless lawsuits about things nobody other than the patent troll and its victims care about aside from being outraged the patent was ever granted in the first place.
Of course! This is because of prior art. Your so-called 'x' is nothing but a 45 rotation of MY patented '+' symbol for addition.
That's like saying that a chair is just a representation of geometrical shapes which can be expressed as mathematical formulas.
Everything is math, therefore everything must not be patentable.
Your thoughts are nothing more than a complex orchestration of electrochemical stimuli, akin to a computer. Everything from your dreams to the stars can be expressed using math, as it's a form of communication.
To me, the line is drawn wherever it is most convenient and fair. 1 line can be drawn in front of software and say, software can't be patentable... I'd rather use a different line, and raise the bar at what is considered novel or common sense. There's no reason why 50 different variations of a tripod that can spray water should be patentable just because they change the color or the medium they spray. I tripod is common sense, the click of a button is common sense. Using hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell to interact with anything is common sense.
That's like saying that a chair is just a representation of geometrical shapes which can be expressed as mathematical formulas.
Yes, your point being? As you seem to understand yourself, anything in our known universe can be expressed by math. Our math breaks down to a certain degree when we enter the realm of quantum mechanics, or rather determinism breaks down, math describes this fine enough.
To me, the line is drawn wherever it is most convenient and fair.
Back on topic though, you're right that we have to draw the line somewhere; I'd rather draw the line at zero. Nothing can be patented, and no business idea deserves any kind of special protection. If your idea cannot survive in the free market on merit alone it has no place in the market at all.
... whatever
More accurately, men and women can assign values to Shakespeare's works, enter those values into a computer, then manipulate those values in any manner they so wish.
The computer is not interpreting Shakespeare. The computer is manipulating mathematical equations that people interpret as Shakespeare.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
If you can't patent software because it is mathematics, then you can't patent genes because they are software.
But one of the things that the law defines as patentable is a novel "configuration of matter". A truly original gene would easily qualify under this condition. While the gene is only useful because it is software for a biological system, if it represents a novel configuration of matter to encode that software, then it should be patentable.
I'm less sure when the case involves taking genes found in nature, and splicing them onto other plants (such as the "Roundup Ready" gene). In this case, while there is unquestionably a lot of work involved in the splicing, I'm not at all sure that the resulting configuration of matter would be truly novel enough to warrant a patent.
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
Everything on a computer is NOT math. Everything on a computer is representable as math.
Fixed that for you.
Hate to burst your logic bubble there, but guess what? Art is NOT patentable. So far, at least. (That's not to say some attorneys in the U.S. haven't tried.)
The problem with not having patents is that it encourages people to keep things secret to stop others from copying. This then leads to great ideas being lost when the business fails or the inventor dies.
That's a nice theory but, in practice, the majority of patents are complete nonsense. There's the obvious stuff either from patent trolls looking to lurk until they can make a quick buck off someone who is actually doing something productive. Then you have your inventors who create something neat and marketable, but whose invention doesn't really fit the definition required to get a patent (that fact doesn't stop the patent being issued of course). A good example of the latter can be found in that late-night commercial for patent services where their example is an inflatable carwash for kids. It's a neat toy, but it's all made of obvious parts. There's absolutely no contribution to human technology there. Any engineer or, for that matter, home tinkerer could sit down with the raw materials and make an equivalent "invention" based on their knowledge of what has come before. Then there are the patents granted to the quacks and loonies. Then there's the patents on unpatentable scientific discoveries granted to, for example, biotech firms who isolate a particular gene/protein/biowhatever, figure out what it's for, then write up a blanket patent or set of patents claiming all possible therapeutic uses for the discovery they can think of based on what it naturally does.
Then, there's the minority of patents that are actually for what could be considered real inventions. All well and good except that, if you actually read them or talk to anyone who writes them for a living, they're intentionally written to dance around the actual "secret sauce" of the invention. The intention is to obtain patent protection, but obfuscate the patent enough that trade secret protection is maintained as well. Anyone trying to recreate the invention from the patent will typically have more luck either re-inventing it themselves or reverse-engineering it from an extant example of the invention.
[*words*]In this case why should I even bother trying to innovate?
Because innovating will give you what is called a first mover advantage and for the most part that is enough, if your idea is truly innovative. The closer your idea is to an already existing product, the less of an advantage you'll get. I posit that zero patents could just as easily spur even more innovation. Patents as they are now do not, since once you have even the slightest new idea you're set for life + the lifespan of your grandchildren. That does not encourage innovation.
... whatever