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.

It's not over yet!

[bogaboga]

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.

Re:You can't patent math

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to add "with an iphone" to the end, otherwise you could do that with paper and pen and that's not patentable.

Judgement calls and research by the examiners

[Stolpskott]

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.

Re:Matter of time

[khakipuce]

It's the other way round. Mathematics is just an abstract representation of the real world. No amount of physics, maths or theories of "everything" will cure cancer or invent the next IPhone. Patents are about (or at least should be about) the inventive step - i.e. the coming together of several elements to create something new.

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

[Cenan]

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.

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

[flyneye]

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?