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Judges Debate Patents and If New Software Makes a Computer a "New Machine"
First time accepted submitter ectoman writes "A third party steps into a financial transaction to make sure all parties exchange funds at the same time and as expected. Can you patent this process? What if the third party is a computer? Rob Tiller, vice president and general counsel for Red Hat, details a recent court ruling on this very matter—one that has critical implications for the future of software patents, and one that divided the judges involved. Tiller writes that: 'The judges mostly agreed that the idea of managing settlement risk with a third party was abstract such that by itself it could not be patented. They differed, though, on whether using a general purpose computer for managing settlement risk meant that the patents avoided invalidity based on abstraction.' Interestingly, some judges suggested that a computer becomes a 'new machine' every time it loads different software."
1.Make it so that every time you load a new piece of software you invalidate the license of every other piece of software in an endless recursive loop.
2.????
3.Profit
4.goto 1
If we can slap 'on a computer' onto an old idea to patent it, can we slap on another 'on a computer' to patent it for virtual machines?
As much as I hate trivial patents in any field, I must admit that when I wipe windows off a pc and put debian on it, it sure feels like a new machine...
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
The computer is a new machine many times every picosecond as the data in the registers change, the data in ram changes, the data on the hard drive changes, the data flowing through network interfaces changes, etc...
Since the computer is *new* billions, if not trillions of times a second, then software doesn't make it unique.
Yet again, the clueless making decisions on things they cannot comprehend.
Is that they do not have to understand the technical stuff. Patent Judges are the reason for the problem. If they were really qualified, they would not have a low-paying federal job.
You are thinking of a Patent Examiner, not a "judge". These are two very different governmental positions.
This may be a step in the right direction, give it a few more casses and they will understand the idea of the general purpose computer and why people like us have a problem with software that prevents one particular purpose.
Loading a new netmask into an FPGA or loading new imperative instructions into a machine-code processor effectively makes it a new finite-state machine.
very different
So you're saying he should have changed the word 'low' to 'high'?
I know I'll be flamed for this because everyone here is against software patents, but...
The distinction between a physical machine and a physical machine running software is somewhat pointless. Almost any software can be converted into a physical machine. Using a hardware H.264 encoder/decoder or a hardware crypto card is really no different from doing those things in software. If you want to make a distinction between physical objects and software for patent purposes, the logic part of computers needs to be considered software despite the fact that it's been manifested as a physical object. But general purpose computers running software aren't any different than purpose-built computers executing the same logic in hardware.
As long as they run a different OS we can get around the patent? Time to add some ideas to the public domain.
Someone want to make a website that scrapes through software patents on http://www.google.com/patents and adds ' on a linux based computer' to the end of them, and then reposts them as public domain?
What the judges need to understand is that fundamentally, people are general purpose machines. Without any training at all, people are not capable of solving many problems. However, people can solve all sorts of problems based on what you teach them. Sure, you aren't going to be able to get a bushman in the Serengeti to be able to build the Apollo but, the potential is there given enough training. If that same bushman were to go to school and eventually graduate from college, they would be just as capable as anybody else. So how is receiving training through college or a technical school any different than a computer receiving a new set of instructions on how to solve a particular problem?
Computers only run algorithms (which aren't supposed to be patentable). They follow a set of instructions step by step and can't do anything that you and I can't do with a pencil and piece of paper. (They just can do it a lot faster.)
Of course, the beauty of computers is that they only do what you tell them. When they don't do what you want, it is still your fault since you didn't provide the instructions you thought you did. ;-)
So if its "new" does it remove market depracation?
Micro code my friend.
They are, of course, right. An algorithm is conceptually the same as a description of a machine for executing that algorithm, whether you draw logic gates to execute your algorithm, or solder together transistors, or write Python.
As a mathematician working on algorithms right now, I say they are right.
However.
Algorithms shouldn't be patentable, no matter how they are represented. But that's a political decision, not a technical one.
A new machine?
So my pencil becomes a new machine depending on what I do with it?
Ho boy imagine how many patents I'm going to have!
They are both the same in functionality and somewhat in implementation, only hardware is faster, more parallel but limited in functionality. Whereas software is slower, less parallel but has vastly more functionality than hardware.
35 USC 101 requires that a claimed invention be directed to patent eligible subject matter: a process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter (it also requires that the invention is useful). The courts have decided that these categories are very broad, but don't include "abstract ideas" (though that term is never defined), laws of nature, or natural phenomena.
If the claimed invention passes that low threshold for 101, 35 USC 102 requires that the invention must be new or novel. That's a higher bar, but not a huge one - if I'm the first person to make a red car and claim that in a patent application, that's new, even if blue cars existed.
If the claimed invention passes that threshold, then 35 USC 103 requires that the invention must be nonobvious. The red car is obvious if blue cars existed, even if no one has ever made a red car before.
So, for example, if some piece of software causes a computer to paint the screen in red paisley and that's never been done before, it's new... but it's obvious and still patent ineligible.
The problem is when these get confused or conflated into a single requirement, because obviousness and novelty require evidence, while subject matter eligibility does not. And so, you get cases like CLS or Bilski where the judges want to invalidate the patent because it's stupidly obvious, but they have no evidence on the record... so they declare it an abstract idea and invalid. In particular, here, the judges started carving out everything from the patent claim that made it non-abstract, declaring it irrelevant, until the only thing left was abstract. The outcome may be the right one, but it's for the wrong reason - it's like finding a murderer guilty because you hate his face. Maybe he was actually the murderer, but you're finding him guilty for the wrong reason.
Someone needs to slap the cowards in Congress to clarify this w.r.t. a "general-purpose machine".
Merely shoving some algorithm that is done by hand onto a computer is nothing novel. This isn't to say a particularly clever and non-intuitive software implementation couldn't be patented. But just doing it in software is not novel; it is obvious.
Software is indeed a virtual -- and specialized -- machine -- that is the idea behind computers as "generel-purpose machines". But not in the legal sense driving patents: novel and non-obvious innovation.
I keep recommending these rules:
1. If it's already being done in the real world, doing it on a computer is not patentable per se.
2. Doing a simulation of a real-world item is similarly not patentable per se.
3. Doing something wirelessly formerly done over a network, or remotely formerly done locally, or on a lil' phone or tablet or tricorder, is also not patentable per se.
4. This is not to say particularly clever implementations (the "machine" part of "virtual machine") could not be patented.
There, follow those rules, cowardly Congress, and you protect patentable innovation while eviscerating a ton of current patent problems.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The other side of this issue is the argument that the only way to change a computer is to add hardware instructions, since all software is just combinations of add, jmp, xor, etc, and therefore nothing about computers is really patentable except perhaps the instruction sets or implementations thereof.
I'm intrigued by that etc operator. Does it do what I want?
Reading this story makes me feel like a new man. Those bills? You'll have to track down the old guy if you want them paid.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I completely disagree that loading a computer with new software makes it a new machine. The machine "part" of the computer is the hardware not the software, the software is the operator. So reloading a computer with new software will change the operational purpose of the machine but not the machine itself. To put this another way, if I have a conveyor belt that just moves objects around, like a computer moves data around, then it doesn't matter who is operating the machine it will always be model xxy, I might change the operator many times in the life of the machine but that doesn't change the machine itself.
Now lets be clear that I'm not talking about a FPGA! In a FPGA if you "reload" the software you will change the machine because in essence the "software" for a FPGA is like the internal gear system, you can configure it in 1000 different ways to do different tasks. One day it can be a conveyor build and the next it will be a bottle cap remover. So before someone comes in here and blows a gasket at me, I fully accept the fact that a FPGA is very different then a Computer.
So then, since the Jacquard loom used a different set of cards to 'program' each different cloth pattern, it qualifies for millions of separate patents.
We're talking about technology almost 300 years old. I'm thinking some of those judges are not only technically inept, but are in fact Luddites in black robes.
A different program DOES make it a different machine, and I'll explain why that must be true. That's not enough to defend an overly general patent, though.
However, it seems to me that's the wrong question to ask in this case. It seems that someone wants to patent the concept of "a machine to do X" rather than patenting one SPECIFIC machine that does X. You can't patent "a machine to take people from place to place". You'd have to invent and patent some specific new transportation machine. So the patent would be invalid on that ground. The patentors claim that "a computer machine to do X" is specific enough to be patentable, and most people disagree - you've got to patent some specific new invention, and "on a computer" isn't new, or specific.
As to the question in the summary, ANY electronic machine* can be implemented is software, and any software machine can be easily rendered as a hardware
machine. Converting between hardware circuits and software instructions is a trivial bit of arithmetic, so the exact same machine can be flashed into memory and
and we'd call it software, or it can be flashed into a gate array and we'd cal it hardware. Therefore, if any electronic device is a device, a software device must also be a device. (Because the exact same functions can be flashed as hardware or software, it's still a device or not either way.)
Gate arrays show that one cannot really distinguish between hardware and software programs. With the original gate arrays, the factory would take some stock
electronic logic parts and add layers of metal to implement a specific product. This isn't much different from soldering components together. It's definitely hardware. The cool thing was, the metal connections would be added based on a precise written description of of how the device should behave - a PROGRAM. In the next generation, the parts started out with fused connections between ALL of the parts and the factory would blow most of the fuses, leaving only the desired connections. Again, the list of which 10,000 fuses to blow was generated from written code, code that is pretty much a software program, a software definition of the hardware. Still, hardware produced according to a software program. In the third generation, the CUSTOMER could blow or reset fuses to reconfigure the electronics in the field, "re-wiring" the hardware. That generation is the FPGA, field PROGRAMMABLE gate array. Hmm, the customer can load different programs, that sure sounds like software programs. Those software programs are implemented as physical connections, so that sure sounds like hardware. It's both software and hardware, showing that in the end, codes that define how a machine operates really are both hardware and software - they can be implemented as either or as both at the same time.
So yes, software can control the other parts of the machine to act differently, making it a different machine. But only specific, newly invented machines are supposed to be patentable, regardless of whether the newly invented machine is rendered as hardware or as software on any given day.
Since the computer is *new* billions, if not trillions of times a second, then software doesn't make it unique.
billions a second == 1e9 per second == 1GHz
trillions a second == 1e12 per second = 1THz
I am pretty sure there are NO general purpose computers operating at anywhere near 1THz.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
I forgot my footnote. When I say "ANY electronic machine* can be implemented is software" that's provably true for a certain definition of "electronic machine".
Those who are very familiar with these concepts, like gnupun, might prefer that I be more specific, but the point is that it's strictly true for a huge class of electronic devices which are obviously machines, and obviously patentable.
Those machines can be rendered directly as relays, groups of transistors, or larger groups of transistors. When they are built as "larger groups of transistors", we call that a "Flash drive" and call it "software". It's still the same machine, doing the same mechanical steps, as it would be if it were built fewer transistors and more solder.
Mandatory car analogy: New software makes a computer a new machine the same way switching from Exxon gas to Shell gas gives you a new car.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
only specific, newly invented machines are supposed to be patentable
And if the machine is implemented in software, the only thing that makes it novel and different from a bazillion other machines with the same physical implementation is the algorithms. You're not supposed to be able to patent those. Logically this means that algorithms implemented in hardware logic are unpatentable, which is fine. They shouldn't be patentable. However algorithms are not the be all and end all of logic design, let alone electronics in general. You could still patent a new memory cell design for example.
only specific, newly invented machines are supposed to be patentable
And if the machine is implemented in software, the only thing that makes it novel and different from a bazillion other machines with the same physical implementation is the algorithms. You're not supposed to be able to patent those.
Why not? And no, I'm not asking "which Supreme Court decision said that you can't patent algorithms," I'm asking why they said that. It's not an arbitrary rule - there was reasoning behind it, and it's the reasoning that you need to look at when determining whether a machine executing novel and nonobvious software is patentable or not, not the one sentence of dicta.
"You are thinking of a Patent Examiner [wikipedia.org], not a "judge". These are two very different governmental positions."
A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed, life-sized bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner what it costs.
"Twelve dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner, "and a thousand dollars more for the story behind it."
"You can keep the story, old man," he replies, "but I’ll take the rat."
The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm. As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him. By the time he’s walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people begin to point and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run full tilt. No matter how fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously, now not just thousands but millions, so that by the time he comes rushing up to the water’s edge a trail of rats twelve city blocks long is behind him. Making a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a light post, grasping it with one arm while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can heave it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the light post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater into the sea, where they drown.
Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop.
"Ah, so you’ve come back for the rest of the story," says the owner.
"No," says the tourist, "I was wondering if you have a bronze judge.
If loading software turns a general-purpose computer into a new machine, the patent for that "new machine" should include all the internal details to make it work, particlularly the source code. Then if somebody else implements the same concept with different source code and different algorithms, they made a different machine so it's not infringing.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
It means that a murderer, after "changing his mind", is no longer the same person.
Uh, lets see. Computers are pretty much a practical implementation of a Universal Turing Machine which Turing proved could compute any computable problem. Therefore a computer is, in effect, a universal machine. Since changing the software on what is already a universal machine doesn't really change the fact that it is still a universal machine then it seems that no software for any computer should be patentable.
Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree.
New Software does not make a new machine. Software simply changes the state that the existing machine is in, and only does so while it's running. The machine itself doesn't change. You turn the machine off, then back on, you're back at a known state. Run some software, the state changes.
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
Fail. There is no technical reasons for patents in the first place.
Legally, I see no benefit to society to be able to patent what can be accomplished in software if it's just a simple conversion from software logic into solder. What's so inventive about that and why should other people be prevented to come up with the same idea?
If I fill my car with ethanol instead of petrol, does that make it a new car?
I guess nobody told them what a Von Neumann machine is. Changing the software doesn't change the machine. There is over a hundred years worth of precedence regarding this class of ideas, from looms to player pianos. Software patents are just corporate interests trying to lock up much of the already invented technology so that they will have monopolies for the next 100 years.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
If you are going to solder together logic gates to implement an algorithm, the end result you get a machine. Such machine you can patent, no arguments here. and if you are building a machine which sole purpose is to run software, then you can patent that machine. There would be from my side no problem if the MpegLA patents were hardware patents on chips that decode/encode videos.
Like a refrigerator or a vending machine is a patent-able machine, and they will not become new machines if you put new groceries inside.
The machine will not become "magically" a new machine only because you load a different software.
You already have a patent on a general purpose computer. You can not patent each new algorithm you load in that general purpose computer as a new machine. It's like saying a cup will become a new machine if I put tea, orange juice or coffee in it. No, the cup is still a cup. A general purpose computer will stay a general purpose computer regardless what algorithms are loaded at the current time.
This whole debate is just lawyers talk. Also patents on "processes". Everybody knows that "processes" meant manufacturing processes and had nothing to do with computers.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
And my hammer is a new device at each point of its trajectory to the nail, as it steadily gains velocity and momentum!
There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.
The whole point of a turing complete machine (within the limits of finite amounts of memory) is that it isn't a different machine for a different program. The appeal is that one machine can run a variety of different programs; in theory, perform any calculation for which it has enough memory.
So no, no matter what software you have loaded, you haven't made it a different machine. Not even if you load different microcode. Only if you are burning fuses or proms (real proms, or at least some kind you can't erase for one reason or another) are you making it something in particular.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I am a scientist. I call into question the assumption that, "Patents are Beneficial for Society as a Whole". This is an untested hypothesis. Until we have PROOF that patents are beneficial for our society, they should not be allowed. What if patents are irreparably harming the innovation of mankind?! You have NO PROOF to show whether they are or are not harmful or helpful. There is only conjecture and assumptions. Prove they are beneficial, until then abolish them.
If I hand you a gun and tell you to put it to your head and pull the trigger, It's beneficial for you. Would you just assume I'm telling the truth? A rational being would examine the gun first to ensure it was not actually harmful... Some would test fire it to ensure it was not harmful. The most rational would require proof that it was beneficial before even touching the damn thing.
We're slowly blowing our culture's brains out with the legal weapons called patent and copyright. I'm a scientist, so if you think otherwise, then I have two words for you: PROVE IT. As it stands my statement that patents are harmful is just as valid a hypothesis as that they are beneficial. It's unconscionably reckless to continue subjecting the world's economy and culture to this potential danger.
Wait, I say there's no proof either way, but there is evidence that patents are not required at all. Neither the automotive or fashion industries are allowed copyright or patents for their designs yet look how innovative they are in design; Indeed often design is their core selling point. That's two real world data points indicating patents are not necessary. I've read many responses that say, "Without patents businesses wouldn't fund innovation." These statements are equally bogus because this statement: "Without patents ______," is bogus. We don't the-hell know what it would be like until we run the damn test. The potential risk associated with not performing the experiment should be enough for any rational being to give pause.
Abolish patents. It's the only rational thing to do. The hypothesis must be tested. Only then will the argument for or against them have any leg to stand on. We can re-institute any laws we want once we're sure they're not harmful. If the scientific method is good enough to develop things that could be patentable, then why turn a blind eye and ignore the fact that no one has applied the scientific method to the patent system itself?
Interestingly, some judges suggested that a computer becomes a 'new machine' every time it loads different software."
I imagined a bunch of old fogeys who do not really understand technology, who have been poring over legal definitions and making finer and finer distinctions and abstractions for decades, delving into "how many microprocessors can dance on the head of a pin?"
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Here's a practical instead of philosophical argument, or rather an appeal to fairness and reason (alien to lawyers, but perhaps not all Slashdotters). Software can already be copyrighted, but hardware (electronic or otherwise) cannot. Does it seem reasonable to provide software with two types of "intellectual property" protection? What else has that? Movies can also be copyrighted. Should we also allow a patent on all movies involving a boy and his dog?
its role is to help implement the fixthings() api... duh!
Tomorrow is another day...
Is that they do not have to understand the technical stuff. Patent Judges are the reason for the problem. If they were really qualified, they would not have a low-paying federal job.
You are thinking of a Patent Examiner, not a "judge". These are two very different governmental positions.
err .. 80-110K per year ain't bad to work from home. For chemistry and life sciences to be considered as an applicant you pretty much need to have a masters or a PhD, some industry experience, and some experience in IP.
> Only if you are burning fuses or proms (real proms, or at least some kind you can't erase for one reason or another) are you making it something in particular.
So if you burn a prom to make it do something completely different, that's a different machine, you say. Unless you're able to later repeat the same process, making a different machine from the same parts. That's a rather arbritrary distinction, isn't it?
> If you are going to solder together logic gates to implement an algorithm, the end result you get a machine. Such machine you can patent, no arguments here
And if you put the parts together in a different way, joining different parts, you get a different machine, right?
But if you hook the logic gates to relays which connect them, that doesn't make a machine? A computer is nothing more or less than a buttload of solid state relays.
Setting the relays differently connects different parts in different ways,
> Like a refrigerator or a vending machine is a patent-able machine, and they will not become new machines if you put new groceries inside.
A refrigerator doesn't do something completely different depending on what you put in it. One machine might fly a F-18, that machine is called an autopilot.
A DVR is a completely different type of machine. An autopilot and a DVR do completely different things, they are completely different machines.
They may be the exact same hardware, running different software. So same hardware =! same machine.
> New Software does not make a new machine. Software simply changes the state that the existing machine is in, and only does so while it's running.
> The machine itself doesn't change. You turn the machine off, then back on, you're back at a known state
?!?!?!? I'm pretty sure that when I cold boot my DVR it does something completely different than when I boot my PBX system. Turning my DVR on and off doesn't turn it into a PBX, or vice versa. They are very different machines. They've run on the exact same hardware.
A DVR, an auto-pilot, and a PBX are completely diffrent machines for different purposes, and it's the software that makes them completely different. The hardware can be identical.
--in regard to the software it is running. In terms of hardware, it is the same machine.
"How" different is also the question--just how much of a software change are we talking of here? One application, or the entire operating system (and everything else)? Changing one app does not make the computer a new machine. /p>
I think in this context a "new machine" is one with a new function. So for four of the judges, adding one app makes it a new machine.
The hardware is the machine itself, pal, not the software. The software is a result of the machine's manipulation of electrons.
Please feel free to rejoin the conversation once you actually work in the semiconductor industry and build ICs and do lithography and understand what makes the computer the machine.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Also - read this and learn how wrong you are.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
You cannot use the same exact science you use to prove math equation and chemical reaction on social siences and macro economics.
So please Sheldon, stop judging the patent system as a scientist.
With this logic applied, beleaguered industries worldwide can gain instant relief! Just think, of it. For an example, when you fill the tank or change the oil of your car, you'll owe the manufacturer for your *new* vehicle!
Remind me again how Circuit Court judges are selected.
> To make it clear: you should not be able patent your software and call it "xxx but with computer"
;)
If XXX is not new, I agree, doing it on a computer doesn't make it new, in most cases. XXX is in fact far from new, some cave paintings are XXX rated
"On a computer" doesn't make it patentable. I say that's because "on a computer" isn't all that significant to an invention, to whether it's new or not.
Do you agree with that last statement, that "on a computer" isn't significant in terms of whether it's a new invention?
If doing something on a computer doesn't make the difference to make it a new invention, does a completely new invention that noone has ever thought of become "not new" because it happens to be done on a computer? If I build a working time machine, is that patentable? Does it suddenly become not a new invention if the time machine is mostly implemented in software?
> "I guess nobody told them what a Von Neumann machine [wikipedia.org] is."
Is a Von Neumann machine a machine?
Most Von Neumann machines are implemented using microcode, if not in C code (virtualization). If I understand you correctly, the fact that a Von Neumann machine is, or can be, implemented using microcode makes it no longer a machine?
Fail. There is no technical reasons for patents in the first place.
Legally, I see no benefit to society to be able to patent what can be accomplished in software if it's just a simple conversion from software logic into solder. What's so inventive about that and why should other people be prevented to come up with the same idea?
Then again, what real benefit does a patent even on a mechanical device actually give to society? Supposedly what you have is a trade off of somebody publishing detailed information about a device (like a light bulb, an airplane, or a phonograph... all have received patents in one form or another over the years) in exchange for getting exclusive rights to manufacture that device.
As a practical matter, the patent system of today really doesn't help out in terms of helping a private individual to be able to have that sort of market exclusivity or even get their idea brought to market at all. The patent system itself if broken not just for software patents, for for patents of every kind.
A fridge has a door that can be "programmed" to open to the left or to the right. Does it mean that I can patent 2 sets consisting of a "fridge + program" as 2 new machines and than charge everyone who uses left-hand or right-hand "programmed" fridge door a license fee?
I'm sure most scientists agree.
But how often is science allowed to intrude on politics?
Clearly, the patent-troll system is being funded by some very rich individuals, with politicians adding a few cm to their wallets...
Until laws are passed were politicians can be held responsible retroactively, and that all of their holdings and transactions are routinely, thoroughly scrutinized.
I don't think we're going to see any kind of change.
Field programmable logic folk rejoyce.
Update the initialization EEROM and the hardware is covered by yet another patent.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.